Doughboys - Topical Freeze: Marie Callender's Meals with Cat Solen

Episode Date: May 28, 2020

As Topical Freeze, our month of frozen food reviews, concludes, the 'boys are joined by director Cat Solen (The Shivering Truth on Adult Swim) to discuss frozen dinner and pie brand Marie Callender's. And, the debut of a new game show format, Meal or No Meal.Sources for this week's intro:Fortune 500 Conagra Brandshttps://fortune.com/company/conagra-brands/fortune500/Perkins & Marie Callender’s closes 29 restaurants amid bankruptcy filinghttps://www.nrn.com/finance/perkins-marie-callender-s-closes-29-restaurants-amid-bankruptcy-filingConagra Brands https://www.conagrabrands.com/brandsConagra Brands: Our Companyhttps://www.conagrabrands.com/our-company/overviewMarie Callenders https://www.mariecallenders.com/aboutWant more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is a headgum podcast. Stay tuned after the episode for another edition of the Golden Paw Club. Wow! Chef Boyordi, Hebrew National, Ready Whip, Slim Jim. What do these disparate American supermarket staples have in common? They're all owned by Conagra Brands. Founded in Omaha in 1919 as Nebraska Consolidated Mills, in 1971 the corporation ditched the Cornhusker State Moniker to become Consolidated Agriculture, Conagra for short.

With a vast portfolio, among its holdings are Vlasic Pickles, over a Red and Bucker Popcorn, and three distinct and ostensibly competing maple-flavored syrup brands, Aunt Chimaima, Log Cabin, and Mrs. Butterworth, today the now Chicago-based processed food Megalith hovers at around $8 billion in annual sales. And part of its success is its sprawling umbrella of frozen food holdings. Healthy Adult Brand, Healthy Choice, Unhealthy Kids Brand, Kid Cuisine, Scouring Italian Matriarch Mama Celeste Pizza, and two listings licensed from chain restaurants, PF Changs, and an American Diner and Pie Shop concept first opened in Orange County, California

by Marie and her husband Cal, and grown into a regional institution by their son Don. While the frozen diner brand offers an extensive line of prefab-complete meals, it's best known for its pies, both the savory pot kind and the sweet pastry dessert varietal. But though the restaurant continues to operate in the American West, unfortunately its best days may be in the rearview mirror. It twice sought bankruptcy protection during the 2010s and closed over two dozen locations this past year. Perhaps only its frozen brand survives the current restaurant apocalypse, as small and

mid-sized businesses continue to shudder, gobbled up by ever-growing abominations like Conagra Brands. This week on Doe Boys, our month of frozen food reviews, Doe Boys Topical Freeze, concludes with Marie Calender's Meals. Welcome to Doe Boys, the podcast about chain restaurants. I'm Nick Weiger, along with my co-host, Entrez the Giant, the Spoon Man, Mike Mitchell. Entrez the Giant? Like Andre, but Entrez, that was courtesy of Divo, roastspoonmanatgmail.com if you haven't

been sold yet. Kind of fitting for today, actually, Entrez the Giant. We are having a lot of Entrezs, some that are on the larger side. That is a thing that ties to this episode. Nick, can you come around and when I tell a joke you can break it down for everybody? I feel like that would be a good thing. Yeah, I'll just start explaining it, explaining why it's a joke. Also was that a joke?

I will also decide whether or not it was a joke. What is a joke, Nick? You know, we don't know. We clearly haven't figured it out. Don't turn to the Doe Boys. Do you like when comedians get philosophical? I think that should be all we're due. I want all comedy to just be that.

No joke, I'm over jokes, man. I just get deep. Just get really heavy. I think jokes, I think we need a naked gunification of comedy. I think we need to gussily it up. Yeah, I agree. I mean, there used to be just straight up, I mean, honestly, and the naked gun is the best version of it, but I do kind of miss even like spoof movies in general because

they were just bags of jokes and you don't really have anything with that pace anymore. Did people just, did people all grow it? What happened? I think... Do you think people, wouldn't it be fun if during a Doe Boys episode I stuck a fire hose in your mouth and you exploded? Yeah, that'd be pretty funny. I think what happened is...

We outgrew it, I guess. You go ahead. We outgrew it, I think the, here's what I think it is. I think it's executives who decide whether or not a comedy gets made or any content gets made, kind of got, they got into the auteur side of comedy, which we saw emerge in the past couple decades and it's just like everything has to be personal and self-reflective. So I think there's that element and I think the other thing is that internationally, a lot of jokes just don't translate.

Like a lot of stuff, it's so culturally specific and then you put it overseas and people don't know what the fuck they're watching in these movies tank internationally and that's what all the, anyone really matters. So as a genre, it just kind of got the wind taken out of its sails for a number of reasons. We went from like OJ getting pushed down the stairs at Dodger Stadium in a wheelchair. One of our finest comedic actors. What's he been up to? You don't see him in, you know, you don't see OJ in comedies much anymore.

Nowadays comedies are like, dad, could you stop eating mum out of my bed, I'm depressed. Imagine if OJ was there, how funny would that be? OJ is what killed the silly comedies, the spoof movies. X-Nay on the Ild-K. You think he, Issen's Laid, I don't know how to do this. OJ's on the Patreon, OJ's in the Doe-Scored. I'm in his fantasy boiling. Hey boys, OJ, I love the scale.

You guys should review Wet Hot American Summer, okay OJ, we'll get around to it. Mitch, I know you got a drop for us. Oh yeah, how to how to Spoon Nation, and here's a little drop wigs. Eat up Nicholas, it's cherry. Spoon it to me Grammy. Spoon it to me Grammy. Spoon it to me Grammy. For the Spoon Man, was that a good drop?

That was really good, I mean, here's the thing, my expectations have gotten very, very high for these drops because we just have some real audio wizards who are crafting these for us and that one raised the bar. I mean whoever comes after this, I don't envy you, I don't know how you follow that. That drop was, speaking of which, that drop was courtesy of Tristan Pueig, who writes nothing, but he re-submitted his drop from about a year ago and he said, humbly re-submitted for your consideration Spoon, and I appreciate that Tristan, thank you for sending it back in, and I like your last name, it's like Yasiel Pueig from The Dodgers, I hope you're having

a good week, my friend. Wow. I definitely don't agree with the part where they said nothing, but still a very good drop. Yeah, you know what, if you want to send it a drop too, just send them over to SpoonManDrops at gmail.com. That's right, once again, that email is SpoonManDrops at gmail.com. All right. For those of you who are, well, I mean,

GD, you think this is Emma's least favorite bit? You know it. Not even hiding your contempt a little bit, we're just creating extra work for her for not much payoff. Nah, it's funny. The thing that our listeners aren't aware of is when you leave a blank space for something, Mitch, you hold your mouth open. Yep, just sit there and open mouth.

Just mouth a gape wordlessly. I'm hoping some food accident. SpoonManDrops at gmail.com, as you mentioned, and Mitch, we are continuing our theme month of frozen meals, dough boys, topical freeze. This is actually the conclusion of topical freeze. Wow, Nick, can I just say thank God. A more cumbersome gimmick than I think we anticipated, but going to, I mean, the grocery store and God bless everyone who has to work in the grocery stores these days, but going

to the grocery store is not particularly fun. I literally felt that way every time I went to the grocery store just seeing every checkout person. I felt for them, and I thanked them, and it's great that they did it, but we made the mistake of doing some frozen food month immediately at the start of a pandemic where we have to go to the grocery store to pick up this stuff. A terrible idea. Well, if we'd planned it a little better, we could have gotten everything in one go,

but because we kind of booked it week by week, we had to make all these extra trips to the grocery store, which was just endangering our health and others. And not particularly fun, but hey, we have a friend along for this episode, as we do each week. She's a director and producer from The Shivering Truth. Season two is now on Adult Swim. Cat Solon is here. Hi, Cat.

Hi. Hi, Cat. Hi. Thanks for having me. Thank you so much. So we just touched on the unique circumstances in which we are recording this episode and we are all living. What is your current home eating regimen?

How has nutrition changed for you in our current climate? There's a few things. I don't cook very often. I didn't used to cook very often. And I've started cooking things in my oven. I'm using my oven for the first time. I've lived in this place for about 13, 14 years and I've never used my oven. Wow.

And to the less, I know. Staggering. I'm embarrassed to, I don't, I don't cook very much, but I'm getting really, I'm like awesome at it. I'm learning that I'm actually really good. I don't, not baking any bread, but I can like make roasted vegetables and cook fish and chicken. I can't believe it.

Bread baking, I mean, I had no idea that people were going to be so into bread baking. I mean, I know that people have talked about this, but it is weird to me, right? Why is everyone making bread? The country kind of turned against bread, first of all, as a part of it. Yeah. Which I was in the bread wars. I was, I was, I was on the bread side, by the way, Nick. Yeah.

You were pro bread. I'm pro bread. Yeah. Bread has come back and then also, yeah, it is like people are very open to talking about how much bread they're eating now when they wouldn't have been a couple months ago. Big bread come back. We were all carb crazy. People hated carbs.

Enemy number one. Now we have another, something else that supplanted it. People were like, hey, some carbs don't kill you. Something else will. In the battle of humans versus carbs, I'm an undercover agent for carbs. I'm the traitor. I don't know how undercover you are. We can all tell you we're on carbs side.

We're all pretty friendly with the carbs. So, yeah, go on. No, I was just saying that I like, I give the carbs information about what's, I mean, I was just trying to make, I just saw Robocop three the other day. Yeah, that cultural touchstone that we all were really wanted to reference to Robocop three. Well, there's a character in it. It's very, he's like, he's like a little traitor.

It's sad that this is the best movie I could think of, wow, like a guy who's like a traitor who's playing both sides. What are some good turncoat kind of traitor movies? Oh, boy, you know the Matrix, Joey Pants and the Matrix. Ah, Joey Pants. How am I not thinking of Joey Pants? Big time turncoat there. That's the little red pill, blue pill thing.

And also we're very much in the, it's like the Matrix right now. That's a really good comparison, Nick, to the times right now. Elon Musk has taken the red pill, Nick. He has taken the red pill, which is the bad one or the good one. I forget, I forget all those words. I'm pretty sure it's the bad one that him and Ivanka both were saying that they took the red pill. But in the movie, it's the one that Keanu takes, right?

I think Neo takes the red pill, yeah, I think Neo takes the red pill to see what reality really is. But in our reality, the red pill has unfortunately become a metaphor for this kind of, you know, men's rights, alt-right sort of philosophy embracing that. Yeah, but Milano Wachowski responded and said, fuck you to Elon Musk, which is pretty good. That was so great. That was great.

I hope everyone listening to this is happy to be reminded of that thing that happened two weeks ago in your Twitter feeds. I knew it was going to be some bullshit. What do you want me to do? We can't talk about things. We can talk about things. To be reminded of something like that. Yeah, that's a nice reminder.

I agree. And you brought it up, Nick. You're the one who brought up the Matrix. Yeah, I'm proving this shit. Cat your name is, your name is Cat, yet you own a cat. Explain. I have two cats. Wow.

And I think the third cat. Wow. The third cat of your play. Well, I was just going to say that was hard-hitting journalism by Nick. Is that a wiker or a Koki Roberts? Yeah, I have Whiskey and Zappa and they, Whiskey is about, I think, six or seven and Zappa's like 13 or 14 and I'm the third cat. Koki Roberts is a good Quincy guy name.

Your pal Koki Roberts. Yeah, his name is probably like Dan Roberts, but his name is Koki Roberts. Goes by Koki. We know what's going on there. Also, by the way, the turncoat in RoboCop 3 was Steven Root. I want to just get that out there, too. Oh, Steven Root. What a chameleon.

That's just delightful and everything. CCH Pounder is in it, too. It's a good cast in RoboCop 3. Good cast. Great movie. Ethic alum, CCH Pounder. Am I wrong? That is right.

Yes. You mentioned that factoid before. I like it. You can remember that, but not my cat's name. So Whiskey and Zappa, you've had, have you always been a cat person? Did you have cats growing up? Yeah, I had, I always had cats and dogs growing up. I don't have dogs now because of work.

It's really hard to have dogs, but I tend to, I don't love that my name is cat and I have, I don't love that because I, people always like want to give me cat thing, like cat sweaters and cat things, you know, and I, I don't want to be the cat, the lady with all the cat stuff and two cats and her name's cat, but I don't know what can you do, you know? But I do love them and they, they travel with me when I'm working. They come with me as long as they can travel with you. Yeah.

Yeah. They come in the car. Oh wow. And they're, they're, they just climb in the cage and they behave. Yeah. Their cages are behind me. They, they, yeah, they, they go in their cages and then I put them in the backseat facing each other.

It's really sweet so they can see where each other are there. And then they, they hang in the backseat the whole, the whole ride. They know, they know the Portland trip. They know going up to Portland and coming back to do shivering truth. And they, we went to Atlanta once and that was a five day four, four to five day drive and they got kind of sick of that one, but they, they're, they're really good travelers. I think every time though, I'm like, guys, I'm sorry. Like, I hope we don't have to do this again because it's, it's a lot.

Have you ever, have you ever flown with them or no? I would need, I would need another person to fly with them because there's, they're, they each weigh 20 pounds. They're so heavy and I can't, I can't physically carry both of them through an airport and I don't know how I would, I don't know how I would get around with two cat, these two cats, um, but I'm on my own. I think you got a little rascals at, I think you have one of them on the other shoulders and put a big trench coat around them.

Yeah. Yeah. Speak through TSA that way. That'd be really cute. I need to try that. I wonder if they'd let me. My mom has said that I can't bring a, well, you know, I'm a back to Quincy. She's put her foot down.

She won't allow it to happen. Why is that? Cause she thinks that they're going to cause she thinks what? I was wondering if she thought you wouldn't ever leave if, if then, I mean, that is also probably an issue. Um, I think she, she's, she doesn't want the cats to, we, I had two cats growing up zip man, zip wigs, zip was a great cat and I loved, I loved, I loved very much. And of course Buster, we got after that kitty in the marsh, which is a sad story I've told

on here too many times. Yeah. Bring it back up again. But, um, even though I just did, but whatever, um, but she, she, she dealt with zip and Buster and, uh, kind of going at her, at her furniture and she, and so she's kind of done with, uh, she doesn't want that to happen anymore. You know what I mean? She's, she's, she's over it.

But I told her that they just stay in my room. Look, I don't know. It's, it's traveling, taking cats on the airplane would be, would be pretty tough anyways. It seems arduous. I mean, obviously moot right now, but I, I, yeah, it seems like traveling with animals who most animals, it seems like can't really handle it. Even the ones that you will find on a plane sometimes or not necessarily all that, like, you know, I mean, like someone will have a dog and the dog's kind of going nuts.

You know, I, I, when I was traveling for tomorrow or I think I told you this, Nick, and I was traveling a bunch and they flew your first class, which was great. Uh, that's a, that's a weird little movie perk, uh, with SAG. It's a union thing. It's a union thing. So, but I dealt with three dogs in first class, like three big dogs. Isn't that crazy? Wow.

That is crazy. That is cool. Three big ass dogs. It was cool. I was afraid one was going to bark at the whole time and then all of them were good. All of them were good boys. I always thought they had to go down under the, under the deck with the big dogs. Two people were traveling together, the ones that were behind us and it was like a huge

dog and they just had it like in front of their legs. It was, but it was both of the people or whatever. And then there was another big one where in the person wasn't traveling, but the dog laid down and the person was okay with it. So I had a cat, uh, before, before whiskey and Zappa named count and count was extremely personable and extremely chill and count flew with me and he, he would, he would come out and lay, just lay in my arm and I could see how he would just, he would just lay there with me.

He was amazing. He was white and he had two different colored eyes and, uh, he was in like a bunch of my music videos. Like he, he was famous. He was, he did a count had a really good life. Wow. Yeah. Rules.

Yeah. He had a good time. Cooler cat than us. That's for sure. Um, well, cooler than us. I'm not a cooler than us. Not a cooler cat. That we're not.

And I also call, I wasn't calling us cool cats either. Um, I wasn't saying like Nick and I are cool cats. Um, cat. I was going to say that cat is a great name and maybe also the only, is it the only animal name that kind of works as a name? I guess like birdie. Hmm. Oh, that's interesting.

Birdie kind of works. I mean, Bunny. Bunny. Yeah. You can get away with a bunny. Oh, bunny bunny. Bunny golden from the wire.

Bunny is kind of strange too though. Isn't it? It's a little like cutesy. Yeah. The only dog. I mean, there's Snoop dog. That's a nickname dog. The bounty hunter.

Um, I'm just saying, I'm saying, I'm saying, I'm saying like dog Mitchell would be strange. Dog Mitchell would be weird. Cat Mitchell you can get away with. Yeah. Cat Mitchell is pretty good. Yeah. Wolf would be a cool name. Wolf Blitzer.

Wolf. Wolf is a cool name. Wolf Liger. Yeah. I could be Wolf Liger. Yeah. I could pull that off. You're going to take the name.

Yeah. I think I'm going to do it. Wolf Liger. Oh, cool. I thought the, how's it going? I was going to say, speaking of Liger, another name that works, another animal name that works as a first name, Tiger. There's Tiger Woods.

Any Tiger, any Tiger will do. You get away with that. Tiger's good too. Yeah, Tiger's good. Yeah. Cat's the best though. Cat's great because it sounds like just a straight ahead name. People are like, okay, Cat, that's not, that's not, I'm not specifically evoking the animal.

That's just like a name. But I want to ask, as you mentioned, you were doing, you're taking all these road trips with your cats and you're going up to Portland, you're going across the country to Atlanta. I call it hot Atlanta because it's hot. Are you, what is your road trip food regimen? When you're stopping for a bite to eat, what are you going to, what are you going to grub on? Oh man.

Well, I, I love just, if I'm in California until I get up to Oregon, I always do in and out protein style double doubles with extra cheese and extra pickles. That's my favorite. Wow. I, that's like just the, the best. Do you do, sorry real quick, do you eat and drive or you, you stop in for a little bit and stretch your legs? I can't, a double double is so, you can't, I, eating and driving with the double double

is so dangerous. Well, are you done it? No, I don't, I don't like, I actively dislike eating and driving. I've only done that in like a, fuck I'm super late for something scenario, but I hate it. If I, if I could, if I have to get something on the road and I'm in my car, I'd rather just pull over and take like five to 10 minutes and eat before getting, before trying to multitask. I know it's dangerous cause I've tried it. Yeah, it's tough.

And also it is, but I love finding food that I can multitask, like eat, eat something and get work done or eat something and get somewhere. That's great when you can, when you're busy and you can do that. Right. That's kind, I wish there was more food like that, like I love in Japan, how they have, you can get those like wrapped rice things that have fish in them that, that you can walk and eat this little triangle of, of good food. I wish there was more stuff like that, that isn't just, just burritos and burgers.

Yeah, wraps and burgers is all you got in the States for that. I mean, you could maybe include, include taquito in that category or like a hot dog or corn dog. But I mean, there's, there's not a lot. The handhelds that are actually like a meal, there, there aren't a ton of them. Most use a utensil. For Nick and I, eating is the work, right Nick? Exactly.

And, and you know what, but is it work? If you love what you do, no, but we don't love what we do. So it is work. It is work. So I'm sorry. You, you were saying you, you do a double, double protein style in California and what else are you getting on the road? Protein style is impossible to eat on the road anyways.

I just want to. Absolutely impossible. Yeah. Don't do it. It's, it's really dangerous. Don't do it. I don't recommend it. Should be PSAs for that.

Yeah. I am. I, I try not to eat very bad. So I do a lot of stops at gas stations where I get like string cheese and bananas or string cheese and an apple or a hard boiled egg. Those weird hard boiled eggs at the gas station that you thought they shouldn't eat. I don't, I distrust those eggs. Yeah.

They never, they taste like pennies. Yeah. And I don't, I don't think that's good. Those eggs that are basically like the, the 21st century egg in a jar at a bar, you know what I'm talking about? Yeah. I know what you mean. Remember, remember in, remember in movies, like a TV shows and movies, like there was

always the, like the pickled egg at the bar, you know what? Bring it back. I say, I mean, also we got to go bring back bars at some point, but I'm not saying bring back bars early. You get what I'm saying. Yeah. I know what you are. I know what you're trying to get back into bars, but we've seen the videos of you on

Twitter. We know. Bring back those pickled eggs, put them on the, put them on the bar. I would try to eat those pickled eggs at the bar because you're at the bar and you want to snack so you don't get too drunk and a pickled egg is a healthy snack. It's not bad for you. Yeah. It's not, it's not loaded with, and you know, we, we again mentioned our, our enthusiasm

for carbs, but if you're trying to eat healthily, it's, it's, it's not that. I've been having some hard boiled eggs and I'm making some, you know, I actually do that all the time anyway, but I've been just like having it be a regular thing because since we've been in this, in our current state of the world and I, you know, I like to do is just make some egg salad, man, an egg salad is delightful. What a fun thing to do with a hard boiled egg. Is it hard? I love egg salad.

Egg salad hard is pretty easy. It's just man. It's, it's brainless. If you can make tuna salad, you can make egg salad. I'd say it's, it's, it's the same level of skill. Is it really though? Because like you got to cook the egg, that's a little more skill than opening up the can of the tuna.

Yeah. No, that's true. But I think, I guess I was thinking with the perspective of if you have a hard boiled egg in your possession. Oh yeah. If you have a hard boiled egg from the gas station, you can, maybe it, maybe I should start making some tuna sandwiches. What do you like, tuna, some mayo, what do you, and you toss some little pickles in

there. Is that what you do for tuna salad? You can throw some pickle relish in there, you know, some people like a little, you know, some different seasonings. I will, I will throw in sometimes. This is a fun one. Take like a, like a third of an apple and dice it up real fine and toss it in there with a tuna.

Are shredded carrots. Yeah. Carrots will work. Yeah. But yeah, you can keep it pretty basic with just mayo and tuna and you'll get the job done. I like apple in my chicken salad. I like a little piece of apple in my chicken salad.

And you know what, sometimes some grapes. Same principle. Yeah. You can toss some grapes in there. Yeah. You get fancy. Waldorfie. Yeah.

Nick, what, and Kat, what are your favorite, if you get a rank, I just got to say it. You got it. Let's rank the salads. Wow. Okay. I'm saying that when you say rank the salads, do you mean the, like the kind of, like your egg salad, your tuna salad, your chicken salad, that kind of salad? Or do you mean like all salads?

Okay. I mean, those kinds of, those kinds of salads. The mayo based salads. The best salads. Mayo based protein salads. I will say that I will put probably, I have more tuna, but I do love a good chicken salad. If it's like, if it's like leftover rotisserie chicken, if it's like a good quality, like chicken base you're using, not just like a canned chicken, or you get it like at a restaurant,

I think that that has the highest ceiling as a chicken, as a good chicken salad. And I think there's the most variants you can have with it. I think I put chicken salad top first, then I'd go tuna salad, then I'd go egg salad. I don't know. I might flip them. And I think bringing up the rear would be one that I can't have often, because it's just a day ruiner, but it is very tasty and indulgent ham salad, a little ham salad. What about potato and mac salad, nowhere in there?

I thought we were talking about ones, I thought we were talking about protein based ones. I didn't realize you meant like anything with mayonnaise. Then you open up, if we're going to say that, then I put potato salad first. I love potato salad. I'll take potato salad, then probably chicken salad, then maybe over tuna salad, I do macaroni salad. I love macaroni salad. Macaroni salad is so good, sometimes I can't even look at it, because I'll want it right

away. Like if I see it on a commercial or in a TV show, I see it and I just want that macaroni salad so bad. I would say chicken salad first, because it's fancy. It feels like a treat to me, because it's like something I think my mom used to make for like, I don't know, it must have been a fancier thing. We didn't make it as often. It's probably harder to make.

It actually might be harder to make than the hardest to make of the protein salads. And then I would say egg salad and then tuna salad, even though when I was younger I used to eat a lot of tuna salad. But I would say, yeah, if you're adding in the carb salads, which Mitch, you worked undercover and added into this, I would put pasta salad first, then chicken, then I would actually that now with those added salads, it kind of mixes it up like I would maybe then put tuna and then egg and then potato. But I like them all.

It's tough because you're talking both sides and mains, like it's not crazy to be like I'm having chicken salad salad sandwich with potato salad on the side. So that's a male heavy, but completely fine meal. Yeah, it's it's difficult. I Stephen rooted you guys again. I'm going to say for me, that's what everyone calls it. It's tricky because I almost honestly, these three, I think that yes, if you're we're including potato and max salad, I'll probably put potato salad first and maybe even max out second.

But wow, carb salads go above all the other and then I mean, well, I think that I would rather have those side salads. I would like miss those more. I think I would maybe even do tuna as third. I love chicken salad. My issue with it is, is that what Nick, what you were saying, kind of the quality of the chicken is huge thing with it 100%. And also another big thing with the two is that if it's if the chicken is too thick, like

like, if it's like a big chunk of chicken, I don't want a big chunk of chicken in there. I want it to be diced pretty thin and pretty small. When you're mixing something up with Mayo, I discovered this pretty early in life. It's all about surface area. You just want a lot of surface area on whatever you're coding. So you get as much Mayo and all them nooks and crannies. I feel like there I feel like I enjoy like is it almost like minced when the like there's like like the chicken is like minced almost, but right like shredded.

Like, yeah, like, yeah, completely like almost equivalent to like tuna like like a platter of tuna salad sandwiches and egg salad sandwiches. They're both kind of the same consistency, but I probably maybe chicken salad goes last for me. Wow. Crazy tuna salad. Yes. I think it's nuts.

Egg salad and chicken salad. Even though I like all I like all of them. I think you're wrong. Yeah. Um, have you guys ever added you might hate this added avocado to egg salad? No, I haven't. I have had like, I will make it, I would like make a salad sandwich. Yeah.

I haven't like thrown avocado into the salad, but I've like thrown sliced avocado on top of it or put it on the bread and that always works well. So I don't see why it wouldn't work. I don't know. I feel about the idea of egg amoli. I think I'm not sure. I've done a lot of low carb diets, Mitch, and so I've had to make quite like it's like a keto thing.

It's like, you can easily have those, you know, uh, but so you end up getting. You know what's funny? So I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't love egg salad without bread either. I think I need bread for egg salad. You know what? Maybe that's what moves them below chicken salad. I mostly have it without bread these days because, you know, I, I will just like make up an eggs.

I mean, I like an egg salad sandwich. I prefer to have an egg salad sandwich, but if I'm just making myself like a quicker, healthier meal, then yeah, I'll just eat the egg salad as it has. I mean, I have, I eat so many eggs. I'm such an egg man that I just am trying to come up with different methods to prepare them. So I don't get like bored with the exact same fucking eggs all the time. I'm getting a little nervous that maybe you are egg man.

Yeah. Sonic's Nemesis. Yeah. Yeah. I like Sonic too much and I like chili dogs too much to actually, to actually be him. My, I, I really like Tails. I know that's controversial, but I really love Tails. He's so cute.

Yeah, you're going to get roasted in the comments. People are just going to go after you. Well, when we were little, my brother and I would play and he, he always was like, get away from me. Tails, like, get off me. Get away. You would try to out chase, like, try to get rid of Tails. Wow.

Yeah, there was, there was like, the two player, like it was one of those, one of the early games where like the two player thing was kind of half baked and it was like, say, like your, your brother or sister can play Tails and like pick up Sonic when he's in need or whatever. And it sucks. Do you remember that? Yeah. I'm trying to remember because I remember one of them had a split screen mode, which did

not work well at all. It was too, it was too squished. It was way too squished and the quality was really shitty, like it was, it was really pixelated. Yeah. They, because they, they, they didn't have the, the horsepower to render it all on screen at once. I think that it was like, yeah, I don't remember what, when they, if there was one of the Sonics

that had like a Banjo-Kazooie style, like a cis thing that was going on with the two players, but I don't, I don't remember it all that clearly and I was playing all these games single player anyway. I think it was the first Sonic and Tails game. Okay. I think it, I think it, I remember that. Question. Tails, do you think Tails has two dicks?

Yes. Interesting. I think the two tails does not necessarily indicate him having two dicks and I think if he did have two dicks, then his name would be dicks because I think. That's a more notable anomaly to earn a nickname, but I don't know, that's just my take. It would be, it would be very funny if you, you of course didn't see the two dicks, but he had two tails and his name was dicks. That's a name about.

Oh. So Kat, you were telling us that you don't have a microwave. Yeah. What is the motivation behind that decision? Well, I, I was saying that my, I had one for a while that a friend had given to me that when I got it, I was like, Oh, this is like a nice microwave. I'm an adult now. And then it, it like after a while, I don't even remember how long I had it.

It just started making the worst sounds like scary electrical sounds that I thought I shouldn't keep it in the house. And so I ended up getting rid of it and I've just never gotten a new one. I, I like I said, I don't, I don't cook at home very often. And when I do, it's like cool. Like it's like salami and like some cheese and like it's like a salad, you know, like I don't really actually cook things or heat things up. It feels like the microwave is so ubiquitous now.

And honestly, like I've, the last three apartments I've, I've moved into, we've moved into have just had microwaves there. Like it's just like a standard expected appliance. So I think it's like, I feel like microwaves are so ubiquitous that it's interesting that, that talk to someone who doesn't have one. But I'm curious if any of our listeners don't have microwaves. Hashtag microwave goodbye. If you don't have a microwave, if you don't have a microwave and if you do have a microwave,

hashtag microwave. Hello. Let us know. Good, good. Alt. Um, you know what, I do, it is that funny thing of like, they seem pretty dangerous. I mean, like it seems like there is, there is obviously radiation, right? Yeah.

I mean, like some form of radiation. I really thought that we were going to find out, like, you know how people started, people were just smoking a ton. And then it took like years for the science to catch up with like, oh yeah, smoking is fucking killing all these people. I thought we might see a similar thing with microwaves where at some point they'd be like, oh yeah, all these people are fucking getting sick as shit because they're eating microwave food and they're just around this, this, this low grade radiation.

But I don't know, it hasn't happened. You would think like the time timeline wise, I think microwaves are, I don't remember, exactly when they started being in, in everyone's homes, but it feels like enough time has passed where we would know that if that was the case. Where are you, are we both old enough Nick that you remember your, I think I do remember when we got a microwave, which is like, I know that they've been around for since what, like the seventies or the sixties? I feel like they probably were invented in even the fifties.

Yeah. It could be wrong, but then when they weren't really being in how, I don't remember them being really in households until, from what I've read, I wasn't alive in the seventies, but that, that I think that they were, I don't think they, Sure you weren't. I don't think they were, I don't think they were in households until, commonly until the eighties. But I don't know. I'm amazed that the microwave is something that I'm like, how did we even come up with

that invention or decide that that was a good idea? Yeah. Like how did that even happen? How did, how did anyone harness this radioactivity and, and then put it into a device? They're like, here you have children, put this in your house and, and make food in it. And I don't, I don't even understand how that happened. I feel like we've just stumbled upon a new, a new YouTube series. Science.

The fuck? Yeah. It's all of a sudden the most popular thing any of us has ever done. Like 20 million views on every episode. Cause we're just analyzing household appliances. That is a crazy thing to see when we've talked about this before. We've talked about this before in, in, in just the evolution of entertainment. Yeah.

Where there's like a TV show. It's like, this show is like the biggest show on TV. Like it's like, this has like millions of people view this show and you're like, what the fuck is this show? What, yeah. What is cowboy auctioneers? This show is fucking popular. It's like this, this has like, this has 20 seasons.

It's been on A and E since like 2003. And then that goes over to YouTube and also to podcasts. Yeah. Right. And if you mentioned dough boys to most people, they did have no idea what the fuck this is and would think it's bad. Yes. Yeah.

They think, I think even the people who are aware of it think it's bad. So. My favorite Instagram account is the hydraulic press account. Oh yeah. That's great stuff. Yeah. They just, they just smash things and it's so fun. Very soothing to watch as you're seeing things being destroyed.

Emma nodding along. Emma, you'd like that hydraulic press? Yeah. It's just like one of those satisfying videos. It's like watching people cut soap. It's just really nice to watch. So great. Yeah.

I always want to save the thing before it gets crushed. I always have that. Oh. I feel like I would put my hand in and try to get it out before it got crushed. They'll sometimes put a cute thing in there. Like they'll put like a stuffed animal or something like that. And yeah, I do kind of feel sympathy for that. And your guys' households, did you call it nuking?

Did you say I'm going to nuke this? Do you remember there was a time when it was cool to say you're going to nuke something? It's like my brother, my little brother may have said that. What was that? Was that, was that a, was it a Duke nukem thing? Was that what was rubbing off on society? Great question. I think it was like the nineties, like extreme, like there was this, these milkshakes that

we would get at the grocery store that were really bad for you that were like extreme milkshakes and they were surfer themed and they had like surf stuff all over them. And they were really, it was like super nineties neon looking. I think it was like part of that, like part of the, Like slang, just like a, Yeah. Everyone's hair was really sharp. These extreme milkshakes are like, you're describing or like motivation enough for

me and Mitch to build a time machine. Get them shakes. They were really cool. I thought you were describing the slim, fast shakes for a second before I realized it was something else entirely. That was also a weird thing when everyone was like, like shakes were healthy, which I think people who were maybe young enough to have not lived through the nineties or not been conscious through the nineties weren't aware of how fucking bizarre it was to see

like Tommy Lasorda talking about how he lost like a hundred pounds drinking milkshakes out of a can. And so they had, then they were marketing slim fast as like this, this fucking, this miracle diet is so weird. Have you, have you ever tried anything like slim fast before Nick? On high school, I actually did try it. Did you try it? Yeah.

I don't, I remember it tasting great. I remember it being kind of chalky, although it maybe not, wasn't specifically slim fast. It could have been another brand. It is, it is strictly just that thing of like you eat a breakfast and then you have a slim fast for lunch and dinner. So it's just basically kind of like starving yourself or close to it. Yeah. But the only nutrition you're getting is just like straight sugar.

Yeah. Which, which seems like that's not going to work out well. Yeah. It's like a hummingbirds, a hummingbirds diet or something. Right. You think it would work. Hummingbirds are so, they're so little and delicate. It's the portions.

They don't eat, they don't drink as big of sugar intake. I, I, I did all of those as a kid. I did all, every single diet that existed I did, but they were all like a little fucked up. There were like so many where it was like, Oh, just have this candy bar, this candy bar for two meals a day and you'll be fine. And, and you're just like, I, you know, I remember like my parents or their adults saying to me like, Oh, but you can have as much like just raw spinach as you want.

You can just eat as much raw spinach as you want. And like, yeah, that was a tough. It's, it's, yeah, it's, it's tough. I've tried a bunch of them too. And the only, I, you know, I was on a low, I mentioned the body as far as on a low fat diet for a while. They actually lost a good amount of weight for, but it's hard for me to actually credit it because I was at the same contemporaneous with that.

I started swimming a lot for fitness. I was like swimming like an hour a day. And so I think that probably had as much to do with it as me not eating, not eating saturated fats anymore. But that was a whole thing that's completely the opposite of the keto or the fucking low carb diet. It's like, like eat as many carbs as you want, eat as much sugar as you want, just restrict that intake, which is completely just the other end of the pendulum nutrition.

Do you know what I got in high school? I remember I got a, I think of Zenadrin. Do you remember Zenadrin? No, what was that? Zenadrin was like, like basically like a weight loss pill that was kind of like a workout. It was like marketed towards dudes. Got it. Oh, like a protein.

No, it was just basically like, it was, I think like basically like a combination of things. And it was basically probably a caffeine pill. I know that Gabriel took it too, but I took that for a while and I remember just sitting in my math class in high school and just sweat, like pouring sweat and my heart was beating so fast. And I was like, this is fucking awful. It's like meth. It's awful.

Yeah. What do I care? I wish I embraced being fat back then. It's good. I'm a swimmer also. And I also exercise a lot. I miss swimming right now. The thing I miss more than anything is bodies of water and being able to go into a body

water. 100%. I put on Twitter that I started taking baths because I was just like, I just want to be in a body of water. I've never taken a bath in my adult life at home, only in like a hotel room. And so I was like, fucking, I'm doing it. And I'm doing it just to simulate being in a fucking pool. Yeah.

I've been, I literally the other day looked up how to build a bathtub in my own house. I miss it so much. It's like, it's the most relaxing thing in the world. So I've always worked out a lot and I've always exercised a lot. And I've always had to like regulate my diet stuff. It is so crazy how much what is healthy and not healthy has changed or just does change. It fluctuates like every five years. It's like the same life as like comedy.

Yes. Every five years, there's like a new thing that everyone thinks is healthy and no one fucking knows. And the only thing that you, the only thing you can do is just like not, not overdo it and, and, and just don't be good to yourself. That's all you can do. There's nothing else works besides like surgery. There's no, there's no miracle.

There's not, it's never worth searching for some miracle thing. It's watching what you eat and exercising. I feel like I found something of a miracle that works for me, which is giving up. We'll take a break. We'll be back with more Doe Boys. Welcome back to Doe Boys. Our guest Kat Solin from the Shivering Truth season two now on Adult Swim. The chain Marie Calendars Meals for this week on Doe Boys Topical Freezer month of frozen

meals. So Marie Calendars is the brand that has a restaurant chain. They have a restaurant chain as it came first. That was founded by Marie and Cal Calender in Orange County, California. It grew to prominence under their son Don Calender who passed away in 2009, I believe. They've been kind of in dire straits since then. And the brand is currently licensed to Conagra Foods, which is one of those giant food conglomerates, processed food conglomerates.

Kat, I'm curious, Marie Calendars, do you have any history with the restaurant and or the meals? Yeah, well, not the meals as much. I kind of actually asked my mom about it to see. And all my mom said was like, ooh, Popeyes, like that was her response. But we used to go as a family to Marie Calendars a lot. And I always really love the salad bar because it had everything. It even had banana pudding and vanilla wafers in it. And then my dad loved the French onion soup.

That's why we would go to Marie Calendars is because dad felt like having French onion soup. So that's really my memory of it. And I also remember it having an atmosphere that was kind of fun. I grew up in Arizona where there wasn't much atmosphere outside of that going to places. Right. It is. And I think the kind of the nations or the states rather that are under the Western states packed currently are where Marie Calendars was biggest.

And I do remember it being like, yeah, the atmosphere is very Americana kind of just not kitschy, but more sort of like comforting. It just feels like a place that you would just a nice, generically nice place to eat a meal. It was a birthday dinner for me. I love Marie Calendars so much that I'd asked to go or like a good report card meal would be Marie Calendars for me. And I used to love their lasagna in which they had in the restaurant. Salad bar as well. Salad bar is absolutely was stellar.

Boy, that's a thing we talked about a little bit last week. But phase salad bar is just not going to be a thing anymore. Can you imagine that? It's really, really sad. Yeah. I was thinking about it while I was eating this food because I was like, the salad bar was my favorite. And maybe I was just thinking if they made like a frozen version of a salad bar, what they would do. Like a dehydrated and you have to like rehydrate it and like pretend that it's a salad bar.

I thought fucking thaw out the salad. Which actually all eating frozen food in general, I haven't had it since I was a kid really. It now reminds me of like everything sci-fi. I felt a little like 2001 with my like unwrapping it and putting it in the oven. It gave me a sci-fi feeling which is both scary. I actually felt the opposite where I was like, this feels so much like 1990 again. And also a thing that we'll talk about in a second of the length of time this all took. But I had, I never had Mary, is it Marie calendars?

What is it again? It's Marie. Marie calendars. I never had Marie calendars growing up at all. Marie like Curie. Not Mary like the mother of God. Well, can you blame me that that's where my head went wigs? I, Marie like, Marie like, what's her name?

Mary Curie. Marie Curie. Oh, Curie. You said, Mary Curie. You turned her last name into a food. Hey, Nick, can you blame me with that? That's where my head is at. What does she do again?

Penicillin or something? Marie Curie, I think, and like our, tying into our microwave talk had a lot to do with radiology. And I think that was her. Oh, okay. Yeah, radiation. She studied a lot of radioactivity. Oh, way off. All right.

It's related to medicine a little bit. I thought she was, I thought she was medicine. Oh, well, she is a little. I knew, I knew her name. Um, well, I didn't, I didn't. Well, hold on a second. That is not true. I did know her name and I didn't know how to say, which is a very common thing for me.

I still, I can't say, I can't say drawer or I can't say common words. Nick, you know this. Hmm. Yeah. And you think less of me for it. I don't think less of you. I wouldn't be possible. So you mentioned that we have, we have to put these in the, uh, and, and oven.

The word oven was used, not microwave. These things for the most part go in the oven for a fucking length of a, of an HBO drama. Like you put them in there for a full hour. You put it in there, go watch, watch what's going on in the West world. Try to make any sense of it. And when the credits roll, you can go and take your lasagna out of the oven. It takes fucking forever to heat these things up. You're watching it.

The, you know, you're, you're seeing woke up this morning, got myself a gun. And then by the time this thing's done, AJ's in the pool trying to kill himself. You know what, you know what I used to sing when I was younger was a, it was a little spoof. I used to sing woke up this morning, got myself a sub. I thought that was funny. That is good. I thought you were going to say got myself a bun.

That's even better. You should have been my, you should have been around. Should have been punching up your song parodies that you'd be singing to you and the crew. I, I, I did not have a lot of these meals at all. I didn't even go to Mary Curry's at all growing up. It sounds like a good restaurant. Actually. I think maybe go there.

Yeah. The restaurant Marie calendars. Marie Curie is the scientist. I, I, Weigher, I know it was a joke. Okay. I didn't know. I can tell. Jesus.

We don't really make jokes on this show, Mitch. So people are just laughing at us for whatever. These two fools. You were saying the jokes are done. You're just going to be. It's true. It's philosophical now. Exactly.

Um, but, uh, we, I used to, like I said before that we used to get like Boston market frozen dinners and stuff like that. And I remember them having similar, similarly, like pretty long cook times, but not as long as this, not a full hour, not 60 to 65 minutes, which is, which is quite a bit. Um, yes. And I honestly, I got back to the house at one 15. I thought that I would, uh, be able to cook these up and even beforehand wrong. I had the meals are in front of me right now.

We, we, we stopped down for a second and I, and I grabbed some. Um, and I'm, but I did microwave one and also that was extremely long. I, you, I, so I got, I got four meals. Should I just, should I say what I got? Yes, please. I got four meals. I got meatloaf. I got a fried chicken dinner, fried chicken with mashed potatoes.

And I got a Vermont cheddar mac and cheese. And I also got turkey and stuffing. All of them had the same cook time. The, all of them had the same cook time except for the, um, turkey and stuffing. And I microwave that for 13 minutes. Wow. 13 full minutes. You can watch, you can watch a quibi.

You can watch a quibi as good as any Sopranos. You also could like go to the restaurant and get food. Well, we, not now, but back, you know, like it's not faster. No, it's, it's a long time. It takes out the thing of like, I guess like there's no like prep and no cleaning up afterwards or much less cleaning up, but it is that crazy thing of like, wow, full hour seems to take away any of the plus side of, of all of this. Um, but you know, it's, yeah, it's, it's not expedient.

I think that the, the, maybe the asset of Marie calendars is that it can be, you can get their family size. Like if you got like a family size lasagna and you've got three kids to feed, you can put that bad boy in an hour, you know, whatever, give the kids a bath. I don't know what parents do. Um, do whatever parents do and then, you know, take it out. Interesting. Your first choice. Put the kids in the bath.

And then you, and then you, like, you, you can feed, like that, that much is pretty easy. You can get them something that is, that kids are going or that a family is going to like in a large portion, uh, without too much fuss. It just takes a little while to, to heat it up. But yeah. And in your case, like you lose track of time while you're bathing the kids and you come down there and the dinners are burnt.

All right. So I, the other thing that, and the other thing that Marie calendars, I think offers is the pot pies, uh, which Kat mentioned and their frozen pot pies, I think are a standout. I'll say that the, the, the foods that I got, I got a chicken pot pie, uh, and I got the, an Italiano lasagna, which is one of their two lasagnas. The other one is a meat lasagna. And then I got the, although this one also has meat.

So I think, I think it's just a seasoning difference. Um, and then the, the meal I got, the like, like meal for one is the Kansas city style pulled pork mac and cheese bowl. That was the only one I did in the microwave. And that one actually didn't, it took less than 10 minutes of the microwave. Um, uh, and the, uh, the other two were, yeah, like hour long in the oven. The other, the third, or the final item I got was a dessert. I got a coconut cream pie and the coconut cream pie comes frozen in the freezer aisle

and then you just take it out of its packaging, put it in the fridge and it, it, it, uh, defrost overnight and then it's ready to eat in the morning. Um, so that's what I had. Cat, what, what's your rundown of, of things you got? I know you said you got a lot. Yeah. Should I just tell you the things I actually tried or should I tell you everything I got? Oh boy.

I mean, I, I want to hear it all at this point. So at first I did gelsons and from gelsons I got a single serving app. No, I didn't get the apple pie. I tried to get the apple pie, but they didn't have any desserts at gelsons. Wow. Um, I ended up getting the Marie calendar Salisbury steak dinner, the Marie calendar's roasted turkey breast and stuffing dinner, the chicken pot pie, meatloaf and homestyle gravy, uh, sweet and sour chicken dinner and, uh, butternut squash ravioli.

Wow. And then, and the chicken Alfredo bowl. Now, for some reason I thought that wasn't enough because, because I didn't, because I thought it wasn't enough because I didn't get a dessert. And I was like, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to try Vaughn's and just get the dessert. But of course I didn't do that. And I got, so Vaughn's I ordered. This is so ridiculous.

Um, uh, chicken, cheesy Marie counters, cheesy chicken and rice dinner, uh, banana cream pie, the little mini mini, right? Yeah. They make a full size and a small one. Yeah. Garlic chicken dinner, mini coconut cream pie. Hell yeah. Uh, the Vermont mac and cheese, uh, and the vegetable pot pie, a mini key lime pie, a

single serving peach pie, a mini chocolate pie, and a sesame chicken pie. Yeah. Okay. That's, that's what I, that's all that I got. Wow. So I didn't eat all, I didn't eat all those things. I, I wish I, but it also like was nice to have the options at the house because I would try one thing and then that would kind of help like make me think, oh, I think I'll

like this other thing better than if I try this thing. Like I feel like if I, anyway, so should I tell you what I actually ate? Yes, please. Okay. This is just a list. I'm just listing things. Okay. Um, uh, I ate, I tried the mini banana cream pie.

I tried the mini coconut cream pie. I tried the mini chocolate satin pie. I tried a mini, a mini key lime pie. These are just like single bites. And then, um, I, I ate the Vermont mac and cheese bowl, the cheesy chicken and rice. I had the mini cheat, uh, a single serving peach pie. And then I tried the broccoli, cheddar, and potato pot pie and I ate the chicken pot pie.

Wow. It's been spread out through days. Yeah. I spread mine out. I spread out my consumption over about a week. Uh, and, and I think the way to, to, to tackle this, since we all have a bunch of food and, uh, you know, some overlap, but not a lot is just to talk in terms of winners and losers. So maybe let, let's start.

Nice. I can go first. The, the ones I would mark as winners are the two pies, the chicken pot pie I thought was great. I had a good crust to it. It was, it was piping hot inside. You know, just like a, that, that creamy sort of, uh, the, the, the, the sauce in there, um, with the, uh, with the vegetables was just like nice and creamy and, and flavorful.

I liked the big chunks of chicken. I thought the chicken pot pie was as solid as I remembered it being. It did a good, it was good in the oven. Uh, also the coconut cream pie, this was, you know, I mentioned they have a large and small. I had the big one that this was a big boy. This was a full size and, uh, it, it, it was still even, even after defrosting overnight, it was still, cause I cracked into that bad boy first thing in the morning.

It was still a little frozen, which wasn't terrible. It wasn't awful. But when it, when it finally got fully defrosted, it was at its best and didn't have any ice crystals in it. Um, and, uh, I thought that coconut cream pie was great. And to me, I think you absolutely could have blindfolded convinced me that that was a, a, uh, coconut cream pie from re calendars, the restaurant, not from the freezer case. I thought it was, I thought it was very, very good.

Um, I was having pie for breakfast for like five days in a row. And I rationalized it to myself that having a slice of pie with coffee is just like having a donut with coffee or a Danish with coffee. So well, you know, fine, whatever, get off my back. But those are my two winners. The chicken pot pie and the coconut cream pie, Mitch, what about you? What were, what were your, some of your faves? Some of your, just seems like a dangerous road to go down that, uh,

my, my winners, by the way, I got all meals to share. Those are the only ones I had on there. And also I ate all these today. And also I did a pretty good, I did some damage to some of them. Um, yeah. But my big winner was the country fried chicken and gravy. I thought that was really good. Um, and, uh, it's, and basically there were, there, there were no veggies in it.

And it's 320, uh, served, uh, calories per serving. And it's in there's three. So this is about a thousand calories in this bad boy. Um, and then my second, my other winner was, uh, the Vermont white cheddar mac and cheese, which, uh, which this guy, I'm holding up here for you. I thought that was, I thought it was, I thought it was really good. It's a, it's a, it's, and I, I, man, I ate about half of that. And I, I feel like that's going to make me feel sick.

But honestly, here's the thing with it. This food is so rich. I honestly, I have felt, I've have felt way worse after eating stuff because I wasn't like destroying all of these, of course, cause that would be like 4,000 calories, but I did eat a decent amount, but I, but I think this also goes to show like these meals to share in what way am I supposed to share this like chicken and the country, the country fried chicken and mashed potatoes. Like you share that with two or three people.

It's not going to, that's not going to make anyone happy. It's not nearly enough food. Um, and I'm saying like just like eating, like I am stuffed from eating all these meals together and it was four separate meals and too many desserts that I tried things from each of them, but I, but I'm not sure how this can even be classified as a meal, a meal to share. It's just maybe there's multiple. I just, it's, it's, it's, it's not enough for a family.

I think that's a way of them skirting the nutritional guidelines and try and disclosing that it's one serving size inside because it's, it's, there, that's not something that you would share. Like you wouldn't get one of these meals and have it unless you're getting like the full size, like, like sheet pan size lasagna, you're not going to share any of these. These are, these are meals for one. I can't, how about you? You also got the Vermont, Vermont cheddar.

Did that one work for you? And, and which ones were your faves? Yeah. The Vermont cheddar was probably my favorite, my things that I got. I was really surprised by it, but I also really like macaroni and cheese. It's the one food that I wish I could eat all the time that I barely ever let myself have. Yeah, it's so fucking good.

I think about it all the time. I, I really liked Mitch. Did you notice this, the pasta shape in it was really interesting. It was like a, it was like a long shell. It was like if a mustacholi and a shell had a baby, like it was really, yeah. And that was kind of interesting. Like I like when pasta's fun to eat when there's like, when I was a kid, I always loved the Kraft macaroni and I would put them on the fork times.

Oh, that's a blast. Yeah. That's just good clean fun. Yeah. That's like what macaroni and cheese is about to me. And so I really liked that about it. The, the pasta was like really mushy. It's no, it's no like al dente macaroni.

I was going to say, I think that, I think that the fried chicken is probably my favorite of the two, but it is a decently good mac and cheese. That's not, it's not the best mac and cheese, but it's, it's, it's, it's a, it's a winner. It's for sure a winner. It's, it's, it's good. And also it's got a nice, when you put it in the oven, it gives it a nice little kind of a like charred top to it.

It looks nice. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's well done. I mean, also of course it's going to take an hour to make, which I think you can, you can make a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese in much less time. So you can make that way quicker. Yeah. Yeah. Something else I was thinking about that, um, well, two things.

One is it would be really good if it had a little bit of a kick, like a little bit of jalapeno or something, like a slightly spice that would be really good. Like when I was little, I used to love the, um, Michelina's brand macaroni and cheese and they had a spicy one and that was my jam. Like, and I wanted that. Um, and then I also found it to be, even though it makes you, they get cooks for so long, when I took it out, it was so hot. And then it said, like, let's sit for five minutes, but I had to let it sit for

much longer than five minutes before it was edible. Yeah. It's very, it's very, it's a great point. All of these, all of these, uh, want you to rest them like they're a steak for like five full minutes after taking it out of the oven for where they were in there for like 70 minutes. So it, you just, you're just waiting for so long to eat. Uh, I, I will say.

That, that, that, contrary to your guys' experience with the mac and cheese, the pulled pork mac and cheese bowl that I got, I thought was the worst thing I ate. I thought it was pretty bad. I'm really surprised by that. Did you put it in the oven? Well, no, I cooked this one in the microwave oven. And so this one, yeah, that could have been a difference. Um, I also think the main thing is that the mac and cheese was okay, but just all

of the, the goopy, uh, pulled pork, like, and it was, you know, you can tell its low quality meat. I thought the, the sauce was just a little too like syrupy and sweet. It had like a little bit of a kick to it, but not quite enough. I thought that just made it, it's just in this big saucy mess where I didn't get to enjoy the mac and cheese or the barbecue pork. I just was, was kind of tasting this amalgamation of both that, that didn't really work.

That one was pretty bad. Yeah, that sucks. Yeah. But so that one I thought was, was addition by subtraction. It didn't need the protein on top of there. If that could have just been that a mac and cheese bowl, it sounds like I would have been a lot happier. Yeah.

You wouldn't sad, Nick, that you didn't have to try the mac and cheese. Yeah, Nick, Nick, Nick, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm heartbroken about this. I might have an extra one in my freezer. I could send to you. Okay. I want you to do that. Uh, what else did you have that you liked? What were some of your other favorites?

I also liked the peach pie. Wow. I'm really surprised by that. I, it was, so it was the single, it wasn't a regular sized pie. It was like a, it wasn't a mini though. The minis are like three inch diameter or two inch diameter. And then the, the single serving one is like, I'm, I'm, I know about Marie calendar stuff now.

Uh, it was like a six inch diameter. Uh, and it, um, it was, it was good because it had the thing that you're talking about with the pot pie crust. It, it had that same crust, which was awesome. And overall pretty good. It could have been a little more flaky, but I, but I like, I, for frozen food, it was really good. Um, and then it also wasn't too sweet, which I really liked about it.

The filling wasn't too sweet and it was like sufficiently full. It didn't have like, it wasn't too syrupy and it also wasn't like, it, I, I really, I was impressed by that. I was ready to not like it, but it was, it really, uh, it impressed me more than the, than other things. Those were my two favorites. The chicken pot pie is a close third, uh, thing that I liked. Yeah.

I have, I have two things that I liked, Nick, but didn't love or like, okay, was, wasn't a winner necessarily. It finished the race kind of in the murky middle. I would say that I would put my, my, if I, my, my chicken pot pie and coconut cream pie, I would say would picks my Kansas city style pulled pork mac and cheese bowl as a pan. And in the murky middle, I would put the Italiano lasagna. So that would be the one, one of the ones that I would say that I liked, but

didn't blow me away. I think the issue there, cause, uh, is that I, I think this is the, the lasagnas are best if they kind of crisp up on the outside and you get like those corner pieces and this one, I guess, I don't know if it was the cooking ingredients. I don't know if I should have done it at a higher temper, put it in a little bit longer, but didn't really get that. It just kind of got to get hot, but the texture didn't really improve. But Mitch, what were your, what were your like category, uh, items?

So like I said, the mac and cheese was good. The, uh, look, I also get to say this on all the ones that I cooked in the oven, I was just took another bite to, to determine if this was, if I was correct, um, because, well, honestly, because, and it would, this will make sense when I explain it, but I mean, also, besides a fact to them, a fat guy, I'm taking another bite of the pie. So I think that also when you cook these in the oven, there's plastic on top of them.

I wish that you could just take the plastic off. Um, but you're supposed to like, just put, you're supposed to still pull the corner of the, of the plastic wrap up and then you cook it in the oven with the plastic on top, which I'm like, if you don't have to put it in the microwave, I wish that could you maybe just put tin foil over it or something and say it or just something that feels better. And also the, the container that they're in, they, it really, it really cooks up. Their mind was like kind of black on the edges and kind of fucked up looking.

I cooked three at once by the way, but the ones that were, the ones that were so, so to me, so, so winners, and there were a lot of aspects of it that I liked. And then some stuff for me that just completely didn't work was the coconut, the mini coconut cream pie and the mini chocolate satin, not satin satin pie. And, but, and, but, terrify. Oh God. Nope.

There's a reason they call it devil's food. Nick, let's not bring him up. Sometimes I think chocolate is the devil's, sometimes we think chocolate is the devil's food. Yeah. I think, I think, I think you have to, you had to be evil to think this up. Something so indulgent and you crave so much. Yeah.

Must have come from the mind of Lucifer. It's wicked. God, if Lucifer saw this, he'd be like, oh, this, this, this guy deserves to come to hell, but I'm not going to let him down here. It freaks me out. The, the, both of those pies, here was my issue with them. They're frozen. You take them out and you, and they basically defrost.

And honestly, it kind of blew me away. How good the whipped cream and everything on top was. Like they do a really good job of it. Where these pies fell to me, where, where they, where they failed was, um, the base of the pie. It's just like a crumbly, it's almost totally unnecessary, but it's just, it's just, it just is like cookie crumb. It's like, it's like a, it's, it's like all crumbs.

It's not a, it's not a, it's not a consistent. Yes. Exactly. And, and that, yeah, all the other components work really well. And then those, and then those two things are like, it just, it took me out of them completely. Yeah, I, those were like my least favorite thing, but, but that is because of the, the, the crust, like when I, so I tried like a bite of each one.

Cause they're so tiny. And they're just like these little, I, uh, the banana one, I, it still like had like such a fake banana-y taste. Um, but it, but at first I really liked it. I was like, Oh, this is surprising. It was the first thing I tried. So it's kind of like, Oh, this is actually not terrible. Um, and, uh, I did, I was impressed by the whipped cream also because

it wasn't too sweet. Um, and, and then I liked, um, like overall that, that pie was like really too sweet for me, but the thing that got me was I tried that one and the coconut one on the same day. The coconut one had the worst aftertaste. I've, it was like a weird, almost like, um, like ethanol taste to it. I didn't get that from mine. See, that's the thing.

I think yours is totally different than the mini pies because they're, they're so, they're like little custardy things. They kind of, they're not quite, I think that they're more fakie than the, than the one you got, Nick, because my, my, my, my, my thing with them is that I, I honestly thought like in that chocolate, uh, satin pie, the, the whip cream, the, the chocolate flakes and then the chocolate layer of fudge all work. It is truly just the base of it. And the same thing with the coconut cream one, the flakes of coconut, the cream,

all of it works. And then it's just the base. The base falls apart. The base is like, you were saying like sweet sand. It's just kind of, it's all, it's all, it's all crumbly and, and it's a bummer because they're, they're, they do work. It's just, it's just the bottom of them. They, they're still pretty tasty, even considering all that, but it's just the

bottom just makes it not work. I really liked the key lime one. Um, and that one, I didn't eat any of the crust and same with the chocolate. I didn't eat the crust at all. I just, I just had like a bite of just the, not everything, but the crust. It was, and that was, that wasn't, those weren't too bad. But I also like was like, I don't think I would ever eat these again. Or I don't even know of a time when I would want these.

Yeah. I mean, pie is such a rare thing. Like for me, if I would be like, I'd rather like either bake a pie or buy a pie from like a nice baker versus like getting like a frozen pie from the grocery store that I'm going to frost. That said, I could see myself having one of the full size ones, maybe in a pinch. If I needed a pie for some occasion or something, I could say, like, you know what, this will kind of get the job done.

And I don't have to, to exert any effort to get this pie. I think the key lime pie would maybe work the best because like it has a naturally crumbly base. You know what I mean? Right. Oh, that's true. And, uh, Nick, as a birthday boy, you know that I always got to get that pie, Nick, you know that that's a string.

So obscure. No one won't know, no one, members of the birthday boys won't even get that. Um, a handful of people who saw a sketch show in 2009 will get that. And that's who we do the podcast for. That's who it's for. Um, I, yeah, I, I feel the same way that I just don't think I would ever, and also just with all this food, it is that sort of thing of like, it's so rich, high calorie count.

Yeah. If you're going to go out and do this, then why am I doing this version of it? Which is maybe, I mean, like, I would maybe have the chicken fried dinner, the fried chicken dinner again, and the, and the mac and cheese, if, if you know, if you're in the right mood or something or, I don't know, like, honestly, it would be a, maybe like the mac and cheese and the chicken fried chicken. If you shared it with one other person or something, it could be decent, but still kind of small.

I don't know. Yeah. I don't, I just don't, I don't see any, I don't see any need for them. And then as far as the bad stuff goes, Nick, the meatloaf I did just not think was great. I don't think, I didn't think either of them were terrible. Honestly, I think overall, this may do better in its review than the actual restaurant did when we went, but the meatloaf was just like, it just, like

that gravy, Kat and I were talking a little bit at the break, the gravy of it tasted kind of like how like a diet, shitty gravy, like, like the meatloaf dinner would take, it was just like, right, a frozen meatloaf dinner can be pretty bad. And this was, and this was not the worst, but it was not any good. So what were the sides that that meatloaf came with? Was that one came with roasted potatoes? Oh, just roasted potatoes and gravy.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's another thing too is like why they, it should be, I think that individual dinners are kind of, and maybe, maybe, maybe they do do this more. Maybe it's not just like the meals to, the meals to share or whatever, but I feel like if it was like a meatloaf dinner with a, and they do, I'm looking on here now, they do have a meatloaf dinner with, with like corn and mashed potatoes.

And I think that would be a better deal. But this, the meal to share with the roasted potatoes, it just was, there was nothing really going on, just kind of mushy, mushy, I mean, just, and I think the gravy base overall was the thing that hurt it. It was just, yeah, the gravy wasn't good. So in that, and it was just smothered in all that gravy. So when it's on top of everything, that was my issue with a pulled pork mac and cheese bowl.

It's inescapable. It's just this blanket over the whole thing. And, and if that's, if, if that's going to be, if that's going to be touching everything, then yeah, that's going to lower the overall quality for sure. Kat, did you have any others that particularly stood out to you in a bad way? Yeah, I, the, I was actually really surprised by how much I did not like these two, but the chicken, the cheesy chicken and rice and the broccoli and cheddar, broccoli, cheddar and potato pot pie, both of those, they had the same exact

kind of cheese sauce involved in them. And the cheese sauce was so crazy bland. It wasn't like, like I love a good, like, um, cheese dip at like nachos at a hockey game. Like I love that kind of like bad cheese dip. Like, I like 100% on board. It can be so delicious. And, and this was like, it felt like the, well, the broccoli, cheddar and potato pot pie, I tried a bite of it and I was just like, no, no, thank you.

Like I just didn't want, I didn't have more than that. So I can't really speak to that one as much, but the cheesy chicken and rice, that one, I felt like I was being punished. Like I was like, this is food. This is like what the, if I had a really bad stomach flu and, you know, you're home and this is like what you eat when you're, when you're too sick to eat anything that is good at all. Like it was so bland and, and I don't know if it's like reconstituted rice.

It's just terrible or, or what. And also on the package, it showed like only a little bit of cheese, but then of course it's just like filled with cheese. It's just like all cheese and, and, uh, and the broccoli was, I really don't like the reheated frozen broccoli. It's like really, it freaks me out. It's really mushy and, uh, and not really like, I don't know. It's like that kind of thing where you almost don't, I feel like with this place,

you almost like need to do what you know they're good at rather than try anything else. Absolutely. I think, I think that's good advice for anyone purchasing any of these products. And it sounds like we had a range of experience, not just among us, but individually we had things that were, that really succeeded in things that were complete flops. Um, but I guess we should get to our final thoughts on Marie calendar's meals. So Kat, you know the podcast, but, uh, just to refresh everyone, we'll go around,

give a closing argument, if you will, on Marie calendar's meals, uh, and, uh, end with a fork score as we wrap up. Do boys topical freeze, uh, Kat, you are a guest, you may begin. Uh, okay. So overall, I, I really, I liked the experience because I don't do this very often. I don't, I don't cook frozen food in my oven. So that was kind of novel and fun and had a little, like, like I said,

like little sci-fi feel. It also sort of had a nostalgic feel because I ate a lot of this kind of food growing up, like with my, my parents, like we're working all the time. So I would make this kind of stuff. Um, so there was that too. Um, I also was trying to think about like just income levels and what people can afford and not afford. So it made me happy that there were things that were genuinely good, uh,

even though a lot of the things I didn't love as much. Um, I would say it's hard, I guess, um, like the calorie count and the sodium levels and the fat levels in the food kind of taken a notch down for me. Like I wish it could be this good or be closer to this good and not, um, have this much like bad for you stuff in it. Uh, so I guess I would say I, I was going to, I, I'm going to say two and a half or two, two, I'm going to say two and a half, two and a half, four. So wow solid score.

All right, go ahead. Spoon man. Um, I mean, when you get these meals, it's just kind of a bit of a gamble, Nick. I think it's just, uh, you're rolling the dice. I really did enjoy the, the, the fried chicken and mashed potatoes was good. And it crisped up night. It crisped up pretty nice and that, and that Vermont mac and cheese was tasty. Is it worth it?

You know what I mean? Having all those calories and, and cooking it for an hour. I don't think so. Uh, the meatloaf was a loser. Like I said, covered in that gravy, the, the, the, the, the turkey and stuffing dinner, which I didn't really touch on. There was an overwhelming, the, the turkey in that, in that turkey and, and stuffing dinner was like, the turkey just wasn't good meat.

You know what I mean? That was the issue. It just was, it just was not great. It was like school, like when it reminded me of school lunch, turkey, the mashed potatoes in it were great, were great. Cause I think they make a pretty good mashed frozen mashed potato with the gravy and then the stuffing had that overwhelming. It's like one of the herbs and stuffing.

And I don't know what it, like there was a, I don't know which one it is. I don't know which herb it is, but let's just say rosemary. Sure. It might, and it could have been rosemary. I'm not sure, I'm not sure what it was, but just like that kind of overwhelming herbal taste to it. Yes.

That is maybe to mask whatever else is going on. Um, but that was another loser. And on top of that, that was cooked in the microwave for 13 minutes. Yeah. Um, it's far too long, far too long. Um, so, you know, Mary calendars. Marie, Mary calendars is, uh, I wish you had more, more in common with our, with our friend, Mary Curry.

Oh boy. Dick, Mary color, Mary, Mary Curry. Uh, she won the first Nobel prize, the first woman to win a Nobel prize. Wow. And you know what the only prize that, uh, uh, Mary calendar is going to win? The Nobel prize, the no dinner bell prize. Very different kind of prize. Cause don't be ringing that dinner bell for me.

I'm not going to be coming. That being said, it is a mixed bag. You can maybe get a few things. I guess it's, honestly, I think you got to, you got to experiment and I feel like half of the food is pretty tasty. So because of that, I'm going to give it three forks. Wow. Um, uh, because I think that it has some winners, but it has some real, it has some,

it has some losers too. Yes. But that being said, the, the losers aren't terrible, terrible. I've had worse food, but completely not worth buying. Like the, the losers are two forks. The winners are three and a half forks. So three forces is my, is my final score. Three forks from the spoon man, Mike Mitchell.

I will go back to Kat's point from earlier, which I thought was astute, which is just stick to what they do. Well, stick to their stick to what they, uh, to what you know from Marie calendars, if you do have a history with this chain or with this brand. Because I think the things that work better are going to be the things that are a little bit more conventional and a little bit more designed to be frozen. Um, I'm thinking of lasagna. I'm thinking of the pot pies.

I'm thinking of the, I'm thinking of the full size pies, uh, which they do well in the restaurant. I will say that, that, uh, I thought it was illuminating what Kat said on the pot pie point, that the broccoli cheddar pot pie, which, which I was eyeing, I was like, Oh, that looks interesting. I want to see how they pull it off that that one sucks shit because that just speaks to, again, just stick to what they already do. Don't get, don't even get fancy with the pot pies, get the most conventional

glass chicken or turkey pot pie. Don't mess around with it. And can I interject for a second there? Yes, please. In high school, when all the kids were going to, uh, uh, make out point, uh-huh, I was going to pot pie point. Thank you, Mitch. Thanks.

Thanks for, thanks for that. So did you not like it? I liked it a lot. That's why I think to, I thought it was really good. That was sincere. Yeah, sincere. I'm glad you did it. I'm glad you said it.

Okay, good. I will, I, you know, the, the, the low for me was the, that pulled pork back in cheese bowl. I would not get that or anything adjacent to it or akin to it again. I don't know if I'd get any of their bowl lines again. I think I would just get like a straight up lasagna or a pot pie or, or just a straight up pie if I was going to get something from the Marie calendar's brand, but also why would I do that?

I don't know, don't know if I have a reason to return to this. I will say that like Marie calendar, as I mentioned, I love the restaurant going up. It was a report card slash, you know, slash birthday occasion for me. Uh, and as an adult, I don't really go outside of for the podcast. And I think it's because the quality is kind of declined and, and the chain is kind of receded in prominence as a result. And I think it's the same thing with the frozen meals.

It's just like if you want, even if you want something frozen, I think there are better alternatives. I think they do this solid. I think they do an okay job with it, but, but I don't know if there's any specific reason to pursue this. I think that like, like the, like the restaurant, Marie calendar's meals is something I have to walk away from and leave in my past and continue to live on with fond memories, but they will not be a part of my future.

That said, I'm going to give these still a decent two forks, three and a half times. So a fork that, the third fork has like half a time that's been broken off in some sort of biting accident. Dick, can I also show you, can I also show you something a plus side to this whole thing is a, I don't know if you can see this here, but I'm wearing the I'm wearing the boxes on my feet. Save that for your, save that for your only fans.

You got exclusive feet content here. Mitch, what prompted that for you? What made you want to do that? Um, I was, I was putting them on my feet during Nick's review and then I decided that I should share it with the world. Um, they are kind of the right size. They look like they fit you well. Are they warm?

They do fit pretty well. Um, no, the, the, no, they're, these were the freezer box. So what I mean, they're, they're cold room temperature to cold. Um, Nick, uh, they're not cold anymore. They've been out of, they've been out of the freezer for a while. Nick, I want to say, I didn't, I didn't mention this that I, uh, was watching, uh, I was watching while this was, while I was eating the turkey dinner, I was watching casino on the TV, uh, and the scene where, uh, the tough Irish guy, who

they beat up, uh, where they put his head in device. Oh yeah, brutal. The, uh, I was watching that scene as I ate my turkey dinner and when his eye pops out of a, out of his head, it's fucking gnarly. Also, I will say there's a really, there, there's a really funny scene in a casino where, uh, Joe Pesci is so good in casino, but there's a scene where they land the plane on the golf course, like Feds do. Do you remember this?

Yeah. And then, and then Joe Pesci is like a hundred bucks. Do you ever can hit the plane? And then they're all like, like hitting golf balls at the FBI, at the federal, the federal aid and his planes. Do you remember that? It's a, it's a, it's a good movie. I mean, yeah, it's the Goodfellas formula, but Goodfellas is great.

So what's, what's your complaint? You know what I'll say about that movie that I like. What's that Joe, a Joe Pesci gets top twice. He gets dome and two different scenes in the movie. Yes. But the other thing, his character's name is Nick. That's like my name. That's a lot of fun.

Yes. And you, you and his character are very similar, Nick. There, you know, that, that, that scene was on and I was, I was going to say like, yes, he gets, he gets dome, as you say. Yes. Um, but it happens so quick. He's like talking to the woman and then they gets in the car. It seems like there should be some sort of preparation, but he just, it just is

instantaneous. You know what I'm talking about? You know what, she, I think they both know the deal. They both knew, knew why they were going out to that parked car. Just goes straight into it. Yeah. Crazy. Totally different life.

What do you think the scene was that they like cut out that would, that led into that, Mitch? Oh, look, if you, if you want, I mean, you know, I mean, it's, uh, it'd be funny if you did. I don't know, it's, I don't know. I'm just joking. Unless, you know, we're going to my car, it's just going to be you and me and my car, you know, you know, if you want, I mean, you don't have to, it's cool.

No, I'm just saying that he was action ready. He was ready to go. And it's at the drop of a hat. Oh, you think like he needed him to, to like be like, yeah, give me a second here. Hold on. Yeah. That's, I mean, I would look at my phone for a second. And also there, there is a character that does kind of remind me of you.

Nick is the, the guy who, uh, the, the cooler guy that they put in for Pesci, the, the, the guy who's playing blackjack with him. Yeah. And Pesci's throwing the cards at him. It's great. That's the function I serve on podcasts. Is the cooler? Yeah.

Bring everyone's energy down. Hey, that was our review of Marie calendar's meals as we conclude Doughboy's topical freeze. It's time for a new segment. Wow. For the first time in Doughboy's history, we present meal or no meal. Wow. The fuck?

This is the song. Yeah. That's the song. It's good. That's why that's the song for dealer. No deal. Yeah. That's the song.

It's good. Here's how this will work. I have six meal boxes numbered one through six. They all fit today's theme, which is chicken. Inside one of these meal boxes is the grand prize, a Wendy's spicy chicken sandwich combo meal. Wow. Inside the other boxes are meals from different chains, some better, some

worse, all the way down to the very worst, an individual room temp white castle chicken ring. So wow, the two of you will play as a team. You will both collectively pick one meal box to hold onto, and then you will eliminate them one by one. And after each meal box is eliminated, Emma will open the case and tell us what's inside. Wow.

So after each elimination, we will hear from a mysterious figure known only as the drinker, but let's begin here. Cat and Mitch, the drinker, the drinker. Yeah. Cat and Mitch, what number from one to six meal box would you like to hold onto? You may discuss cat. I have one of my, my favorite number is in this, in this line here.

Well, there's a couple of things here. Six is the number of the devil as we all know. So that's, that's a bad one. But it's also my, my birth date is October 6th, but then also my favorite number is four. Wow. So should we pick one of those two? Or do you have a favorite number?

Or do you not want to pick either of mine because they'll be bad luck? I, okay. So we have to have more discussion about the number six. Uh, for right, like, I, I really like the number six, not because of the devil. I just, I just like it as a, the way it looks. I think it's a satisfying, satisfying symbol. Um, do you prefer the six or the nine? Cause they're the same, the same symbol, but just flipped, uh, flipped upside down.

Well, to me, the six is like, well, probably cause it comes earlier, it's like the younger version of the nine, the nine is like the more adult version of the six, kind of some more sophisticated six. Interesting. Yeah. If, if I was, if I had to choose between nine and six, I'd probably, I probably still pick six. Wow.

Yeah. But I, yeah, but I also, so, so, but it's still not my favorite number. My favorite number is like combination of numbers, not just one number. So, so I think Mitch, I think we should pick four because it's your favorite. I think we should say four. All right. Four it is. Let's do four.

Wow. Yeah. Wait, but the six, your favorite, we could go, we go with six. We don't have to count at six yet, do we? You pick one box to hold onto and then as this progresses, you will, yeah, this is one that you will hold onto. And then as you progress, you will eliminate the others one by one. Okay.

I still think I still like four. Four it is. You're holding on to box number four. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. And now it is time. You have box number four.

That is your meal box. Which number meal box would you now like to eliminate? One, two, three, five or six. I think we should eliminate number one. I was going to say one. Wow. You're both saying one right away. Because it's the first one.

It feels like it won't be that. Wow. Okay. I also don't, I don't love the number one. Interesting. I'm, I think you have such strong takes on numbers is, is first is bad. Get rid of first. Fuck first place.

Wow. One is out the window. One is gone. One has been eliminated. Emma, tell us what's inside meal box number one. A Subway foot long sweet onion chicken teriyaki. Wow. Wow.

Good riddance. We made a good choice. Seems like you made a good choice here. All right. Let's, let's, oh wait, I'm sorry. I'm getting a phone call. Let me answer this real quick. It's the drinker.

Uh-huh. Mm-hmm. I see. Oh, interesting. Okay. I'll let him know. I just got off the phone with the drinker. The drinker is offering you an, offering you an exchange for box number four.

Four piece chicken McNuggets. Wow. Meal or no meal. A four piece. Four piece chicken McNuggets. Four pieces is nothing. That's two pieces a piece, but you can walk away with it right now. Two pieces, you split it.

Uh, I, I say, I say no meal. Yeah, no meal. No meal. Wow. No meal. Wow. Okay. Dranker has been rejected.

Moving on. Now it's time to eliminate another box. Yeah. While the drinker called, I like kind of like a Louis CK thing. I like heard some like jackoff noises in the background. He'll do that. You know, it's, we don't, I don't love it about him. He probably has to get excited to like offer his offerings.

Well, I think that's what. I think that's what his motivation is for doing the whole. I mean, it's whatever. I don't want to get wrapped up in it. He's, he's offering free food. It's, it's fine. Let's, uh, let's move on. You would, you know, you're holding onto number four.

Number one has been eliminated. We need another box that you're going to choose to exit this competition. Hmm. What do you think, Kat? I would say, oh man. I, I got to say five. Five. Okay.

I like five. Let's get rid of five. Five has been eliminated. Fuck. Emma, tell everyone what it is. Oh, I am nervous. It is the Wendy's spicy chicken sandwich combo. Oh boy.

Oh no, that's a big one. Fuck. The million dollar equivalent is out the window. And just as that happens, I'm getting a phone call from the drinker. Oh, the drinker. The drinker, the drinker finished already, I think. Hello.

Oh, I'm sorry, Mitch. Oh, you, you did finish last time. Well, thank you for calling back anyway. Oh, that's the offer. Okay, I'll let him know. Wow. The drinker is now offering you a six piece chicken McNuggets. He's offering us more?

He's offering you a six piece chicken McNuggets. I don't want to know where those other two pieces came from. You know what? I think, I think that we might have something good in our briefcase. I think we're, I think of that. We're going to say no meal. No meal. No meal.

No meal. Okay. We have, we have three cases remaining in addition to the one that you have. Case number four, two, three, six on the board. Which one would you like to eliminate? I said we're going to get rid of two. You say two? Yeah.

That's what I want to get rid of last time. Oh, okay. That was my secret pick last time. Wow. You should have said something. Let's, let's. No, I mean, it's all just numbers. Wow.

No, it's not. It's a Wendy's spicy chicken meal. All right. Dead. Okay. Meal box number two eliminated. Emma, what's inside? Popeyes three piece chicken combo.

Fuck. Oh, that's pretty good. Even worse. That's better. That's not better than spicy chicken, but. Good job, Mitch. Wow. That's pretty good.

Look, we've both fucked up. That's why we're a good team. Okay. Let me answer this real quick. Hello, drinker. Oh, your refractory period lapsed. Okay. You're back at it.

Oh my God. Okay. Yeah. I mean, if that's what you're going to offer, I'll, that's what you're going to offer. I'll let them know. Okay. Bye.

Bye. Cat and Mitch, the drinker is now offering you a four piece chicken McNuggets. Oh my God. It's back down to four. I still don't want it because like what could be, we already got rid of that subway. So like what are the other things that could be in that are,

like, oh, do you think we, do you think number four is the white castle? We might have the damn white castle. Maybe Weigar knew four was my number, my, my favorite number. But you know what? We can't, we can't just settle for the other. I think we, I think we've got to, I think we've got to keep playing because I, I, I'm not, I'm not going to have two nuggets a piece.

That's not a meal. Wow. Yeah. It's no meal, Nick. That's not a meal. Wow. The verdict is no meal. Moving on, you have case number four, case number three,

and case number six are still available. Which one would you like to eliminate next? I think we should get rid of three. What do you think? Yes. I think it should come down to the two numbers that we wanted. Wow. Yes.

I, I agree. And I also, yeah, yeah, I think so too. Eliminating box number three. Emma, what's inside meal box number three? White castle chicken ring, single and room temp. Wow. Wow. That one is off the board.

Wow. Single and room temp. It's noted in the spreadsheet. Look, you got to specify. It's a pretty bad meal. Oh, okay. We got, hold on. We got one, we got another phone call from the drinker.

I think this is going to be his final offer. Hello? Yes, drinker. Hmm. Hmm. I don't think, no, Mitch doesn't actually have an only fans. That was just a joke I made on the podcast. Yeah.

Sorry. That, sorry you've been searched for it. Oh, that's the offer. Oh, wow. Okay. All right. Talk to you soon. Love you.

Okay. The drinker's Natalie. The drinker's final offer is in. He is offering you a 10 piece chicken McNuggets. It's no 20 piece. Five a piece. No, you know what? That to me is still not a meal.

Wow. Yeah. A 10 piece chicken McNuggets. No meal. The banker walks away empty-handed. The drinker, I'm sorry. The drinker, yeah. The banker's someone else.

Also, the drinker is not empty-handed. His hands are very busy. Wow. So you have case number four. Box number six is also available. Now comes a decision point. Would you like to keep it? Would you like to keep and open box number four?

Or would you like to swap box number four for box number six? Cat? What do you think? Why are you putting it on me? Oh my God. Well, I don't. If it was just me, I would swap it for six because I like six. But I also, six is the end.

And I like the idea of playing four because I never would have thought to play four. What do you think? I don't know. I mean, we're down to our last two. Do we just stick with what we had or do we swap it up? I don't know. I could go either way.

I'm trying to think of what meals they could be that exist. Like what other things? I'm just trying to think of what they could be. Yeah, it's either going to go up or down. It's up to you. I say just call it out and we go with it. I think we should stick with four because we stuck with four this whole time. I like it.

We're eliminating six, Nick. Eliminating six. Emma, what's inside meal box number six? A Yoshinoya teriyaki chicken bowl. Okay, that's good. Wow, that's a good, that's a nice touch. And that means inside your meal box, meal box number four is? A KFC famous bowl.

Wow, you made a great meal. Wow, it's not bad. It's like definitely the middle. It's almost the middle of all the options. It's of all the outcomes you could have had. You could have gone a lot worse. There are some real stinkers. We should have gotten that Popeyes.

We fucked up with the Popeyes. But look, we get to share a famous bowl. That's, yeah, that sounds great. Would not be the least hygienic thing that we've done on Doe Boys. Hey, just like a restaurant, I value your feedback. Let's open up the feedback. Today's email comes from Lena Welch. Lena writes, Dear Doe Boys, I started dating a guy because I thought he was really funny.

He introduced me to your podcast and after listening to all of the 2015 episodes this week, I've realized that he stole most of his jokes from y'all. Should I dump him? I'd also like to shout out my favorite fast food restaurant, Spelunkers in Front Royal, Virginia. I convinced him that we need to drive an hour and a half from Charlottesville to get custard on our third date. Interesting.

Thanks, Lena. Weird situation. I wonder what he was stealing exactly. I like that he drove an hour and a half with her on their third date to get custard she wanted. That sounds like a nice person. That sounds like a Doe Boys fan. Yeah, how much convincing was involved there? That's true.

Do you want to steal Howdy Ho, which was stolen from another TV show? You know my answer, Nick. Dump the goon, get with the spoon. That's always my answer. Stop trying to cuckold our listeners. You know what? I won't cuckold him. Give him a chance.

You know what? I would say you. But you know what? You know what I'll say? Give him a chance. But if he is unfunny, you have to dump him. That's the way to do it. Test it.

Test it out. Yeah. And if he starts making different jokes, check if he's like stealing them from like podcast the ride or something. He's listening to other podcasts. If you're watching a movie and he starts questioning how it got made and things like that, you know. The spelunkers shout out made me want made me think of like that.

You know, frozen custard is not as much of a thing in California, but I've enjoyed it when I've had it. But I'm curious about your guys thoughts. A, on frozen custard and B, if there's like a local burger stand or roadside stand, not even necessarily it could be a small chain, could be a micro chain, could be an individual location. That makes you think of home. So I've never had frozen custard.

I've always wanted it. I've never had it once. So that's my answer. I'm frozen custard. Wow. I know. Now you're saying a burger stand is like, like makes you think of home.

Is it a burger stand like from home? Is it a burger stand here that makes me think of home? I was thinking the first one. But I mean, if the second one is what comes to mind, I think that's fine. No, from home. I grew up with a couple of small chains in Tucson, Arizona that I really love, that I kind of wish I could have out here

that are like EG's. Have you guys ever heard of EG's? No. EG's is an Italian, it's an Italian sub Italian ice chain from Tucson that was, it, my friend in high school, his dad like owned an EG's and he worked at it and that was really cool. But they had, they were so delicious.

They had really good subs and Italian ice EG's. And when I was in like second grade, the owner, the guy who like started EG's came to our school to talk to us about recycling. And that was really cool. Wow. And then I also really love Nico's tacos. Nico's, there is one in San Diego.

But other than that, they're I think all in Arizona. And we used to, when we could drive, by the time we could drive, we would drive like downtown to the University of Arizona, which is like a half hour away during our lunch to get Nico's tacos and like race back really, we weren't being safe, but we would drive back really fast. So we could have Nico's and it was open 24 hours. So we'd always been hanging out there all the time.

It was, and I had the drive-thru sign because someone hit it with their car and I stole it. Wow. And I had that for a while growing up. Yeah. So those aren't burger places, but. No, that absolutely is. It was what I was looking for.

That was really great. Mitch, any hyper local places that they haven't talked about a bunch on the podcast, makes you think of Quincy? Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think as far as like stands or whatever, I think that's like a little tricky. But, you know, the ice cream, the ice cream parlor, which I've taught, which is the former Brigham's,

but that's not really a stand. But I mean, that's my place. But then also there was a dairy, there was a dairy queen in Quincy that was a stand. And then there was also a dairy freeze. And the dairy freeze was, I think it wasn't originally, it was a dairy queen and then it turned into a dairy freeze, but it has like a raspberry lime rickies.

You get your fish and chips there, Nick. You get an orange freeze, which is like an orange drink. Oh man, it's got some great stuff. And then also in Quincy, there's a couple, there's the clam, the clam shop. And then, and then Tony's, Tony's clam shop. And then there's the clam shack. There's two like big, like kind of semi-famous clam shops

that are kind of like stands that are on the beach. What do you get there? Are they mostly deep fried when you get one of those stands? What do you get? Yeah, deep fried clams. Yeah. Wow. Delightful.

I think you're gonna spend some time in Quincy next time. Everyone's telling you you're gonna spend some time in Quincy. I spent some time in Quincy. I've slept in your childhood bed. Yeah, I know. It's fucking, it was the request you made as soon as you walked through the door. I don't know what you said before.

The places that I always think of are more of a, you know, a general, I'll cite one in particular, but it's kind of a general category of restaurant of eatery you'll find out here in California and much of the West, which is like the place that has, you know, like burgers, but also pastrami and chili. You'll always see like some combination of those. And, you know, like there's a place,

Pete's Burgers that I would go to in Long Beach that I always thought of that was near my middle school. And like that was like the kind of place where, yeah, you would just get like a fucking big ass styrofoam container full of chili cheese fries. And like you get like a fucking a huge ass burger. Nice. But yeah, that's what I always think of is that kind of restaurant

I feel like it makes me so specifically think of home and about of the city in which I currently live. I love the way those places look, Nick. They're so cool. Like they're always orange and red and they always have, they're kind of outdated, but they're so, they're really satisfying. Some of them are like A-Frame buildings.

They're just like, yeah, they're very, very frozen in time. And both from a menu and from an aesthetic standpoint. But hey, if you have a question or comment about the world of chain restaurants, you can email us at doughboyspodcasts at gmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 830-GO-DOE. That's 830-4636-844. And to get the Dough Boys double or weekly bonus episode, join the Golden or Platinum Play Club at patreon.com slash Dough Boys.

Hey, Nick, it's the, I just want to make sure it's the clam box. So I, my Quincy cred isn't, isn't ruined. So you know, it's so fucking chanked in and Wu Tang and Koki. Don't breathe down your neck. There's a place, there's a place called the clam box. It's, yeah, it's called the, you know, it is called the clam box. Sorry. Nice single on Chandra from the clans of Quincy.

Oh yeah, they were, they were charged with that one. It sounds delicious. Kat Solin, thank you so much for joining us. The Shivering Truth, right? You can watch on Adult Swim and tell us about that and anything else you would like to plug. That's it. It's, I'm really proud of the show.

Vernon Chapman and I have been working on it for a while now and we, I don't know, I think your audience would really like it. It's, it's insane. And it's a surrealist stop motion show that couldn't exist without stop motion. And yeah, I hope people watch it. A lot of, you know, Jason Manzukas is on this season and Griffin Newman's on this season. Wow. And I'm trying to think of, I know that there's other people that have

been on your podcast that are on either season one or season two. And I'm really, yeah, I'm really into it. I'm looking at IMDB now. It says the star is Matt Koalik. Interesting. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Matt Koalik is on it. He's not on it. Um, yeah, that's, that's a sharing truth.

I hope, I hope people like it. Yeah, check it out. Check it out. I also just want to say Nick, it's been a pretty, it's been a tough week because some funny people passed away. Jerry Stiller and Fred Willard and Fred Willard, he guessed it on the birthday boys TV show. He was really great and such a, both of them really funny legends. But um, Lynn Shelton passed away just this past week and she was a really great director

and I was introduced to her through Paul Rust and Leslie Arfin who are, who are two cool people who knew a really cool person and she was a great director and she directed episodes of love and she was, uh, and she was very nice and she, and she, uh, and she did something that like a lot of not, not a lot of directors do and I don't, and I, and I don't even like saying this story, but it just shows how nice of a person was she was, but she reached out after the show and, and said some nice stuff to me and was, and was very cool and nice and she, and she worked with, uh, Sean Clements a little bit and she was actually working on something, uh, on the East coast and was in that,

in that neck of the woods and I was, and I was giving her, uh, some, some pointers on places to eat and stuff like that. And she, and she sadly passed away this last week, but she was really great. And so, uh, so check out, uh, some of our work to, uh, to honor her memory. So rest in peace to, to Lynn. Hey Mitch, it's the end of the month. And that means it's time for another edition of the Golden Paw Club, our partnership with the Santador Foundation right here in Los Angeles, a no kill volunteer run,

animal rescue and adoption org, santador.org. And hey, they have a very special lady up for adoption and featured this month. That's right. And the cat's name is Mrs. Mitchell. Wow. Named after my mom. In honor of your mom and you both dropped by the rescue, uh, on the day that this, this cat was rescued. So there, how about that?

That's right. Yeah. She's a beautiful 10 year old black and white tuxedo kitty. And she's looking for a home, Nick. She had a rough start to her life, but you know what? She is very affectionate. She loves being pet and she loves potato chips, much like the dough boys. And she loves to play and she's great with other cats.

So please look her up, find our Santador.org and give her a home. Santador.org. That's S-A-N-T-E-D-O-R.org. You can find info on how to adopt Mrs. Mitchell or donate to the organization or adopt any of the other fabulous animals they have. Uh, if you're in the LA area, obviously things are a little different to the rescue during the safer at home orders and they are no longer open to the public, but they are still finding but they are still finding ways to send the right animals to the right homes.

Also, if you want to check out their Instagram, which is just very cute wherever you are, Santador Rescue on Instagram, Santador.org. And hey, that'll do it for this issue of the Golden Paw Club. See ya. Play Club and get access to our Discord server, TheDoughScore, to connect with fellow dough fans and me and Mitch. Subscribe for the price of a combo meal only at Patreon.com slash dough boys. That's P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com slash dough boys.