Doughboys - Topical Freeze: Tina's Burritos with Jamelle Bouie

Episode Date: May 14, 2020

As Topical Freeze continues, writer Jamelle Bouie (The New York Times, CBS News) returns to the pod for a locked down evaluation of the #1 frozen burrito brand, Tina's Burritos. The crew get salty about Pop-Tarts in a new edition of Cereal.Sources for this week's intro:The Strange History of Frozen Foodhttps://www.eater.com/2014/8/21/6214423/the-strange-history-of-frozen-food-from-clarence-birdseye-to-theWho invented frozen food?https://www.loc.gov/everyday-mysteries/item/who-invented-frozen-food/Brrrr. The Secret History of Frozen Foodhttps://www.wired.com/2017/05/brrrr-secret-history-frozen-food/Oliver Evanshttps://www.fridgefilters.com/fridgepedia-oliver-evans.htmlClarence Birdseyehttps://www.famousscientists.org/clarence-birdseye/Tina's Burritos Website Tastes Best. Cost Less.https://www.tinasburritos.com/our-visionBirdseye Websitehttps://www.birdseye.com/our-story/our-mission/Want more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Like Oliver Evans, the inventor of the refrigerator, or Percy Spencer, the inventor of the microwave, you probably don't know the name Clarence Birdseye. But the taxidermist by trade with an ornithological optical orifice for a name is another man whose kitchen innovation forever changed the way people eat. After a stint working for the United States Department of Agriculture, Birdseye was transferred to Labrador, a frigid half-province of Canada, and while stationed there, Inuit native to the region taught him the process of freezing fish at subzero temperatures under massive blocks of ice.

Birdseye noticed the rapid chill technique, as opposed to the slower process in use in the States, led to fewer and smaller ice crystals, which less muted the fish's flavor upon reheating. So in the 1920s, Birdseye shifted careers to the kitchen, using Inuit cultural knowledge as an inspiration for a scalable technology he called his quick-freeze machine, and the process became known commonly as flash freezing. Flash freezing gradually became industry standard for its ability to preserve a fresh taste in a frozen product. At first vegetables, then meats, and, in time, fully prepared meals for home reheating.

In the 1980s, after flash frozen food had become as American as McDonald's apple pie and as domestic demand for Mexican food grew in the States, a frozen burrito company opened in Los Angeles, making their own tortillas in-house before filling them with starch and protein and flash freezing the assembled wrap. Today, as sales have reportedly made it the number one brand in the burrito sector, you'll find this budget-friendly Angelino original in your Grocery's freezer aisle, not far from a brand of frozen vegetables called, in honor of the inventor of the quick-freeze machine, Birdseye.

This week on Doe Boys, our month of frozen food reviews, Doe Boys' Topical Freeze continues with Tina's Burritos. Welcome to Doe Boys, the podcast about chain restaurants. I'm Nick Weiger, along with my co-host, Tom Yum Nook, the Spoon Man, Mike Mitchell. Mmm. It's a soup. Call me a soup. It's a soup and a Tom Nook reference.

That's courtesy of Jasmine from Warm Isle, who writes, hit me up for Nook Miles tickets. Got to drop the friend code there, Jasmine. roastspoonman at gmail.com. If you have an insult you'll like me using Mitch at the top of the show. Wags, how are you? How you doing, Waggy? I'm doing okay. Do you like it?

Do you like a Tom Yum? I do like a Tom Yum. As soups go? Mmm-hmm. It's a strange, it is a strange name. It's a strange, it's a strange, I mean like I know it's a different language, but the Tom Yum- When you hear it in English, yeah.

I mean, because it sounds like, yeah, it sounds like Tom, yeah, Tom is a man's name and it's a Tom Yum. It sounds like a tasty gentleman. Yeah. Yeah. But I like a Tom Yum. Tom Yum I think is like for me like a top tier sick soup. Mmm.

Okay. You know what I mean? Like when you, I feel like that's one I feel like I'm specifically craving when I've got some sort of, you know, I just feel like I want something hot and with a little bit of spice to it. Tom Yum we usually get the job done. But yeah, I'm hanging in there. Who are your favorite Tom Yum's?

Tom Cruise. Yeah. He's a real Tom Yum. I think you probably have to go a little bit younger and say like a Tom Hiddleston. Yeah, Hiddleston. I thought you were going to go like a Hiddleston. You know Hank's kind of a classic Tom. And then beyond that, boy I'm trying to think of someone, I feel like there's got to be,

oh I know it, Tom Selleck. Wow. Who's yummier than Selleck? Yeah. Yeah. They should, see he's the only one who should have the name Tom Yum I think. The soup shouldn't get it. The soup shouldn't get it, it should go to Selleck and that big, that big stash.

I can't believe you missed Hardy. Hardy is very, Hardy is a big time Tom Yum. I also, I think the Hardy boys should be about Tom Hardy. He plays both roles. He plays both roles. Kind of like Franco in that David Simon Pornow show. Tom Hardy playing the Hardy boys would be, I think that is a great pitch. He likes doing weird shit, you know.

He likes playing weird characters. That feels like it would be right in his wheelhouse. Mitch, we should touch on something real quick. This breaking choose, this happened as of today's record. Wendy's has a beef shortage. That's right. They're saying that 20% of US Wendy's are currently not selling burgers because they can't sell, they can't get fresh beef.

Wendy's has fresh, not frozen beef. Can I just say, I was a little PO'd that they mentioned me by name in the article. Well everyone was worried about you. They just wanted to include in the side that Mike Mitchell is okay. They were worried about me saying is he okay and then also they blamed the shortage on me too, which I thought was fucking rude. Nick, to Spoon Nation and here's a little drop for you. I've been trying to eat well, Nick, so I haven't been doing coke.

We found this out about each other in Atlanta as well, that I were both coke beans. I am like fully addicted to coke. I'm a big coke fan. It's just so great. I'm finally trying to come back. I love coke. I love it so much that I did get like a thing of Mexican coke. For the world, and it's tough to say because it's a place that's maybe not,

not maybe, but it's, but it's, but it's, but it's, but it's, but it's, but it's, but it's, but it's, I'm a big coke fan. Wasn't that funny, Nick? Oh my God, but my side is split. I don't, I'm going to need, I'm going to need a procedure to really, really unsplit my side. You're going to have to go to Dr. Giggles. That drop was sent in by at Salpal 23. Who writes, hey, this drop sucks, but at least it isn't shampooed there bad.

Damn, shots fired a shampooedler. Thanks, Salpal. Wow, Nick. Wow, excellent stuff. Send in your drops as always to Spoon Man Drops at gmail.com. And hey, Mitch, we have a guest. We actually have unexpectedly a second guest with us.

Our guest today is a columnist for the New York Times and a political analyst for CBS News. Jamel Bowie is back. Hi, Jamel. Hey guys, how are you all? Good, how are you doing? Well, your, your adorable son is just climbed onto your lap as I was about to introduce you. Yes.

I think his face is smeared with chickpeas. Hmm. He'll felt right in with the dough boys. Yep. Yeah. He's not alone. Um, Jamel, last time we had you on the show, we did a live show in DC and we reviewed Kava, which I know is a regular haunt of yours.

In the time since we recorded that show, has Kava still continued to be a place you frequented at all? Yeah, there's one here in Charlottesville and back, back in the before times when I could leave my home and go into restaurants, I would go there for a lunch salad on occasion. But now, of course, um, we're all stuck in our homes and, uh, I eat almost exclusively sandwiches for lunch. Wow. Wow.

Just sandwiches. What do you put on a home, Sammy? Turkey, lettuce, smoked gouda. I've been baking bread like a lot of people. Uh, nice, bought, bought a bunch of yeast from a mill in Texas. Uh, so that's, uh, that's what I have plenty of yeast at home. And so, uh, some homemade bread, homemade mayo. Uh, that's pretty much it.

Homemade mayo, that's a, my understanding is that that can be a real strain on the old, uh, the old stirring appendage. Like, are you making it by hand or do you use like a, like a standing mixer? Yeah, I use an immersion blender. Like, yeah, I'm not going to do that by hand. Yeah, by hand is like a mess and it's, it's hard. And if you don't, if you don't like, you know, use proper force, it'll be thin and gross, but if you put all the ingredients in like a little jar and then put a

stand mixer in there and I stay a mixer, um, immersion blender in there and turn it on for a minute, you got mayo. Man, I've never, I've like, I have, as someone who is such a mayo enthusiast, I've never made it myself. I guess I'm kind of, I'm, I'm, I'm content enough with the store brand, uh, with just, just the stuff that comes in a jar, but I'd be interested to try it. Do you plus up your mayo at all? Do you do anything divergent from the recipes?

No, not nothing fancy. A little garlic in there. And, uh, that's really about it. I keep MSG on hand. So I'll put some MSG in there. Um, nice. And, uh, yeah, no, it's, it's pretty, it's like way different than store about mayo.

I actually don't like store about mayo all that much. Um, but homemade mayo is like different enough that it's, uh, I don't mind it. Mitch, as a, I know you're also someone who likes mayo, but adjacent to mayo, the aiolis, do you have a favorite variant of aioli? I got a nice little garlic aioli. I don't know. I feel, I feel like I'm fine with any aioli. You know what I mean?

It's going to be something different each time. So wherever they got, I'll take it. Aiolis are generally, like generally work, whatever they do to them. I've had a, like a horseradish aioli a few times that I'm, you know, and I love horseradish and I feel like that's a thing that can work well, depending on what you're making. Exactly. I like garlic.

I'm a fan of the garlic aioli. I think that is probably my number, my number one. Nick, I just want to say quickly. Yes. Happy Cinco, Cinco de Mayo. Hey, speaking of mayo, we are recording this on the 5th of May. Cinco de Mayo. All right.

Jamel, do you ever, are you someone who has a, who likes a margarita? Do you like a Mexican cocktail? Absolutely. We, um, restaurants here are like doing, you know, take out cocktails now. So I think was it last week, two weeks ago? Two weeks ago, we, um, we got some margaritas from a local Mexican place. That's awesome. I hope that trend continues.

That's a thing that I feel like they've, in some, I know in some areas they've loosened the laws a little bit to allow more to go cocktails. Uh, and, uh, I hope that, I just hope they let people do that. Cause that's, that has been a fun way to make it feel like, oh, this is something resembling normal, like being able to get a, some batch cocktail to take home and put over ice. Yeah. We've done that a couple of times.

And yeah, with margaritas in particular, those, those try, those, you know, you can just have makeup a batch and they, they travel well. Right. I love, I love a, I love a Paloma. I'm a big Paloma guy. Mitch, you like a Paloma? Yes. I like a Paloma, but I mean, it's not my favorite.

What is your favorite? What's in a Paloma again? Tell me, tell me Paloma is, Paloma is tequila and grapefruit soda. Yeah. This is not my favorite. I mean, I like it. All right. I'd rather go margarito.

You know, honestly, I'd go, uh, um, oh God, what's it called? Uh, the, yeah, I made one. You should remember it as Mitch and your name is in it. I know, I know, I know, I messed up. I also forgot to say that if you want to send in, uh, a drop, send it to spoon man drops at gmail.com. I just forgot to tell, I forgot to say that, Nick. I thought I said it.

You did not say it. You didn't say it. You didn't say it. Okay. Uh, yeah, no, Michelotta I would go with over or margarita. Strawberry mark. I like a strawberry mark, Nick. I like anything with mezcal.

I'm, I'm a big fan of mezcal, like the, the smoky taste of it. Um, if I see a mezcal cocktail on a menu, that's sort of what I'm going to go for. I do love mezcal by, uh, by my lovely wife Natalie loves mezcal as well. She, she actually is, is much more like, she's, she's more into it than I am. And she will always, uh, like to bell seek it out. But I like, and I've noticed one thing about mezcal is like, I think because it hasn't quite fallen into the, maybe, maybe this is just my experience. And maybe this isn't true in, in general, but like, I feel like cause it hasn't

quite fallen into like the craft cocktail sort of world yet, that mezcal is still pretty cheap. Yeah. Like I feel like a lot of these other spirits, they're, they're, they're expensive everywhere, but you can get a very good mezcal for not too much for a bottle. Uh, but yeah, that's a, that's a fun thing to have in your home bar. Right.

There's no, there are no celebrities like Hawking mezcal, like with tequila, we're like every other, you know, per, like the rock has a tequila, uh, George Clooney has a tequila. I got some Clooney tequila in my home. Some Casamigos, it's not bad, but you're right. There's a, there's a big opening for a celebrity mezcal. I'd feel like Gad should get in there. Josh Gads mezcal.

I think it's time to announce the dough boys, Mitch's mezcal. Wow. It's just a bottle of smoke. We couldn't, we couldn't afford the actual liquor. So we went to, we went to a, a burning home and collected the smoke. I'm not a big fan. I see. I don't like the, I don't like the smokiness of a mezcal as much.

I want to, uh, when I was in Mexico city, I went to, uh, right. Now I can't remember the name of the right. My brain's just not working today. Why it's just one of those days. Uh, it happens that, you know what? I've been noticing that as I've aged, I was thinking about this last night as I was having some trouble sleeping and I was just sort of lying there and I was just like, man, my memory used to be so sharp.

Like I could recall a conversation line by line and now I will like, forget the name of somebody I work with and I'll like have to like, I'll like get, get like a weekend away from work and I'll come back and I'll be like, wait, what is this guy's name again? Are you talking about me? No, I know your name. I'm, I feel confident I could recite your name. I'm choosing not to, but I know what your name is.

Oh, you know, I got the name of it. I didn't even look it up. Pujol. Wow. Pujol. Got it. And I went there and I had, uh, I had, it was great. I had a bunch of different tacos.

And, um, I think I talked about it on the pot at one point, but they, they, you did a little bit. They, it was, uh, they paired it with, um, with, uh, mezcal. So, uh, it was, uh, and I, I don't love, I had some of the best mezcal and I, and I, and I wasn't too into it too smoky for me, too smoky. Yeah. Interesting. Um, yeah, I don't know.

It works for me. And I think it's, especially if you get it in a cocktail, it, it definitely, you know, it cuts that a little bit. So I, I don't know. I, I like it. You know my issue with last Jedi. Mm hmm. Too snoky.

Right. You thought there was too much snoke and this is the thing you've said before. Every other scene, every other scene, snoke was there. You know, you couldn't, you couldn't look away and it was just snoked the whole time. Finn would be saying something, snoke, which pop up and say, Hey, it's stoke. Yeah. Even after they kill him, it'll be like, uh, you know,

then there'll be like a scene between like Finn and Rose Tico and every other line, they're like, boy, I miss snoke. I wish snoke was here. Mezcal, too smoky, last Jedi, too snoky. Just remember it that way. Too snoky. Mm hmm. In fact, in the credits, they say dedicated to snoke.

He's a fictional character. They give like an in memoriam for him. And then under it, there's an ellipsis and that says, was he big? They're not even sure. They don't, they don't know it's unresolved. I was hoping to get some closure in episode nine, but, but did not deliver. Wait, Jamelle, as someone who watches, uh, as a Star Wars fan, did you, what did you think of?

We didn't get your, uh, rise of Skywalker reaction. What did you think of episode nine? Yeah, I, uh, so when I, when I saw it, I saw it with my brother and, um, I was like, after wrote it, I was like, this is not good. This is, uh, this is very bad, um, did not enjoy it. And I have not thought about it since then. And so that's where I am now. Like it's like, if I try to re, if I think about it again, it's like, yeah,

it's just sort of, it was like eating a candy bar. Like there's some Star Wars, you know, it's fun to see Star Wars stuff. Of course, Babu Freak is a legend. Um, uh, uh, but other than that, there's nothing about that movie that's left any kind of lasting impression. I neither, I neither dislike, I don't, I neither hate it nor, you know, feel good about it because it doesn't inspire any particular kind of feeling in me. Yeah, you're right.

It's just kind of disposable and empty. And, and yes, the only thing I see people citing is what you mentioned. Babu Freak is like, that's like, you'll, the, the only memes I see that have at all endured from episode nine are referencing that little guy. And he is cute. Jamal. But let the hate flow through you, my friend. I, you know, I didn't even watch any Star Wars yesterday, Nick.

I watched, uh, later Raiders of the Lost Ark on Sunday night. It was a Sunday night movie, which is kind of a fun throwback. I watched that on Sunday and what a great, I mean, one of the best movies, but I didn't watch any Star Wars this week. I didn't, I didn't watch a Star Wars on, I, yeah, I, I don't make a point of doing anything for May the fourth Star Wars related, although I did by just I, I, our buddy Griffin Newman, um, who was just on the pod the previous week. I, I popped in his, he did a 30 hour live stream for charity where he watched

all, uh, him and, uh, uh, him and his, uh, uh, oh fuck, I can't, uh, Connor, um, who, uh, he was played as a George Lucas character and Griffin was playing Watto and they watched like 30 hours straight of Star Wars. And so I popped in and the time that I was in there, like the 45 minute slot I was on their stream was watching the holiday special, which is bananas. Like that's something I've never just sat down and watched the holiday special all the way through. I've just seen clips of like the weirdest parts, but it is so weird.

I was supposed, I was supposed to do that with you. Wasn't I? Oh yeah. You may have flicked. I, I dropped in, I dropped in last night for that too. And we, um, we had, you, you walk the battle for indoor, which is a movie I've sort of heard of, but had never seen. And I, it was the last 30 minutes.

And as far as I could tell, and the movie involves, um, Wilford Brimley, like fighting some sort of eight man and child soldiers. It's true. I that, that, that's our movie holds a special spot in my heart, but I have not watched it in a long time, but there's a very fast creature in it. Also, just a heads up, the child sounds are coming from Jamele's house, not Nick's house for all the, all right, take it easy. All right, come on.

Yeah, I have, I have a toddler and it's not yet his bedtime. So it's actually about the time of day when he, uh, completely loses his mind. It's like this thing. And I can't really explain it, but he has dinner. Yeah, witching hour pretty much. He has dinner and then he just like, you guys are probably too old for Dragon bulls the, he becomes like a, like a, like a fucking Super Saiyan of toddler energy and, uh, and runs like terror.

Do we have to let the dog out? Cause he was terrorizing the dog, um, during, during pillows at her. He just wants to play with her, but he didn't understand that she's not a person. And I just want to be clear. Yeah. Nick and I aren't too old for anything. We're currently playing a baby game called animal crossing almost every single day.

Um, it's great. Uh, no, I, I, I was a fan of, of, of Dragon Ball Z 89 to 96. Was it, was it, uh, original run? It kind of, I am just enough older than you, Mitch, where it didn't quite hit me in my childhood and I absorbed some of it later, but it like my prime cartoon watching years where I was not watching Dragon Ball Z. Wow. Yeah, but you never, you never, you've never visited it all over since, since then or

no, I'm aware of some of the lore. You know, I know, I, I know, I've heard Super Saiyan. I know what, what the context is. I know you're Goku's. I know you're Vegeta's, uh, but I don't, but I don't have like, I haven't like seen every episode, like some people we know who've just like absorbed all of it. A lot of, you know, a lot of MMA guys, I'm a Piccolo, I'm a Piccolo man myself.

Piccolo is cool. I was a Piccolo man in a wind ensemble with all the woodwinds that I was playing. Piccolo is very hard. Boy, that is a really, really high degree of difficulty. Yeah, it's hard as hell, dude. No, I mean, it's a small flute. So you have to really control your ombra shirt to be able to play that thing and make it sound decently.

Okay. Yeah, this is making less sense to me now. Yeah, I was a Piccolo fan too, but that's because he, in my head, he was the black character. Don't ask me, do not see how that works. A lot of MMA guys and a lot of guys at the gym, like guys who get in really great shape, I show everybody if he is like this, like got into, got into fitness because of Dragon Ball, because it is like a show where just so much of it is like working

out and is just like training yourself and getting your body, like getting in pristine condition and everyone has just such awesome looking muscles that just kind of became that, that segment of nerd culture became like a very fit. I think there's a lot of pro wrestlers who like got into it via Dragon Ball. You know, you know who I am in that world. I'm Fat Boo. Boy, I wasn't going to say it. You know, it's true.

Jamel, you are a, you are someone that I know from your social media is a breakfast cereal, I'll say enthusiast, is that fair? That's, that's about right. Yeah, enthusiast. You've tried it, you've sampled a bunch of different and reviewed a bunch of different breakfast cereals. Do you have any recent favorites that come to mind as, or things that have really made a lasting impression on you one way or the other?

Yeah, so I guess I'm like contractually obligated to say that I do this for serious eats. So I, every month I try a new breakfast cereal and review it. And this past month, and the review was not yet, but I bought Banana Nut Cheerios, which were new to my grocery store. And those were terrific. Wow. I don't really like bananas very much and artificial banana flavor is like fine,

but these kind of just taste like eating a bowl of banana bread. Wow. And they were really good. So highly recommend those. On the other end of something that I ate and like regret it, and we'll regret it for the rest of my life, I bought a box of peeps. No, actually, no, I take that bag. It's not these.

It is the first cereal reviewed for them. Cinnamon Fillos, which were like, it's like these like pillow shaped cereals with like cream inside of them. Oh, oh, God. And they, is my child around here? No, when you bite into them, I have to imagine that's what it's like. That's like, it's like a, like a, like a cum sack or something. There's a, there's a smoke outline where Weigher once was.

He's at the store. You said he's my child around here. And I wasn't sure I was like, worried. Like, wait, does your, did you lose track of your kid? And I was like, oh, no, you just wanted to say something obscene. Right, right, right. He both doesn't understand yet. And I just don't want to, I don't want to risk it.

Right. Yeah. Just the idea, you're a creamsman, Nick. I thought that you would, something like this would maybe appeal to you. But I am a creamsman, but I don't like an unpleasant pop in the mouth. Like I don't like, it's just like a surprise. Like, like the gusher, I never connected with gushers. I don't like how those like explode in your mouth.

And I don't think it's fun. No, no, I don't like it. It's not a crazy explosion with gushers. It's just a little, it's a little one. I don't love it. And also like a, like a, even a jelly donut sometimes, like a filled donut. If you sometimes get it and it's just sort of like, is a little too much filling in one go, it's not my favorite.

I feel the same way. Yeah, but I definitely, yeah. Anything, anything filled, or even like, if I get like a bagel with like locks and cream cheese, I don't like too much cream cheese. So they don't like the feeling of trying to like bite into the bagel and cream cheese, just like oozing out, grosses me out. Do you, when you, when you're having a bagel with cream cheese, do you keep it in tact as like you're eating it like a sandwich, or do you eat them half by half?

Like a sandwich. Okay. Oh, what do you do? I do half by half, but I don't like an over-creamed, like a, like I like a good, I like a good amount of cream cheese. But if you go to, when you go to New York and they, they make it basically the, the bagel sandwich. Yes.

And they put such a huge chunk of cream cheese in there. I don't need that much cream cheese. There's, there's enough for another bagel at least in the amount of cream cheese. You got to fold the bagel in half. It's, it is excessive. I, I've been like, yeah, I feel those New York bagelries and they're, they're, I feel like it's a, there's a, they're a little bit elitist there about their bagels. Oh, for sure.

Yeah. And, but I've, I, I do like, I like a good amount. Yeah. It's got to be balanced. You know what I found is that like, I, if I, if I'm going to get something that's very creamy, like a, like a salt bagel, something that's got like a, like a, like a lot of salt in it, like that it'll kind of cut against the cream cheese and the cream cheese will cut against the salt.

Actually, if I, that's something that, that works well with a nice layer of frosting, but it's, um, yeah. A lot of places they'll overdo it. Ask for it on the side. Yeah. The portion of your own cream cheese. There you go. Jamal, what is your, what is your favorite cereal?

What's your, what's your, what's your all-time favorite cereal? Wow. Big question. So my all-time favorite cereal, I think it's just cinnamon toast crunch. Um, hell yeah. Yeah. It's, I mean, it's sort of like, it's not, it's not like a perfect cereal. It gets soggy too quickly.

Um, but it's really satisfying to eat. It tastes great. The milk was always great. Uh, to the extent that I even buy cereal these days, I try not to buy cinnamon toast crunch because it does not have any nutritional value. And, um, uh, if my, if my kid sees me eating cereal, he wants to have some too. And I would feel very bad about giving him cinnamon toast crunch. So we have, um, quaker toast should open those squares, uh, or quaker, whatever

they're called, and those are great. Actually, those are like super delicious. Um, that's like my second favorite. Are those a little less sugary? Yeah. They don't have that much sugar. They're really, really crunchy. Um, they're really good.

I, I bought some, um, frosted flakes and it's kind of a reignited my love with, I'm a frosted place because I just remember having, when I was younger, I just had corn flakes at my grandma's house and then you would put sugar on the corn flakes, basically. Yes. There's something with corn flakes. When they, when they get a little bit soggy, they still taste pretty great. I'm, I'm, I'm a corn, I'm, uh, uh, probably, uh, this is probably my number one.

I like raisin bran as well, but frosted flakes slash corn flakes. That does it for me for whatever reason. The great thing about frosted flakes is they're really conducive to just having a big ass bowl of them. Like for whatever reason, a really big bowl of frosted flakes is satisfying in a way that like a big bowl of other cereals wouldn't be. And I can't, I have no rational explanation for this, but I think it's true a thousand percent agree with you.

I've done that a couple of times over, over the course of quarantine. I love, I love them. Nick, you, are you a frosted flakes man or no? I do love a fry. Do really enjoy a frosted flake. Cinnamon toast crunch, one of my childhood favorites. Haven't had it in years, but it is a very, very, you know, S tier cereal. I, I think probably, you know, I am, I am something of a, of a loyalist to

the captain crunch varietals, both cap and crunch at the original. And then peanut butter crunch. I really like, I like crunch berries too. All the cap and crunches for me were like a big time, you know, fat kid indulgence. And so I have an allegiance to those. And then also the, man, this one is, is too, it's too much. It's excessive, but cookie crisp is just so sugary.

And so it just tastes so specific. Like it doesn't really taste like cookies, but, but like the, it tastes like how the shape should taste, these cookie like shapes. I don't know, it just, it just somehow makes sense in my, in my brain. But yeah, I think probably I would definitely, if I was going to have like a Mount cereal more, I think cinnamon toast crunch would honestly be up there because I do love that one. Um, and yeah, I don't know.

Frosted flakes quite, quite makes the cut, but it's definitely one that I enjoy. Frosted flakes to me though is like a, it's sugary, but not, it still tastes, it's not sugary enough where it feels like a, a cinnamon toast crunch or a, or I'm all not cinnamon toast crust, but a captain crunch at least. It still seems edible. Yes. To your point, I could eat frosted flakes more frequently for breakfast than it could any of these cereals now as an adult.

Like the, the, the ones I mentioned are all just such sugar bombs. They're, they're effectively desserts and almost should be treated as such. Mitch, you're, one of your cats just crawled onto your lap. Nick, you've got to know what my cat is. You got to know which one this is. We of course, uh, have Wally. Yeah. On the microphone.

You got it right. Holy shit. He's been studying. I'm very, Nick, that makes me very happy. Well, and why did you know that, Nick? Uh, Wally has the white stripe down his, the W and W. So it made the little association. Oh shit, he just fell.

That's fine. How are your cats doing, Mitch? Um, they're wondering why I'm home a little bit more, I feel like. Than I usually, just slightly a little bit more than I usually am. They're, they're very cute. Like, uh, you know, like they're always off doing their own thing, uh, in Irma more so than Wally, but both of them, if I go to another room, they eventually just come in that room and they, they follow me around.

It's very, it's very cute. I love them, Nick. They're keeping me, they're a good company here in, in quarantine. Yeah. I mean, it's. Yeah. I imagine, especially as a, as a guy by like flying solo as a solo man, uh, much like Han, yes, back in the day.

I'm surprised my name isn't solo. Mitch solo. Well, no one gave it to you. That's what happened to you. Yeah, no one gave it to you. You need, you need to go somewhere and they'll ask you, who'd you do come with? And you'll be like, well, I'm gonna hear about myself and they'll say, well, okay, you're, you're Mitch solo now.

And I'm just so glad that got answered. Like that was just so glad we had closure on that. Oh, absolutely. I was watching those films. I was like, why is this guy's last name solo? That doesn't make any sense to me. For 40 years, people screamed, why is his name solo? Why is he solo?

It's always good to get some new information that makes it worse. I now, now I'm like Han Solo was such a cool name. And now I'm like, oh, now it's like bad. It's because he was alone and it's such a bummer. Less, less, less fun. But I was going to say, like, as a man who is by himself, I imagine having some animal companionship is, is nice. It is.

It's great. I love, I love having them around. They, you know, they, they, they crawl in between my legs and you can't really move around in your bed at night, but they're, they're great company, Nick. I love them. They're, they're, they're keeping, they're keeping me happy over here. Jamal, what's the pit situation in your home? Oh, we have a dog, uh, an older hound named Rose.

We got her from the shelter a couple of years ago. Uh, and she's, uh, she's a very good girl. Uh, she's currently, whenever someone goes outside, she wants to follow. So she's currently looking at me and looking back at her, uh, back, uh, door. And, uh, pretty much wants me to let her out so she can go hang out with everyone else. Um, yeah, she's cool. She's great. She hates other dogs.

Loves people, hates dogs. Wow. That's a fascinating animal affectation. When a dog hates, doesn't like other dogs. It's like an anti-weiger. Hmm. You're saying I don't like people, but I do like dogs. Yeah.

Right. I like people. Oh, sure. I'm fine with people. Jamal, you mentioned that you were having, that you were baking some, uh, some breads for your, for your sandwiches at home. But I know you're also a pie enthusiast. You're a pie guy.

Have you baked any pies while you've been in lockdown? Have not baked any pies. I've only recently started getting back into baking sweets and, uh, cause I, for whatever reason, just like wasn't feeling it. Uh, but no pies, but I did make, uh, on Sunday. Was it? Yeah. A citrus cake, a citrus almond cake.

Wow. Um, so, cause I had some, I had some raw almonds. Let's say onions. I don't know. I can't. So you make, if you're, if your memory has been going, not really speaking to people outside of my immediate family, it's caused my ability to talk to just like go out the window.

Like I just no longer, I can no longer, uh, uh, construct sort of like sentences, which is a problem since it's like my job. Um, right. But I made this citrus almond cake using a blanched and raw almonds, turn them into almond flour, had an orange and a lemon, turned that into like a paste and you know, sugar, flour, olive oil, uh, some other, some eggs and, uh, turning that to a cake is pretty good. That sounds delightful.

You know what I've thought about, Nick? Mm hmm. No one, uh, pies, pies are still being eaten, but no one's probably been, uh, gotten a pie in the face since all of this went down. Yeah. I mean, pie in the face incidents are probably way down. Also, you know what? Old ladies bumps me out.

Old ladies can cool their pile, their pies in the windowsill without any worry. Cause no one's going around swiping pies these days. That's not, that's, that's just not right. That's not right. An old lady, when she puts a pie on the windowsill, she should live in fear that it's going to get snatched. That's what I think. Well, you know, these days, I mean, you can check the FBI uniform crime

statistics, like pie fest down, pies in the face down. This is a guy's floating horizontally, uh, being led by a pie smell, a way down. Right. Way down, um, all sort of pie related crime, uh, is, uh, at historic lows. Yeah. Also, I just, I, if you're, Nick, if you float towards a pie, if you, if you, that is, that's a huge, you can get arrested for that. It's like a huge offense.

I think it's a capital offense. Yeah. Don't, don't, don't put a bullet in your fucking head. Half of Gitmo is filled with those guys. I have you guys turned to, to more sweets? Well, because, because I feel like I've been, uh, I feel like I've weirdly been eating healthier. If that, like, I've just been kind of like, okay, well, I'm, I don't know

what it is. I don't, it might just be because I'm, I'm, it feels like, like, okay, this is a way I can kind of be, uh, somewhat productive when I can't, when I'm in a, in a very, we're in a very unproductive world is just by like dialing in my nutrition. But I know some people have been like, you know, really snacking more. Some people have, have been indulging their sweet tooths. Have you guys, what have you been snacking on?

I've been trying not to snack. I mean, it's because like I, I'm normally in, in, again, in the before times, I, uh, went to the gym all the time. And so like now that I can't really do that anymore, uh, I've lost my excuse for just like consuming food constantly. Right. Yeah, I, I, my two indulgences during quarantine have been, I bought Snickers ice cream bars and then I bought them again.

Uh, fuck those are so good. I, there's about six to a pack and I usually eat about two of them a week. Um, so that's not terrible, but not great. And then I also bought, I had some reduced fat cheez-its last week or a couple of weeks ago, I bought it a couple of weeks ago and then I, and I got some toasted ones this week. Uh, and I try not to eat those much either, but I, those, those are the two things that if I'll, on Saturday night, when I'm doing trivia with the Quincy,

with the Quincy crew and, uh, and I've had a, if I have a couple of drinks, then, then I'll, then I'll pull out some cheez-its. But Nick, like you, I'm eating, I am eating healthy. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm eating, uh, mostly salads. And then I have, uh, a meal delivery thing that I do for, for dinners. And so the only exception is on Sunday, really, is when I, that's when I go right a little wild. But wait, wait, this, this salad is the salad thing is big news for me.

Cause I know you're not someone who loves a salad. I love salads. What, you love salads. Yeah, I love salads. What have you been putting in them? I love like a, I love like a delicious salad here at my house when I'm making them, I just do, uh, I usually do butter lettuce and then I do carrots and onions and, uh, I have a, um, a Greek yogurt dressing.

That's like a ranchy Greek yogurt dressing. That's not bad. There was this, this Oikos dressing, the Greek yogurt dressing that I really liked and it's, I can't find it anymore. I don't know if it's a quarantine thing or if it just isn't on the shelves anymore. But, uh, and then I'll, uh, sometimes I'll order out salads at like, I'll get a tender green salad, but those are tricky. You got to watch out.

Yes. Cause some of them will have a thousand calories in them. So you get a, you know, even the better ones are probably closer to like 600 calories, which, you know, for a salad. Are you putting any protein on those salads or anything? Are you, yeah, the 600, oh, on the, my salads, the ones that I make, the ones I make in the house, no, I'm not, I'm not usually doing any protein on them. I'll do it, I'll do it with my dinner or with my, with like a lunch, like I'll

have like turkey and, and, uh, and a side salad, basically. I could, for lunch today, I cobbled together in addition to having the, uh, the really, really unhealthy food that we were going to talk about in a second, but I had accompanying that I cobbled together like a shitty Waldorf salad just based off of the ingredients that I had in the house. And it just like, and I was like, oh yeah, you know, you can, I, I, I've actually enjoyed that when I make a home salad, because that's a, that's lunch for me, maybe four or five days a week.

And I'm just like, I'll just go, I'm not just going to throw like a lettuce blend in there and call it a day. Like I'll put it, I'll put a little bit of work into it. You don't have to put, you put like 10 minutes of work into a salad and you could have something that's like, that's like way plus up over, you know, what we'd be if you just, just kind of half asked it and threw a handful of whatever your bag mix was in there, just some, some walnuts, some, some, uh, finally sliced apple, uh, some, uh, some avocado.

I deviated from the Waldorf formula by throwing in some red bell pepper, uh, but you know, just with kind of a mesclan, uh, and, um, and kale blend and, uh, nutritional yeast. I've gotten big on nutritional yeast. I feel like that works really well for me. It like kind of gives what, gives what cheese does, but without like the, the dairy factor. It's really good on popcorn.

It's good on popcorn. Okay. I love nutritional yeast on popcorn. Wow, that's a good tip. Is there, is there a statler salad? Um, yeah, there is a statler salad. There should be a statler salad. Yeah.

It's, it, it, it smells like socks. It, uh, it's mostly mothballs and like a vinaigrette. I, I, uh, when we were doing trivia the other day with the Quincy crew, they, they asked what the name of the two old men in the Muppets weren't, it was the fastest I answered a trivia question the entire night. I was the only, the only one who, I don't think everyone got it, but a statler and Waldorf, as you know, Nick. Um, yes, but there should be a statler salad.

Shouldn't it there? I bet honestly some like cool, uh, gastropub has done a statler salad. I bet, I bet someone has come up with that as like kind of like a, you're making me not like, you don't think someone has come up, has come up with that? No, just like the gastropub place that did. Now I don't like it anymore. I don't like it.

It's all small plates, but everything's $18. And they, and they, they broke the, uh, they've actually opened back up before quarantine broke. Nick, have you been demonstrating down at the beaches for them to open back up since you're down there in a, down to a mall? Well, no, no, I, no, absolutely. No, of course not. What are you doing?

Uh, but the, uh, yeah, that is like a, it's weird though, even going outside cause like I went on like a little bit of a run today and I was telling, telling Emma this before we started recording cause Emma is a, is a runner. And I am not much of a runner, but like Jamel, I'm someone who goes to the, who'd been going to the gym regularly. I even religiously, I would say before this all began. And so I went on a little bit, tried to get a little bit of cardio in today, but with the, with like a face mask and man, it's, I, like, I got winded after

like, I was like, I was running 11 minute miles and got winded after two miles. I was just like, I can't even breathe anymore. I feel like I'm going to get asphyxied. I just can't get enough oxygen in my lungs. Having that eighth inch of fabric, you know, obstructing your breathing. It's tricky. Nick, I got news for you, my friend. Yeah.

You're a fat boy. No, no, that can't, it's the fabric. There's nothing to do with my obesity. I've been, I've been doing my walks and I'm like, very slowly being like, I should, I should jog or run this stretch right here, which is, uh, I haven't felt those feelings in a long time. So it's a positive thing. That's great.

But, uh, but it's still, I have yet to do it, but I will at some point, I'll probably break my knees as soon as I try to run again. Yeah. You got to be careful as a big guy. Cause yes, you're right. I am carrying a lot of weight on my frame these days. And yeah, you do have to be careful with the, the knees and the back. Um, just the pounding of the pavement can be relentless.

So have you been doing anything for fitness with your, with the gym not being available? Yeah, we live down the street from a middle school and the track is open, um, since the schools are. So I just go down to the track and like run laps, um, and, uh, uh, do push-ups and use, they have like the soccer goals up, up still. And they're, they're actually just the right size to be able to do pull-ups on them.

So I'll do that. Although I'll say a couple of days ago it was during this and a cop pulled up and just, I could tell it was just like watching me the whole time and I wanted to be like, listen, dude, I'm not about to steal these soccer goals. You can chill out. Dear God. And yet people down at the beach protesting, not Nick, there's no, there's no, there's no cops down there enforcing them.

Not, there was a video the other day that fucking made me so mad. Oh yeah. Well, there was like a wild ass white people screaming at the cops. It's insane. Man, God, that, that's freedom right there. I wish I could scream into a cop's face. It's so, it, that is so, I just don't understand what, you know, whatever. We don't have to get into it.

It's too depressing to even think about. It's a bad world. Yeah, it sucks. Hey, we should pivot from a, we should bring it from a, from a bad world to some bad food, what we've been putting into our bodies this week for this podcast. Nick, I'll say bad in terms of nutritionally. I, that I feel like is beyond dispute. They, these are, these are very, very processed food items that are, that are

calorically dense, but we're talking frozen burritos. And Jamel, when we talked to you about, about doing a, an episode for this month for Doughboy's Topical Freeze, our exploration of frozen meals, you specifically cited burritos. Is there a, is there a reason for that? Back when I was, when I first started in journalism about 10 years ago, didn't get paid a lot of money and ate a lot of frozen burritos. It was sort of like a staple item of my diet.

And so I was just sort of like, I've not eaten a frozen burrito. Like the first time I got a pay raise, I was like, okay, no more frozen burritos for me. So I have not eaten a frozen burrito since I was like 23. Wow. So I was just like, I was like, I want to try frozen burrito again. Have an excuse to do it. Do you eat as a, as a, as an avid home cook, do you ever eat frozen food in

general? Well you, I use frozen vegetables all the time. Um, got it. Uh, so like for, for, uh, for like soups or stews or like whatever, frozen greens are so much more convenient and like there's no real difference in terms of texture because it's all being simmered anyway. Um, there are some things that I think actually taste a bit better when you roast them that are frozen.

Like I made some, uh, I roasted some frozen okra yesterday into like kind of little crispy okra pops. Um, but, uh, frozen prepared foods, not so much. Uh, I can't think of anything that I've eaten that's been prepared and that was frozen recently. Yeah. I, I, my burrito, my frozen burrito path is similar to yours where it was a thing that I had a lot when I was younger and broker.

And then I kind of reached a point where I realized that, you know, for when I could afford not to eat, not to eat them anymore. Cause they are so, they are dirt cheap. That's the thing about frozen burritos and specifically this week's chain, I was reading some blogs that were like, you can find these on sale for 16 cents a piece. It's, it's, uh, you know, it's, I remember there, Tina's burritos, we used to be like five for a dollar at, at some places.

So they are, they are super duper cheap, but man, yeah, I like, in terms of, in comparison to just like a tortilla and some, even just canned beans and pre shredded cheese that you could make like on your stove top or, or in your microwave, like to me, that is so much better than what you would get from a frozen burrito. But Mitch, I know you are someone who has some allergic, uh, some allegiance to frozen burritos. I think frozen burritos are hard.

First of all, I don't, I do not think they're easy. I, as we were saying with, with, and do you mean, do you mean texturally when you take them out of the wrapper? Just nice bite into that frozen burrito. Do you think I'm that much of a fool? Oh man, I just drooled as I said that. Um, I, I think that for me burritos as a, as a young, uh, Irish scared little, uh, white boy, I was afraid to eat any food outside of like, like Americanized.

When I was a real little kid, pizza and burgers and spaghetti and, and kind of like, uh, um, and, and so like, uh, I never really ventured out and when I was young, young, I never really ventured out when I was like in elementary school or, or, and I like, even tacos, I feel like we, I had tacos of course, but Mexican food was not a thing that I would eat. And then out here, I mean, I, it's my second favorite food. I've said this before. I love, I love Mexican food, but a lot of my experience with burritos.

I mean, like really my first experience with burritos, I feel like are these little frozen Tina's burritos. That's kind of my first introduction, your first experience, your introduction to burritos, whereas Tina's burritos specifically, I mean, here's the other thing too, Nick, is that like there weren't a ton of burrito. I mean, and this is the, the crazy way the, that the United States has even changed in the last 40 years, but in like the eighties, there were like two Mexican restaurants in a Taco Bell that wasn't even close to my house until,

you know, middle school or whatever, when, when the first one opened up nearby. And Taco Bell wasn't away. My weird introduction into Mexican food and, and like taco night, but like, you know, taco night, whatever, you know what I mean? That's, doesn't really count. Well, you mentioned like, you mentioned a couple of Italian dishes as, as your favorites as a kid and like, I think it's kind of happened in our lifetimes. We've seen Mexican food go from being like, this is a regional thing.

Tour in border states to being like another national cuisine, like, like you Mexican American food, like Italian American cuisine, it's just like everywhere. I feel like there's, we were in Nashville and they're like, oh, there's this great Mexican, there's great. Takarilla, you guys got to try. They, they, you know, like as a kid, there is like a slight, there is a little bit of a xenophobia thing going on because you don't know what this food

is. You, you see Indiana Jones, which is xenophobic in some ways and they eat weird stuff and you're like, is there, and as a little kid, you're like, is there weird stuff in this food that's different from my basic burger? You know what I mean? Like I, you, I don't know that. And as a kid, I didn't understand that. And Temple of Doom made you afraid of tacos.

That is such an A to C. Temple of Doom didn't make me afraid of tacos. I still ate tacos, but talk, but tacos to me is like, your parents took you out to the monkey brains restaurant. That is, you just thought back. We'll take a break. We'll be back with more dough boys. Welcome back to dough boys.

We are here with Jamel Bowie, reviewing this week's frozen food, Tina's burritos for dough boys, topical freeze. Tina's burritos was founded and is still based in Los Angeles. They make all their tortillas in-house and so, and it, you know, it's a place that's just kind of been local and continued and grown into a national brand over the, over its decades of operation. Mitch, you had, you had something you wanted to, to finish with. Well, I was just saying that, like, to me, tacos are to Mexican food,

what spaghetti is to Italian food or something. You know what I mean? Like spaghetti and red sauce. I just think that that is like kind of the basic thing. And as a kid, I wouldn't, I definitely wouldn't venture out too far and try different things at a Mexican restaurant at all. And I think it does come from, I mean, look, I'm being maybe too honest, but I think other people can probably relate to that thing of, Nick, you,

you were, you were, you were, you were, you were, you were, you were, you were you, you had the benefit of growing up in Southern California, which I, which is great. And you got to experience, I'm sure, a lot more different types of food, but. Right. But there was definitely like, you know, in the eighties, the sushi was like becoming a new thing. Like that wasn't a thing that was, it was like a, you know, like a delicacy.

It wasn't a thing that you'd have at Walgreens. So I remember the first time I encountered sushi, I was like, this is weird. I had the same sort of reaction and now I feel like someone growing up with it. It's just like, Oh yeah, this is just a part of, of, of the food that you have at America. Uh, but so that is, that is crazy to me because I remember having sushi in our house for the first time and my mom and dad were having it. And I felt like I was like 14 or something.

I felt like I was like much older. Yeah. And it was a crazy, and I was like raw fish, like, whoa, like weird. You know what I mean? It was very strange to me at the time. Right. And now I think it's like young kids that can be their favorite food, which is great.

Yeah, I, I am, my parents were both in the military. Uh, and so one consequence of that is that like they, by virtue of, and they were, I mean, they were in the military until I was, until I went to college. They were in the military for like 25 years. Um, but by the time I was like old enough to be sort of have an opinion about food, they had already, they'd like eaten stuff like Filipino food. They'd eat, they'd eat all this sort of thing. So it was sort of part of our household, uh, cooking because my dad did

all the cooking and so it's like, he liked that stuff. Um, but there were still things like, like you, Mitch, I think the first time I had Mexican food, quote unquote, was Taco Bell when I was like in elementary school, like that's the first thing I can recall that would qualify. And I think, and honestly, I think that, I mean, like, look, I know that we say that there's a lot of issues with all these fast food restaurants and there is, but I think that a Taco Bell can be almost in a Tina's, Tina's burritos can be almost helpful in that way of like, Oh, it's just that dip.

It's you're dipping your foot in the pool of the idea of Mexican food. And I know that people don't think Taco Bell is Mexican food, but that kind of maybe sets you on a journey to try some different stuff, Nick, and get into it, you know? Oh, for sure. And I think a lot of people have kind of followed that path. So the Tina's burritos we should talk about, we should talk about one thing we mentioned before the break that they are small and they really are small.

They are these are dainty little things, at least the default, the default ones that are available, four ounces is the, is the, how big a serving is. Yeah, they're, they're like, they're almost like taquitos. They're almost like fat taquitos. They're so, they're so little. This Tina's burrito is why I can say that I'm hung like a burrito. I'm hung like a burrito. Tina's burrito.

I say it under my breath. What do you, what do you say quietly? Nothing. Oh, okay. Let's continue this date. She's thinking he must be hung like a Chipotle burrito. Yeah, they're tiny and they, and they pack a caloric punch. I, you know, not much else for me for the rest of the day today, because I, I had

five of these things and I ate half of them, except for the last one, which I ate a full one, and I'll tell you which one that was at the end. So about a thousand calories down for, for lunch on these burritos, which they do not seem like they, uh, like they are, are worth that many calories as you're taking them down. Yeah. I mean, if you're just trying to get full, because, you know, we, you have different goals depending on, uh, like what, you know, whatever you're depending

on your socioeconomic situation, like it's just like, you may not have enough. You may just be completely broken. It's just like, this is the cheapest thing I can get. And I, and I, if I eat two of these, I know I can get full for 50 cents. And I feel like that is the, that is the advantage of these, but they're, they're, I mentioned how processed they are. They have so many ingredients. Like Natalie was reading the, one of the labels and it's just like literally

like 40 different ingredients on one of these things. Um, all the different, the, the different additives and preservatives that are packed in there. Um, in fact, a truly a rash has broken out on my arm. Uh, you can see it. I just, I'm showing it to the camera right now. And I am wondering if, if, uh, a part of it is from all the weird preservatives in the food or something.

I don't, it's hard to know. Will it be like the movie district nine and just like tomorrow you'll wake up and you'll be a burrito. That's a dream come true. Well, you, you'd be like a man versus food challenge burrito. Yes. I would assume a human sized burrito would be a man versus food size, a man versus food challenge.

Adam Richmond would tap out, try to take you down. Yeah. Adam Richmond wouldn't even, I don't even think you would dare try. No, yeah. Is that guy still living? He's thin now. He, he lost some weight. He had to quit the, he had to quit the man versus food.

There's a new host. I forget the name of the new host, but the, he had to quit because the, all the spicy food he was eating for the challenges were burning a hole in his stomach lining. And doctors were like, you have to, you have to stop. So they did man versus food nation for a time, which was he would go there and then they'd, he'd, they'd draft a local person to take part in the challenge. But then that gimmick didn't really work. So then they just rebooted it with a new host.

I saw one of them recently, I watched one with a new host recently. And, you know, the guy's good, but the, the actual, like I was just like watching it was just like, man, this is so, I still have a hard time watching this guy just like put himself in pain because it was, it was a fire and ice challenge where he had to eat like four pounds of spicy popcorn and then like ghost chili popcorn and then drink like a 64 ounce milkshake. So it was just, just what he was putting into his body. I was just like, God, this is so unpleasant to watch this person endure.

That's, that sounds like a fucking punishment. That, not only does it sound like a punishment, that sounds like some caricature, like some Soviet propaganda's would draw up about the United States. And then the editor of PROBDA is like, uh, this is too far. Let's, no one's going to buy this. Do you know what I think would, would, wouldn't help, uh, Adam Richmond and eating the, the Mitch size burrito challenges that the burrito would also be in my bed, which I feel like it's kind of, uh, Nick, I think that

they should replace it with like a, with a fun, like a, like a fun, like a famous fun big guy. If, for instance, if the nutty professor took over man versus food. Oh, if you got a clump in there, boy, different, different story, because the clump, a clump would be loving every minute of it. Of course. I can't, you know what, that's the first I came to mind. I rewatched that.

I, I watched just the scene of Dave Chappelle as the, the comic roasting. Um, it's so mean, it's so mean. It's so mean. I was like watching this. I remember laughing in the theater. Actually, I saw that on a date. I took a, I took a girl to see this and I remember both of us like, like laughing so hard at that part that we like looked at each other like, ha, ha.

This is funny. Right. And then I watched it and I was just like, I'm, I'm, this is making me upset. It's supposed to make you feel sad for, for Sherman. Well, well, Eddie Murphy acted really well, but it's, but it's like, it's, but just like all these fat jokes. I remember like hearing the fat jokes and being like, Oh, those are funny fat jokes, but watching it now, I'm just like, God, this, this is just so cruel.

Yeah. This poor guy. But then he comes back and he destroys Chappelle. I forgot that beat. He comes back as, he comes back as buddy love and he, and he fucking rips into a Chappelle's character. He like roasts him. Oh, I didn't, I, I don't remember this come up in scene at all.

No, I have to rewatch this movie. Yeah. I was going to say it's great, but it may be possibly as problematic. So I have no idea. So the, the ones I got here are the varietals of Tina's burritos that I was able to obtain. I got the bean and cheese and I should mention that there's a different wrapper color for each flavor, which is a lot of fun. I got the bean and cheese, the beef and bean, the beef and bean slash green chili,

the red hot beef and the beef and bean chimichanga. So those are kind of the baseline burritos. And then I got a couple, I got one Tina's cantina, which is like their fancier label. I got a Tina's cantina breakfast burrito, which had eggs, bacon and cheddar. And then I got a Tina's chimmy as distinct from the beef and bean chimichanga. This is a more substantial, thicker chimichanga. And this was steak and cheddar cheese. That's the one I had today with lunch.

The rest of them I had yesterday in kind of a gauntlet. Jamel, what were you able to track down Tina's burrito wise? Here in Virginia, we just had the, we had bean, bean and cheese and hot beef. And so that is what I got, ate them, ate some of them. Well, I mean, tried all of them today, shortly before this record. How did you prep them? Did you microwave or oven them? I microwaved them.

I thought I was going to oven them, but then I thought to myself, I want to do this authentically. Like if I were, if I were actually going to, if I were eating microwavable burritos on the regular, I would just pop them in the microwave. I wouldn't go through the trouble putting them in the oven. Yeah, I think that's the more authentic experience. I will say I wanted to try, I've had a lot of these in my life and I'd never put them in the oven.

So I tried, I did a baking sheet with a batch of them in the oven. And then I microwaved the Tina's chimmy, steak and cheddar cheese one separately. And I don't think there was, I mean, honestly, probably there, I think it's better in the microwave because the issue with the oven is that it crisps up the tortilla and then it stops having the texture of the burrito. It's just like a, it's just like a crunchy filled, like almost pastry. Mitch, what did you track down? Well, I got another cat here now, if you haven't noticed.

Oh, look, on your, that's, of course, your adorable cat, Wally again. You asshole. You know, you know, it's not Wally. I know that's Irma. I know she was, she likes plastic. So I brought out all these. Oh, oh, did Irma just say Dada? She did.

Wow, that's amazing. Irma, good baby. She likes plastic. So she came up when I had all these burrito wrappers out. I got, oh, that's adorable. I got the brown bag, which is beef and bean, the green bag, beef and bean slash green chili, the red bag, red hot beef, the blue bag, beef and bean chimichanga, and then the black bag, beef and bean sriracha.

As a, as a kid, and when I was, when I was younger, this, the beef and bean brown bag, this, this was the big one. And then I feel like this was the one I had the most. And then the beef and green, and beef and bean and green chili, the green bag, and then the, the, the red hot beef. I'm not sure. I think maybe the, the red hot beef came out maybe at the same time as the beef and bean, but maybe the green one was a little later.

But all three of those I remember having as a kid. And also I remember the black bag, but I don't think it was beef and bean and sriracha. I think it was a different style. Maybe it's changed over the years, or maybe I'm just wrong. I suspect sriracha is a recent introduction with the whole sriracha trend. And, and you know, the, the, these fast food and frozen foods are always really late to the party with these, with these trends, but they eventually jump on.

The red hot beef is the one I remember. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe it was, maybe it was beef and bean and cheese or, or something. I don't know. Someone, someone will know this online and yell at us. I would always get the bean and cheese and the red hot beef. Those are the ones that, that stick out.

I will say tasting the bean and cheese again, I was like, man, this really doesn't have much cheese in it. Yeah. It's like a bean burrito. No, that's, that's, I was sort of surprised, but I was expecting it to be sort of like way cheesier, but it's just sort of like a, I don't know, like a hint of cheese or maybe the type of cheese and the way it's mixed in. I don't know.

But it was, it was much more, um, yeah. Just kind of beads with a tiny bit of cheese. Yeah. And, and not much as a result, there's just not a lot of flavor in that one. It's, it's very just, you know, you're just getting bites of hot starch. Um, the, the, the ones where, you know, having beef in it, I think helped it a lot. I think the, I prefer the beef and bean and the beef and bean green chili over

the bean and cheese, the bean and cheese is probably my least favorite. And the red hot beef, I think is like, it has a decent kick to it. Uh, you know, I am something of a heat seeker and, and like having that, having like a little bit of, of heat to it that I didn't have to add a hot sauce to, um, it's not super spicy, but it's got just enough where it actually tastes like something that was probably one of my favorites, uh, from the batch. As, as a kid, I loved the brown bag, the beef and bean burrito. That was my favorite.

Um, the red, the red hot beef one, I always thought just had a different taste to it. And also, I don't think there might be beans in it. I can now, I can't even remember if there was beans in it or not in the red hot beef one, but it just has a slightly different taste to it. And I, and I don't like it as much. I think I would go green, the green chili bag, the green chili burrito before I would do the red hot beef one.

It's a little milder and it's a little bit less. It's a little, you know, that it's got a chili flavor. It's not just generically hot, which the red hot beef is kind of just generically spicy. Yeah. Almost like they just loaded it up with, with the chili powder or something. Bye bye. Or hi.

I don't know if you said hi or bye. You say bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. That is precious. He thinks our show is bad. He was done with it immediately. Yeah.

The green, the green and the green bag and brown bag, I'll refer to them. Those were my, I think those were my two favorites growing up, but I still, and I still, I think those are, I still think it's the same. I'll give, I'll probably give a ranking towards the end here. But there's a couple of things that I remember that still are, still are the case with, with these guys. One is that you're supposed to put a paper towel around them when you microwave. It says to microwave for a minute and 10 seconds.

You need to go way longer. At least I did. And I, when I, when I was younger, I did a minute on one side and a paper towel and then a minute on the other side and a paper towel here at my house. I did a minute, 10 seconds and then a minute, 10 seconds. The paper towel will get stuck to the burrito and it will kind of partially open up. Yeah, it will splatter when you're cutting it. And then another issue is, is that if you cook it just a little too long,

the ends can really get hard. You'll get some hardened ends there or the beef will spill out of the burrito and really just burn to the plate. That's another issue. But I got to say, Nick, I've had a lot. I've had a lot of frozen burritos over the years. And I think for the price, these things are, I think that the taste of them is still good. I know that I know that they're not high quality, but just like the beefy

and beanie taste of them is still better than a lot of other big frozen burritos. Maybe because they're so compact. I'd agree that the of the ones I had, the red hot beef, I thought was the best tasting one, and it really didn't taste that meaningfully different from what I remember, sort of like, you know, a $3 organic frozen burrito taste. I mean, it wasn't the same, but it was like close enough that if I were if I were buying frozen burritos, I would just go for the cheaper one. Yeah, yeah, definitely.

And I think that's the main asset here is just how cheap they are. And I, you know, so the chimichanga, the beef and bean chimichanga, which is a comes in a blue wrapper, I didn't even realize it was a chimichanga when I was buying it, because it just looked like all the rest of them. Yeah. But so but as far as I can tell, and this was one of the ones I wanted to put in the oven to see if if the altered the texture at all. But as far as I can tell, it's it's as opposed to having any sort of deep fried

feeling to it, this is just it just is like a thicker tortilla. It's just a little bit more hot pockety. I didn't find it unpleasant, but it wasn't it wasn't really like the crispiness that I expect to get from a chimichanga if I get it from a restaurant. But this one was OK. I didn't think it was it was appreciably better or worse than the beef and bean regular burrito. It just had a little bit more tortilla to it.

It just had like a slight taste of that chimichanga coating. Like you could just taste it just a little bit. Just a little bit of like oil that you that you were, yeah, that you were absorbing and or that the tortilla had absorbed. And then the the the the eggs, bacon and cheese, cantina burrito, I just this was one of my least favorites. And I think the issue was the eggs reminded me of like I remember what I used to be in Boy Scouts and there'd be for whatever reason

on some campouts that we wouldn't have actual eggs. There'd be like a rehydrated egg that you'd like add boiling water to and whip it up. And I just remember those tasting like so like egg adjacent, but not really like eggs. And this is what that tastes. I mean, it may have been that same kind of product within these, but the eggs just tasted so gross, even though this had a decent amount of cheese and you could taste the hints of bacon. This one, I just was like, I found this to be the least pleasant one to eat.

However, the chimmy steak and cheddar cheese, which I had today along with my with my knockoff Waldorf salad, I thought was actually pretty good. That was the one of these where I was like, I kind of like this. The steak chunks within it had had a nice texture to them. Which which which one was this? This is the chimmy. So I think this is again, one of their labels that's a little bit more

as opposed to the chimichanga. This one was a little bigger. It was like it was more of like a like an eight to ten ounce as opposed to the four ounce. And it just had a little bit of a higher grade of product inside of the tortilla. It felt like I thought this one was pretty good. And also microwaving it versus putting it in the oven. Actually think even though it was a chimichanga, I actually think it worked better in the microwave versus the chimichanga

that I did up on the on a baking sheet. Wow. Nick, I never not only have I never got the kind of higher higher class version ones, the ones the ones you got. No surprise, by the way. Call me a one percenter because of it. What are the frozen burritos? I boss snooty wags gets that you got Tina's burritos. I truly never even seen. I've never seen these nicer versions.

The breakfast burrito ones and the you show me the packaging. I've never even seen them before. Maybe because they do look so different that I've never noticed them. But I really searched yesterday when I was at the supermarket and I did not see the kind of the the the higher status Tina's burritos anywhere. So the Ralph's I went to a Ralph's, which is a Kroger in much of the country. It's and and the yeah, I had never seen those either. I think they might be newer varietals.

I think they might have been like, oh, we have all our default ones. Let's make some bigger, you know, a higher price point ones. Jebel, were there any other any other burrito thoughts you had on your end, the ones you sampled? No other no other burrito thoughts. I thought the tort the tortillas not great, but it wasn't like. I mean, I think my my sort of main thought is none of this was as bad as I thought it was going to be.

Like, I don't think I mean, you're referring to guesting on Doe Boys. Of course. I was just something I actually take kind of seriously. I was really I was like actually kind of apprehensive, sort of like, OK, I got these frozen burritos, how are they going to taste? And like I had I tried all of them and I was like, you know, I wouldn't eat these normally, but they're not they're not terrible. Yeah, they're not they're not like if I ate one or ate two,

I don't think I'd like feel like shit afterwards. Yeah, some rumblies. I will say that that was the. So I had like a batch of six burritos, portions of six burritos in one go yesterday, and that was the worst I felt physically this calendar year. And really, and I think it was just the quantity of. Yeah, I mean, you had six burritos. It was too much.

It was excessive. I think, you know what? I'll say that it was quantity as opposed to the quality of the food. But I did you eat all of them careful about putting down too many of these. I did eat all of them. I had like a nub of the I had some nubs left. I had some some like just ends, but I had most of the most of these. They're small.

It's not crazy to eat. I mean, it is. It's bad to eat six of these, but it's not crazy to eat six of these. I given how small they are. I'd say like I did a reasonable serving as like two or three. I mean, six is excessive, but yeah. When I when I would come in after having some drinks, I would usually two was usually around where I would stop off.

This is a late night thing, but. Right. Yeah. No, I was having them at 11 a.m. on a weekday. All right. Let's let's get to our final thoughts on Tina's burritos. So, Jamelle, you've done the show before, but just a refresher. We will each go around, give a closing argument, if you will, referring to this this particular product and then give it a rating

from zero to five forks. You are a guest. We will begin with you. All right. So I have three of these burritos. They're all kind of similar ish flavors. The hot the red hot beef, I thought was the best of them. Like I said, these aren't these aren't terrible.

These aren't like inedible. These aren't sort of these aren't very gross. They're just sort of like cheap, tasty enough burritos. Like if you need to consume a bunch of calories quickly, this is what they're there for. And so with that in mind, I'd say three forks. Sounds about right forks. Wow. Wow.

Because like, I mean, here's my reasoning. Anything above three seems like these are really good. And I would recommend them. Anything below three is like I. I dislike this. This caused me, you know, discomfort, this pleasure in some way. But like neither of those things are true. So it's sort of like three is like by default, maybe two and a half forks,

two and a half forks sounds a little more reasonable, two and a half forks. Wow. Two and a half forks. Damn, go ahead, Spoon Man. So the green package, which is the beef and green chili, the brown package, which is beef and bean and the red package, the red hot beef. Those are the old standbys. And I think that those are all good. Even even the red hot beef, which I always said would taste a little bit different.

I still enjoy the black package. The Sriracha one is there's not enough of a Sriracha taste, but it's still not bad. And the the chimichanga one is it's fine. It just it's slightly tastes like a chimichanga. The bite of the night for me, Nick Spoon Man's bite of the night, beef and bean, the classic brown bag, old standby. That's my favorite one. And after that, I'd probably go green chili.

And then, you know, it doesn't really matter. But as an old standby, maybe red hot beef would be third. And then the other ones, whatever the tortillas are a little bit gummy. I we I know that that's a thing with you, Nick. It's the gumminess of a tortilla. Like I said, there's those other issues with the paper towel getting stuck to it. It can kind of spread out everywhere. But these have a place in my heart.

I used to eat them when I was in high school and I've had a couple drinks. Me and Chankton would cook them up. My dad put them in the in the in the freezer in the in the basement. And we cook them up and we'd watch some undressed on MTV and we'd eat some burritos together or any show after after being out. Me and Chankton would watch that while eating burritos and underage drinking, which I don't condone. But I also want to give a word to these things, though.

I'm going to give it a late night bite award because I think that the I feel like the these are the perfect kind of like drunk. I'm going to cook one of these and put some hot sauce on them. For me, when I first had these, it was Tabasco. I was a big Tabasco guy. And then over the course of like like for month, I was like fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, Frank's red hot sauce came into my life and I switched over to Frank's.

But I originally started with Tabasco on these guys and they were just the perfect like snack late night food. And Nick, I kind of love them. I'm giving four forks to him, four forks. That's right. Wow. I love it. And you know what? Find me a frozen burrito that's better than it. I don't know. I can't.

Not like the these Monterey, but they're not they're they're not that good. For for what? How much they cost? Price point, what they're trying to do? Think about what they're trying to do. That's a really good point. Like if you compared to a three dollar, four dollar frozen burrito, what's what's really the quality difference there? It's not that great. Not much.

Not much at all. Yeah, these are definitely cheap as shit. And I think the, you know, you guys touched on this, but thinking of this in terms of the way we evaluate things on this podcast, like, how does it achieve what it is trying to achieve? How it has succeeded that? I think it overall does. It is very. It's targeted at being a budget frozen burrito

and it will fill you up and some of them taste decent. Like they approximate a a good burrito. So I will say, you know, I got a big case of the rumblies from these. I think think about your intestinal tract in terms of what you're going to put in your body before you have too many of these. Six of them.

Don't eat six of them. That is that is excessive. Also, don't put them in the oven. Microwave these guys. Absolutely. Do not put them in the oven. You're absolutely right. Yes, 100 percent. That is my lesson from this.

Putting these on a baking sheet in the oven for 30 minutes and 350 at 350 degrees was not worth the trouble. And they actually came out worse than they would have if I just microwave them. They came out too crunchy. So I am going to say. You know, the big thing is that that about half of these I didn't really love. About half of these, I was like, this is just sustenance. I don't think this has much to it.

I don't think this is there's there's a flavor here that I enjoy. The other ones I either was OK with or liked. So I think I can't quite give it three forks, but I think I can go right below it and say two forks, three times, two and three quarter forks for Tina's burritos. Wow. That was our review of Tina's burritos. It's time for a segment. And Doe Boys Media Studios in Los Angeles.

This is cereal, a segment told one bowl at a time. This is a collect call from Toucan Sam. And I see the Chooks Robert. He's in a bathtub. It's just, oh, God, it's full of blood. They were trying to get me lucky charms. OK, so. We wanted to try and do a serial.

A lot of second. What was before the Lucky Charms thing? What happened? The tricks rabbit was in a bathtub full of blood. Oh, my God, try and get do a serious do some sort of breakfast cereal. But you were at the the market, you texted me to stumbled upon these pop tarts pretzel. And it's yes, this is such a.

I mean, we did a pop tarts double Mitch. We went through and tasted a bunch of these because they have some crazy like a cream sickle pop tart, a hot fudge sundae pop tart, a root beer pop tart. They've just gone full like disgusting frank and food dessert with their with their lineup. But the pretzel ones I was still shocked by. You were so we were going to do a serial segment.

So you just did serial still no matter what? Yeah, I want to still do the serial intro. I feel like this still kind of counts. I mean, when I was when I was in elementary school for whatever insane reason, my parents let me have pop tarts and you who for breakfast every day counts. I I had a similar upbringing where my, you know, because I talked about all the the sugary

cereals that I had and yeah, my parents just like for whatever reason, breakfast, they were just like, you know what? Whatever you eat is fine. We just want to we just need you to get food in your body before you go to school. If you want to have fucking cocoa puffs, we'll have you'll have cocoa puffs. It's fine. Now, Nick, I couldn't I couldn't find that. I couldn't find this the pretzel pop tarts.

You weren't able to track it down. So I'm going to do it. I'm going to do a a Snickers, a Spoon Man snack or whack with a Snickers, salty and sweet. Wow. OK. So I've got a couple of. Hey, this is also that works out perfectly, Mitch, because these are salty and sweet. Wow. How about that? Very savvy of you.

So I've got two varietals here. I've got the the cinnamon sugar one and also the pretzel chocolate. Pretzel, cinnamon, sugar, pretzel, chocolate. Wow. It's like a pretzely crust with salt on it. And then a some sort of sweet sweet filling, plus a little sweet drizzle on top. The chocolate one has a as a chocolate drizzle. The cinnamon one has just sort of a generic generic icing.

Are you eating these heated up, by the way, just out of curiosity? Yes, I put these in. I followed the instructions, which were to put it at the in the toaster at the lowest setting, and that's what I did. So these are a little bit warmed. Jamal, which ones do you have? I have I have just the cinnamon ones. I have one that I toasted and one that I didn't

because I always am curious to see what the difference is. I used to only I just took a bite of the chocolate one. I used to only have them untoasted. It was actually later in life when I decided to like actually follow the instructions. But I think it was just so impatient that I would just want to take them out of the wrapper and eat them immediately. I think that this could be a step up for them.

I'm going to have to try these two at some point. But Albertsons did not have them the other day. I never the pop the tart, the like kind of the dry cardboardy part of the pop tart I never loved. So this has the potential to if you replace that with pretzel, maybe it's a little bit better. I don't know. Or you're about to tell me. I don't know what I feel like I don't know what I'm eating.

This is such a weird taste. It's just so strange. It's not quite like the like you have like a peanut butter pret like or you have like a pretzel M&M. That's what I was thinking. I feel like a pretzel M&M and you get like that salty and sweet. I feel like that works like really well. And I like I get what you're going for.

This is almost I've just had the chocolate one, which is not particularly chocolatey, and I'm going to have the cinnamon sugar one. I feel like it doesn't have enough salt. I feel like it's just I to me, it's just kind of like a thicker, a thicker pastry. I don't know. Yeah, it's really there's not enough salt. It's really these things are always dry, but this is like especially dry.

I've already drank my entire glass of water and I've had like two bites. Oh, dear God. Boy, yeah, I find. The chocolate one, which I had first is the better of these. The cinnamon sugar is just. Kind of all over the map. I don't really I just I feel like the thing is it's not achieving. The promise of the packaging, which is that the pretzel,

which is the salty and the sweet, which is the pretzel and the and the sugar and the chocolate and the cinnamon sugar. And I'm just not getting it. I don't know. I mean, I think this is this is pretty this is pretty bad. This is this is not so much. I don't think you need to try this. No, and I'm sort of it doesn't even really taste much like a pretzel. Just sort of it just tastes like a that's all that's whack.

Yeah, that's what you want. That's the whole purpose of it. Yeah, this one. Yeah, I was I was in my head in my imagination. I thought these would be like, at least very pretzely. But not even that. Pretty pretty disappointing. All right, Mitch, you have a Snickers.

It seems like you got the you came out on top here, I'm guessing the salt. It's a salt and salty and sweet Snickers. I'm going to take a bite right now. Mitch, do you ever do your burrito hung like a burrito trick? But you could do that with like a Snickers, like among like a Snickers, a fun sized Snickers. It's also funny that I'd be bragging about a regular sized Snickers. But you know, I guess that's probably what I'd have to brag about.

OK, this is very interesting to me. You can kind of taste that it's a little bit salty and a little bit sweet. But Nick, yes, maybe similar issues here and that maybe this isn't salty enough. Maybe I want some more salt out of this. How sweet Snickers, boy. I mean, this is not bad because it's a Snickers. It's still good. Is it is it salty? Because I feel like Snickers as is are kind of salty.

Like that's a good point. Peel of them. So is it is it saltier than a regular Snickers? It is. It is. It's a tricky thing because the sweet. Hmm. This one blows my mind. This is this is kind of crazy because it the sweetness, the kind of the when it intensifies the sweetness,

it's maybe kind of that fake sugary sweetness, you know what I mean? Like right, which maybe shouldn't be dialed up as much. And it may be overshadowed, some of that saltiness. But when you are done, like as I finished my second bite of it, I'm like, oh, yeah, it is saltier. I can taste salt in my mouth more so. But the initial bite into it, I'm like, oh, like it like like you want almost like salt sprinkled on top of it or something.

You know? Yeah. Yeah. What's your verdict? Where do you where do you land here? I mean, it's a snack for sure. But is this better? You know what I mean? Like it's not better than a regular Snickers. Yeah. And that's always the standard.

Yeah. And honestly, I I would love for you guys to try this because I don't. It's really odd. Like like if I got this by itself, what I just think it was what I think it's a regular Snickers. I don't I maybe I don't know. It's weird. It's it's it doesn't really. I feel like it doesn't really deliver on what it's supposed to be. But you can tell like because I'm thinking about it.

I know that it is saltier and sweeter. But sometimes these brands are a little too conservative with these things when really they should be taken a big swing. You find that a lot with like a spicy snack that is just like it doesn't have any heat to it at all because they're just so worried about someone being, you know, upset over it. But yeah, if they really went hard on the salty there and if they they really went, you know, they really went for it.

That that one could work out. Yeah, I mean, Joe, you're talking about it. I feel like I've eaten a sack of cornstarch. Like my mouth is so dry. I'm about to finish my pint glass full of water that I poured just for this segment. It is this is this is. Yeah, this is a pretty unpleasant thing to eat.

Well, hey, that was cereal slash Spoon Man's treat or skeet. Just like a restaurant, we value your feedback. Let's go. You know, I was like, I'm just going to say that is that is that's a treat. It's not a skeet. That's a treat. Treat. That's a treat. If you're if you're updating the Doughboys wiki, it is still good. It's still I mean, it's a Snickers bar, basically. So how can it be bad?

But still, I'd say the best the best for my money, the best sort of salty, sweet candy you can get out of the store is a payday. Oh, I love a payday that's in the caramel. Do you like just the just the regular payday, not the chocolate covered? Just the regular payday. Man, I'm with you. That is that was a go to for me for a while. And I thought I was like, I feel like that was a candy that was derided a little bit like it was like because it's like a weird candy,

because it just looks like a log of nuts. Right. I mean, it's like an old man can. I mean, it literally it literally is was created during the Great Depression. Wow. It actually is like just an old man candy. But it's very good. Yeah. And it has like the right balance of sweetness and loneliness. You feel like when you get you're getting a payday, it feels like you're getting like the bit oh honey or whatever.

Right. An abba zabba. It's just like a like from another time. But it is it is really good. It's very satisfying in the same way that a Snickers. My dad, my dad, my dad, it was technically born in the silent the silent generation, I guess. He was born in 42, which puts him in that in that in that generation. But he he he loved like black licorice and like black jelly bean.

Like he liked he liked kind of the he loved those old school snacks. And I think tastes like shit. Like, yeah, they're so harsh for me. And paydays, paydays don't fall under that category. But you are right that that is that is such an old school snack. But he was he was one step above where he loved that like like he would like. I'm sure he would chew on like a piece of like on a piece of what are you? What do you chew on? Like a like a what is the piece of what are you talking about?

Yes, I know what sugar cane. Oh, sugar cane. Yes. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. I think I think I think he was like such an old school candy guy. But his but his favorite candy was Snickers. I think Snickers has Snickers has that old school quality to it, too. That that payday does, even though it's a newer compared to payday. It's newer. It's just a crowd pleaser and with good reason. Hey, just like a restaurant via your feedback.

Let's open up the feedback. Today we have an email from Shannon. Shannon writes, is it weird that my 33 year old boyfriend did not know that a sweet potato was a real plant until today? I asked him what he thought they made sweet potato fries out of. And he said he thought it was just a recipe. Last year, he also learned how to eat a jelly bean for the first time. He thought you just sucked on it and thought it was weird.

They didn't have a flavor. I'm concerned about other things he doesn't know. What can I help? What can I do to help him learn very basic food facts? Thanks for the email, Shannon. Any advice for someone who's dating a complete food noob? That that sweet potato thing blows my mind. With that piece of information alone,

I know that Shannon is dating a white person. I got some advice. Go ahead. Dump the goon, get with the spoon. It sounds like, you know, he's you just got kind of a. I don't know. Maybe you're dating a classic dumb guy and that's OK. It's OK to be a dumb guy.

I mean, it's I would just say in terms of of helping him learn basic things. I don't even know where to begin here. Maybe try cooking. Have you tried cooking a recipe together? Maybe that would help. Maybe, you know, you get you get together with this guy and you're like, hey, let's let's make some let's make some cookies. Or you know what, let's make something.

Let's make a grilled cheese sandwich. Let's make something very basic. Let's make some scrambled eggs. Let's just let's just let's cook together and maybe that could be a way you could you could talk about food and maybe that could be a way you could introduce eventually some new ingredients into the relationship. This this is like what a meal kids are sort of like made for, right? Like if you if you don't.

Oh, good point. You know, if you're not familiar with things or you don't know something, then like you cook one a blue apron together and it can help you get there. What did he what did he think sweet potatoes came from? I think I believe he thought they were potatoes, regular potatoes with some sort of sweet element. I assume just maybe just sugar. OK, this guy's got to go.

Because it doesn't explain the orange part like they're orange. That's insane. Shannon, I'm not going to tell you to dissolve this relationship over this. I think that I think that, yes, I think cooking together. I think the I think the idea of using a meal kit could definitely help because that spells everything out for him. You know, again, you you you have it sounds like a dopey boyfriend. So maybe while you're cooking,

he gets his hand stuck in a pickle jar or something. That's OK. You guys can work through that. Nick, I kind of I do I do have I have advice. I have advice. Take him to a farm. Take him to a farm and then take him behind the farm. Yeah, I was wondering what that was going to go. I mean, if you're going to leave it at a farm,

it's like, yeah, then, you know, go have him kill a chicken or something. Or just even look at look at the different things grown on a farm. Or it seems like this guy doesn't know basic, but also he couldn't he didn't know how to chew jelly beans. He didn't he sucked on jelly beans. You might have to take a step back, Shannon, because I'm wondering, like, does this man have object permanence? Like what what is his what is going on with him exactly?

Maybe he's an alien from another planet. You know what? That's a possibility as well. And in that case, I would just I would be suspicious. Is he is he like Vincent Donafrio and Men in Black Wags? Is he always asking for sugar and water? I think this is a solve a little problem, Shannon. I think I think you guys could just come up with an activity to do together and then have a try some try some different restaurants, try some food

that maybe you you haven't even tried. And and and and and expose yourself expose him to some different cuisines. If you have a question or comment with the world of chain restaurants, you can email us at doughboyspodcast.com. Or leave us a voicemail at 830 Godot. That's 830 463 6844. And to get the doughboys double our weekly bonus episode, join the Golden or Platinum Play Club at patreon.com slash doughboys.

Nick, doughboys topical freeze continues all month long. Go ahead, Mitch. Shannon just reminds me of Shannon Darity. I watched Heather's last night. It was great. I'd never seen Heather's before holds up. Great movie. I loved it. It was great. Wow. Check it out if you've never seen it. Yeah, that's that's Mitch's plug for this week. Check out Heather's.

You're talking about topical stuff. So I thought I'd bring up Heather's. What's more? Joel, we thank you for joining us. Thank you for returning to the show. You have anything you'd like to plug at this time? Sure. My column usually shows up on Tuesdays and Fridays at the New York Times. My Twitter is at J.

Bowie. It's, you know, a tweet about politics, shit and movies. And people like to yell at me in Twitter, and that's always fun. So you can join in on that if that's your speed. Yeah, Mitch, you should stop doing that. He's our friend. And if you want to, I am I'm really active on Instagram. So my Instagram's at J. Bowie as well. Awesome.

And your serious eats a cereal column that's monthly. It's monthly. Yeah. That shows up whenever I I'm not too depressed to actually do it. So that the latest one should be up pretty soon, I think. Awesome. Check all that out. And hey, that'll do it for this episode of Doe Boys. Until next time for the Spoonman, Mike Mitchell, I'm Nick Weigher. Happy eating. See ya.

On the next Doe Boys Double. The most momentous event in paywall podcasting history. The scale. What is the scale? Find out at patreon.com slash Doe Boys. Sources for this week's intro are available in the episode description. That was a hit gun podcast.