The Three Questions with Andy Richter - Tom Papa: Cooking Disaster Stories (The Andy Richter Call-In Show)

Episode Date: March 20, 2026

Tom Papa (comedian and host of Breaking Bread with Tom Papa) joins The Andy Richter Call-In Show this week to hear your COOKING DISASTER STORIES! Want to be a part of the Andy Richter Call-In Show? Tell us your favorite dinner party story or ask Andy a question! Fill out our Google Form at BIT.LY/CALLANDYRICHTER or dial 855-266-2604. Want to call in? Fill out our Google Form at BIT.LY/CALLANDYRICHTER or dial 855-266-2604.  
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Conan O'Brien, Conan O'Brien. Andy Richter. The old road dog, Andy Richter. The professional dancer. Andy Richter. Thanks so much for tuning in, guys, and thanks so much for adjusting time-wise. And thank you, Tom, for coming in later than we had originally planned. The show is normally on at 1 p.m. Pacific, but now we're 3 p.m.

Oh, is that what happened? Yeah, that's what happened. Son of us. Never going to get home. Yeah, now traffic is terrible. I'm never going to get home. I might as well get a hotel room. Oh, this is delightful.

Anytime you want me, I show up. Thank you. Well, yes, so I'm back. I was gone for almost a month on Dancing with the Stars tour. It was fun. I loved it. It's good to be home, though. I remember I had a family.

The minute I got home, I was like, oh, yeah, these people. I should feign attachment to them now. But no, I had a really good time, but I am very glad to be home, and I'll be home for about a month, and then I go back out on the road with them in mid-April. And I, the Tom that I mentioned, the aforementioned Tom, is Tom Papa, the very, very funny comedian. Hello. And radio host and podcast host and Baker. Anything else you want to throw in there?

And Andy's pal. Yeah. Hand model. Author, actor. Author, actor. Bon vivant. Whenever I do gigs, like, whenever I do like corporate gigs, those are folks that don't, you know, know how show business works.

So they'll go up with your bio, which is two pages long and start reading it to these people. and you're like, stop. No, stop, stop, stop. He's going to try and make you laugh in about a minute. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So go to sleep now. The one I always love is people that, in something that they obviously wrote for themselves

who are in like, you know, show business in some way. Yeah. But they also include activist. Like I always feel like you're not supposed to call yourself that. You're supposed to let other people call you that. Because like really Look you know I read the paper too

Yeah I bitch about politics occasionally I repost Yes come on I know what would it take to be an activist It would it takes a lot It takes a lot To really

Yeah I mean and there's certainly not You know Sean Pan goes to Haiti And lives for two months You know helping people build houses I mean that's there are a lot of people That really do that but then you know But you kind of shine a light on something you only have to do that once.

Exactly. And then people are going to talk about it forever. Yeah. How long was that? Yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah. You just need one project, go do it.

Right. Right. Right. And everyone's like, wow, look what Andy did. He's amazing. Such a selfless guy. He's so selflessly hit repost. Unbelievable.

You should write in your own bio, in your own intro that you're giving to people. And literally you write the words. Yeah. And he's going to. kill me for saying this, but he's also an activist. Yeah, you say that. He's going to kill me. But this is, yeah, I know. I know. Yeah. Well, we're talking today cooking disasters, and you're a big cook. Yes, I am. Are you, you're a cook, you're not just a baker. I mean, you're a cook. You've written a bread book. I don't have a bread book. Oh, I thought you had a bread book. No. I have a breaking bread pod.

Yes. Which we were on. Why haven't you written a book yet? What the fuck, Tom? You know, I've written three, like, comedy books and I'm working on my fourth right now. But they're kind of more parenting family. Yeah, like essays about real life stuff. Just like funny books about everyday family life and stuff.

And I have an editor, my editor, Elizabeth, who's fantastic. She's worked on all three. Yeah. And I keep saying, we should be doing a bread book. and she, I don't, I think, I don't know what it is. I think she's kind of just wants to be cranking out these books. Like she wants, like, people like these books. Let's make these books.

And she might have to hand it off to somebody else? I don't know because she, in our, we've been together for 10 years. There's been a couple baking books that have come out. That she's done. Under her, yeah, that she's done. And she's a dear friend and a baker. She bakes bread. Wow.

So I'm not sure what it is. Maybe she, I don't know, but I really should make a bread. Because nobody. She doesn't like your bread. She does. Yeah. And she's really good at it too. I just did the Ohio Valley Food and Wine Festival.

Oh, nice. Where I went up and did an interview about baking and my journey in food and stuff. And I have this line of food of baking tools for Nambay. and like I'm bread is a huge part of my life and my quote unquote brand yeah and I feel like I feel like you there's a lot of people like you get the you ever do a festival you do like a comedy festival and you get you the first day you get there they give you the thing you're like where's my name where am I yeah you know and you're always like Kevin Hart and really big bold and then you're really little down at the bottom you're like all right but I'm in I'm here and I'm here and I'm and I'm

That was if for the, I was a visitor, right? Like, I was one of the speakers, but it didn't have the weight that it had for these people. This was their comedy festival. Right, exactly. You know what I mean? Nancy Silberton's there. You're dabbling. I'm like, hey, it's fun to be here.

And then you look at everybody. But when looking at it, I was like, they're all talented, they're all funny. At best, someone's quirky. Yeah. They'll have a handlebar mustache. Right, right. Big glasses. Yeah.

Or wear bow ties. If you were to make a book, a real, decent bread-baking book. And you're funny? Yeah. It's a whole other, no one's doing that. Right. Right.

It's like when you're dancing with the stars. Everyone's very serious. They're really talented. You just drop a couple jokes off the top of your head. They're like, this guy's the funniest man in the world. When I got there and my partner was like, we told, was mandatory TikToks. Every day we would do a TikTok. She'd either find a trend or we'd,

think up something silly, you know. And about a week in, she showed, you know, I did, I just did them. You know, I, and I wasn't even like, I couldn't, the notion of, wait, we're just going to do the same thing that everyone else is doing. We're not going to like add our little, no, just do this. I'm like, okay, I don't get that, you know, but all right, but that's what you do, you know. And about a week into it, she said, I was like, is this, why? Is this matter? And she showed me one, and it was like 1.2 million views.

And I was like, guy, wah, ga, guy, wah. And then I also started getting it from other dancers of like, you know, like pros had come in and be like, oh, it's Mr. TikTok or, oh, the king of TikTok just showed up. Oh, really? Yeah. Because yours were funny. A little bit of envy. And I just, it did occur to me like, nobody told me this.

but it didn't seem like if there was say like a chef competition right and a major league baseball player you know mookie bets right wants to go because he likes to cook but but there's also this side thing where you take batting practice right you know and all the other chefs have to take batting practice too and it's like mookie's really good at batting batting practice and this is like oh you're also going to make comedy videos like I was like Oh, I think I can handle that. I think this is all working out. Yeah, yeah.

I think, yeah. I have some experience in like taking a dopey idea and putting it on film. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, no, I know. It's like, you know, and I'm sure that they were, you know, like couldn't get over how funny you were.

Yeah, and it's just really. It's nice. And you envy them. Like, you're like, wow, what you guys do and able to carve a whole career out of doing this. So this is a long answer to your first question, which is, I was a cook first for my family. You know, I love cooking for the whole family. And then baking came in after because it was kind of like a, it's not full on baking where you need real precision and elegance. It's still sloppy cooking kind of thing, but as a baking thing. So, yeah, I love being in the kitchen. Yeah.

I had my co-host Fortune Feemster on our Sirius XM show. She was back in town and called me on Saturday and said, how about some lemon pasta on Sunday? And my kids are older now. They've moved out. They're at school and doing stuff. And so Sundays used to be huge cooking day. Yeah, yeah.

And now I'm like looking for people. If you ever want to come over. And it makes me. So happy. Did she invite herself? Yeah. Yeah. We've done it before. So she's like lemon pasta. I'm like, you're on. And I made this great garlic bread and this great lemon pasta and a salad and picked out the wine. And I find so much joy in doing that, especially for people. Absolutely. You know? It's the best get. I mean, I haven't done it in a long time, but I used to have bigger parties and cook for up to like 40 people. Whoa. You know. And, I mean, my ex-wife and I, we'd split the duties, but we would do it ourselves.

Wow. That's a big. And I always felt like this is, I mean, of course you get to the end of it and you're like, here's your fucking food. Never again. And then like, leave me alone. Never again. But there is, I always did feel like this is a big gift I'm giving you. And I was aware of what a gift it was.

And when I go to other people's houses and like they have a caterer come in, I always. always feel a little bit like it doesn't mean as much, you know. It doesn't mean as much as the fact that like, oh, you got up last night and brined something. Exactly. You know for me. Yeah. You know from doing it. Yeah. Oh, this is, you've been working on this for days. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The one thing that I, I only host bigger things like Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve. Yeah. You know, and even those, we've gotten up to maybe 25. I've never gone up to like four. But it's such a bear that the one thing I will splurge on is getting someone in to help clean. Oh, absolutely.

That is a huge difference. Yes. Because then when the meal is served and you can actually sit with people for a minute and you're not having to clear up the kitchen and do all that stuff and it allows you to like, for so many years I would just cook. And I was like just, I was just like working. in a restaurant. And before you knew it, people were saying goodnight. Yeah. And how great it was.

And you're like, oh, okay. With rubber gloves on and a bottle brush in your hand. I was just going to take a cigarette break. All right. Well, see, I have had that. But that also does take away the, well, I better go clean up when you get passive aggressively, like sick of people. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Well, you can always just wander back into the kitchen. I got to go help. Yeah, I got to go help. Yeah. Do you have good disaster stories? Do I have good disaster stories? Yeah, I've got some disaster stories. You want one right now?

Yeah, hit me with one. All right, I'll give you, this one was pretty bad. Disaster seems like a big word, but yeah, I guess it was a disaster. One of the things I host is Halloween. We lived in this little neighborhood in Studio City where it was one of those very, there aren't a lot of neighborhoods. neighborhoods where there's sidewalks. And so on Halloween, they blow up. Like, people are like, oh, we can actually,

people drive in to like walk your neighborhood. And it was a very, very apple pie, old-timey kind of a neighborhood. And it was great. So we would, we learned very quickly like, oh, no, this is a stop. And we should. We better load up. We got to contribute. Yeah.

Yeah. Not just all the candy and then turn the lights out when we realize how many kids are coming. But so anyway, so we started hosting an annual. party. And the big thing that I make is chili. Chili, corn bread, that's the staple, and fried chicken. And it's, after a couple of years, it started to, it's a really good chili. It's a chili with really just ground beef and spices and salsa and no beans. It's just pure meat. Yeah, yeah. And it's so good.

Yeah. It's so good. Yeah. And I won't tell you where I get the meat, but it's nothing fancy. But every year I go, I'm like, right, I get it from a guy. Yeah, yeah. Every year, I'm like, there's going to come a year. I've been doing it now 20 years.

There's going to come a year when I'm going to walk in and there will be no, that chili will, it's going to stop. At some point, it's going to stop. So anyway, it's a big, it's probably, you know, two and a half. half foot high pot, big thing. You chop up onions, peppers, oil, get that all going, which, for anyone listening, if you ever want people to feel like you're doing something,

start off your cooking with frying onions. Just chop up onions, put them in the oil. That smell is like something's going on in here. Yes. What are you doing? Yeah, yeah. Babies will respond to that. Yeah, right?

Exactly. So I make this giant chili, and I'm also putting on my costume. I'm putting on my Willy Wonka costume. It becomes a scramble. You're doing all this stuff. The kids are coming home from school, and you've got to go get the fried chicken, and it's a big thing. And I had, finally, I'm at the end of it, and it's big, and it's heavy, and I've got to stir it. You've got to keep stirring it.

And I had this big wooden spoon, and I'm stirring it, and it's like really putting my, muscle into it and like an idiot something that big you don't use a wooden spoon in this it just splintered and just broke apart it was like as you're going it's like and then it got easy i'm like why is that easy oh because half of the spoon is in the chili disintegrated disintegrating into wood chips and i was so beside myself i was like we can serve it I'll just skim it off. And my wife is like, no. It's like saying you've got to be careful for the fish bones.

Right? Yeah. It's like fish bones, but chili bones. Just tell people there's somewhat, anyone that really likes all meat chili with no beans is not going to have a problem. With a little wood chip. It's roughage. I hate to throw out the whole thing. Oh, my God.

The whole thing was gone. Oh, my God. I literally, if I wasn't married, would have served it. Yeah. She really made me, like, she's like, it's like dropping a bottle of glass, like a, like a breaking a bottle in a pool. You can't do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You got to drain it. Again, I wouldn't drain the pool either. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, you're supposed to. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's go to the phones, because that's what we're here for. I mean, well, I don't know that was enough of a disaster.

Oh, it was. No, that's pretty, that's pretty good. With all the people coming. So what do you do? Order pizza? Well, no. The one other side of this is that my wife makes a vegetarian. vegetarian chili. Ah. And they had to eat that. So they had that. Yeah. Yeah.

It's normally like you have to eat that. Right. And now everyone was like, this is the greatest chili. I'm like, just because it's the only chili. Fuckers. I did. Oh, I do like the framing that it almost is like, like the vegetarian is like almost like the punishment chili. You know.

Exactly. Now you have to eat vegetarian chili. Dave from Sunnyvale. What's up, Dave? Hey, guys. Yeah, so I've got a pretty good one for you. Thanks for holding. Thank you. Yeah, you got Tom and me. Go ahead. Oh, you're, you launched right into it. You're better than I am. Go right ahead. No, I won't say that. But so my family is in the process of moving, and we were kind of right in that sweet spot where everything is packed and you're cleaning up the new house but still sort of living in the old one. And my parents had closed the deal on the old house. So that was sold the day before.

but my mom wanted us to have like one last nice dinner, so she'd started a pot roast. So after like eight hours of working on the new house, they sent my brother, who was like 11 or 12 at the time, back to check on the roast. So we get this call from him. And he's saying, oh, it's totally burned. And my mom is like, oh, you're overreacting, you don't know,

just puts water on it, it'll be fine. And he pushes back. And he's like, no, it's really burned, mom. I'm really worried about this. She's like, no, just put like two cups of water on it. We'll be back in an hour. it'll be fine. So probably the important thing here is that because everything was packed, it was in a regular pot on the stove, not in a crock pot. Yeah. So it had actually burned to a literal

like cinder. So still on the phone, my brother pours the water and he's like, okay, I'm going to do it. And you immediately, we can hear him screaming because it sends up a mushroom cloud of greasy black smoke. Oh. And just fills the house. So we hear him like running out of the house and he's like, yeah, no, the house is full of smoke. The house is like, it's full of smoke. It's horrible. You guys need to get back here. So we come back and it was like walking onto the set of what I would assume would be like a Cheech and Chong movie if they were super into like

beef chowl. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. But like my parents had to hire a professional cleaning service and we had to run industrial grade ozone machines for several days. How old was this brother? He's already sold. He said 11 or 12. He was like 11. Yeah, he was old enough to like identify that this wasn't okay, but not old enough to like really just be like, no, I'm not doing this guy.

For your mother to trust him. She still is like, yeah, no, this kid doesn't know shit. It's fine. It's fine. Oh my God. That's terrible. Yeah. Well.

Did you eat it? They disclosed it. No, no. I think the pan actually got thrown away. Yeah, yeah. Well, I hope your mother felt terrible. Yeah, I think she did. I think the hardest part was disclosing to the new owner is what had happened.

Right, right. By the way. We didn't tell you something. They're thinking who died in here. Yeah, we were creating, we were creating zombies in here. All right, Dave, thanks for the. I hope you folks aren't vegetarian. Yeah.

It's a lot. I haven't had a pot roast in a long time. I haven't either. Well, I married a vegetarian, so I don't cook a lot of meat anymore. Yeah. You know. And, yeah, I haven't. Like, you were talking about chili.

I used to make, I have a regular chili recipe that I used to make all the time. And just, you know, I don't. There's a vegetarian. There's actually a very excellent vegetarian chili recipe that I have. have that is so fucking complicated because it really does do a pretty good approximation of the texture of ground beef. Uh-huh. But it involves like, booger wheat and, you know, like, quinoa and different, you know, a combination of grains.

And it does really, but it's like, I rarely make it because it's just too much fucking works. Just get me some ground beef. And you got to, you know, and the bulgar, you've got to go to Johns, not Vons. Right. You know, here in L.A. Here in L.A., there's a girl. grocery chain called Vons. And apparently somebody started buying them and just changed the J or the V to J and that, but it's like a world, you know, it's like where all the Hispanic food

is and the Russian food and the Armenian food. Yeah, yeah. And all, you know, any ethnic food is there. So that's where you go for your, for your off-brand stuff. 855-266-04 is the number. I don't think I told that before, but you all know. though. I mean, by this point, we're all friends. Don't you know? Yeah. You all probably have it on speed dial. Lindsay from Michigan. Lindsay, hello, you've got Tom and Andy. Hi, Claire. First of all, I want to say hello from another Jeopardy alum.

Oh, good. So it's always exciting to talk to another one of you. I came in second to somebody who became a 13-time women. and I was right in the middle of his run. It was just so much roadkill. Yeah, there's some comfort in that, you know. These smarty pants. Yeah, what can you do?

Well, this one doesn't make me sound so smart, but we'll go with that for now. That's what we lead off on. There's difference between kitchen smarts and jeopardy smarts. That's why potent potables is its own thing, so you can get some of that middle ground in that Venn diagram. So my disaster, it stuck with me for about 20 years now.

I was a college student. I was just learning how to cook. I had found a recipe for a pretty easy-looking cheesy cornbread, and I had all the ingredients at hand, so I didn't have to go to the grocery store. And I was listening to you talk about all your weird grains. I was a dedicated shopper of the people's food co-op in Ferndale, Michigan, which was where you go to get your test.

your bulgar wheat, et cetera. Yes, yes. So the only cornmeal, yeah, the only cornmeal I had was blue. So mixed up the cornbread, added in the cheese, baked it, and that chick came out of my oven looking like a panful of human flesh. Yes. Like a pale pink somewhere between like pork chops and spam. Uh-huh.

Like probably the interaction of the cheese and the cornmeal, the blue cornmeal. It was also like weirdly smooth and striated on the surface. So like nothing like, you know, cornbread. I would not have guessed pink. You know what I mean? Yeah. From blue corn and cheese, you know?

Unfettlingly pink. Wow. Like, it was repugnant to look at. Like, my housemates were like, did you just make up a batch of the long pig to serve us? Sure. Come, it's scrappling. I lived at a house. Four broke college students in Detroit.

Not one of them would touch it. I took a sacrificial bite because I made, I created the monster, you know. So I take the sacrificial bite. I'm like, it's fine. It's a good monster. It's moist, you know, whatever. You can keep that. So it sat for three days on our counter before I conceded that I had, like, created an Eldridge

horror instead of cornbread. Yeah, yeah. And pitched it. Well, what did it taste like? It tastes like delicious cheesy cornbread. It had a nice silky semoa texture. It was a flavor sensation for a new cook. I've ditched a lot of recipes at that time.

You know, just you're trying, you're learning. I was really ambitious too. So I would get the tap. And I'd be like, yeah, I can cook with tap. I'm a noted Ethiopian chef. And then, you know, half the pitch it all. Yeah, yeah. So, just one in many overly.

And I didn't feel ambitious, but alas, I created a horror and it went unconsumed. Well, at least it was a side dish. It's bad when you're like experimenting with an entree, and it turns out uneatable or inedible. And then, you know. Those years, you just, you know, you got no money. You got no, no. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you remember the frugal gourmet?

Remember that guy? Oh, do I? That guy was great. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that show about how to cook stuff when you're poor. Oh, thank you, Lindsay, by the way. Oh, yeah, of course. Thanks for having me have.

Thanks. Go ahead, frugal gourmet. And he had a, we had nothing in the house. It was in between semesters and we were still living in the house off campus. And he had a thing called an onion cinder. And I was like, well, we have an onion. That'll be pretty good. And we had a fireplace.

Yeah. So you wrap it up in tinful. and you put it in the cinders. And he's made it sound so romantic. Yeah. And you keep it in there for like 10, 50 minutes. Do you oil it and put oil there in you? Like salts and pepper.

Yeah. Simple and put the onion in the cinders and let it cook. And then you break it open and you break open the tin foil and you go to eat it. And you're like, it's a hot onion. It's just a hot onion. This sucks. We're really poor. Yeah.

We got no money. We're on the steps of Russia here. We need a job. Yeah, no, the frugal gourmet, the very, and I think there's a very scandalous documentary of him. Oh, no, really? Yeah, yeah. He came on the Conan show a couple times, and he was kind of a silly, ridiculous sort of character. Yeah, like curly hair.

Yeah, yeah. But very, like, and he was a minister, too. He was some kind of minister. And one night, I was out with my ex-wife and a bunch of all women, and one of them was Amy Sedaris. I remember that. The other was a friend of my Jody Lennon, comedy women. Right. And I was the only guy that was, you know, sort of the fun of the night.

We run into the frugal gourmet who sits down with us. Lots of gin was drawn. And he kept telling, he was telling his stories about how he'd go to the hospital. He would go to children's hospitals to visit them all the time, which we were all like, what kids would care about the frugal gourmet? And I asked him, he said, yes, I go and I talk to the children. I said, what do you talk to the children about? And he went, as if I was an idiot.

Well, food and theology. Oh, oh, yeah, that shit. Kids love, you know, before their treatment. So he told this, and then he was telling a story about being late to one, you know, to one of these things and how it was so rewarding and that he pulled up in the stretch limo, which is like, I'm sure he demanded a stretch limo. And he pulled up to the hospital and he said, and all the children, in the wing, you know, the where you pulled up, all the children were pressed against the glass. And my ex-wife said, and they were all chanting, food and theology, food and theology. And he said, oh, you're bad to her. An activist.

Yes, yes. Oh, you're bad. No, wait. What was his, what was his gruffel? Do you remember? Sexual things. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah.

He was a bad fellow. He was a bad guy? Yeah, yeah. Apparently. Like on his set? Allegedly. I think in lots of different places. Wherever he could.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, no. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there was an initial fall from Grace, and then now this documentary is, like, catalog Longing years of... Of abuse. ...of bad things. Oh, well, his onion recipes suck, too.

Hot onions. All right. Let's go back to the phones. Wait, we have an international call. We have Kevin calling from Japan. What? Hello? Hi, if I had known you were from Japan,

I would never have kept you on hold this long to tell you about the frugal gourmet. Oh, that's okay. Okay. That's okay. I'm just... I'm just trying. traveling in Japan at the moment. I'm actually, I'm from Vancouver.

Oh, okay. But, but I travel between back and forth. Can you hear me? Okay. We can hear you fine. I'm not sure with international calls. Yep, no, it's perfect. Thank you so much for having me on the call. Oh, happy to have you. Tell us, tell Tom and me your story. Sure. And hi, Tom. Hello. Hello. Okay. So, this is probably back in my first year in college. I was, you know, living alone for the first time. And I thought, you know, And it's a good time to upgrade my cooking skills from just instant noodles. So to skill up, I decided the next step up was to get Kraft dinner, Mac and Cheese.

And I was following the instructions, and I said, you know, you need milk and butter. So I'm like, I should have that. There's like basic, basic ingredients. I opened my fridge, and I only had vanilla soy milk. Oh, that'll work. So I thought, well, I like vanilla soy milk. I like mac and cheese. You know, one plus one can go wrong.

So, yeah, I went wrong, but I made it anyways, and I would say the, it's been quite a number of years now, but the flavor, you know, it lingers because it tastes exactly as how it's described. Right, right. But what, I mean, that, you know, I think it is. At least, I mean, yeah, I can imagine what it tastes like, but I think, is it nauseating or is it, nah, not too bad? Because I feel like it could go either way. Yeah, I, it's got, did it want to be like vanilla? Did it want to be mac and cheese? It was very confused.

I see. And I think my palate was very confused. It was edible. Did you eat it? I wasn't hungry after. I ate it. Yeah, sure. Why not?

It's going to be the same in my stomach anyway. Right, exactly. I'll have a couple of vanilla milk. And you got rid of that vanilla soy milk, you know, you're cleaning out the fridge. Yeah. Yeah. All right, well, thank you, Kevin. But I haven't bought vanilla flavored milk in.

That's not a bad idea. All right, thanks so much for the call. Okay. Take care. Bye. Thank you. 855-266-2-604. Once again, we're doing cooking disaster stories.

Tom Poppa's here with me. We got Jordan, another Michigan call. Jordan, what's up? Hey, Andy, how's it going? Pretty good. Good. So, yeah, my story, I was about 12 years old, and I was making jalapeno poppers.

It was me at home alone with my three older siblings. And so I cut the jalapinos, and then I had to go pee. So I went to the bathroom. And I didn't wash my hands before going to the bathroom. So it didn't take long for like to start feel the burning. Yeah. So I'm freaking out. It's pretty intense.

I tried water, taking a shower. It was just getting worse and worse, just with the water. That's something you don't know a 12 years old at that. Yeah, you got to dip it in milk. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what the frugal gourmet. so so i was telling my brother my older brother and like i'm freaking out and he's like ah you'll be fine you're fine it'll go away it's fine and uh he was glued to the tv because

the bulls were in the finals and that doesn't happen very often so he was pretty invested in that so after a while he finally gave in and uh took me to the er and uh they put some pointment on it and I met up with my parents there and after a few hours came home and I don't remember if I ever ended up having the poppers. I can't remember if it was worth it. A popper in your pain. Yeah. Yeah.

Were you screaming and crying? Like to get to the emergency level. Yeah. Yeah, I'll admit it. Yeah. It was pretty bad. I worked at a Mexican restaurant, Casa Lupita in Naperville, Illinois. And we had, you know, there was, we had to garnish certain dishes that, you know, like the chef would throw, or the, you know, line cook could throw it up.

And then there were, you know, you'd have like a tub of guacamole and a tub of sour cream. And you know, dollop on whatever, you know, whatever it was that. And one of them was jalapenos. and this exact same thing happened to one of my coworkers where he was just, he was just filling up the garnish station, went to take a leak and somehow, like, and I had to go home.

I had to go home. This hurts so bad that I have to go home. But I mean, his hand, you know, he had been like touching, you know, like jarred jalapeno. So it was like his hand, he doused his hand in jalapeno juice. I love just that it's so bad

You have to just Yeah I gotta go I gotta go home Yeah I gotta go home I can't Well I mean imagine

Imagine having to continue to like Are you want the appetizers? Yeah The nachos are good Oh And just having to share I don't know how much I don't know how much

I don't know how much It's too much But it's scabbed So Oh That is bad Wow Wow

And water Wow Ouch. Wait a minute. Were these cooked jalapeno? I want to say something. Did you fuck one of the jalapeno poppers? Be honest.

No, I swear. 12 years old, it was a curious age, but no, I'll never do that place. Geez. Scabbed. Aye, aye, y'all. Probably from the furious rubbing trying to put out the fire. Probably nothing to do with the jalapeno. All right.

Jordan well thanks for the call. Glad you're all healed up. All right, thanks guys. All right. My wooden spoon thing seemed really silly. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You ever get turtle soup?

You ever try turtle soup? I have had turtle soup. From a can? No, not from a can. A New Orleans restaurant. Oh, that was probably good. Yeah. I saw it when I was poor in the supermarket.

And my girlfriend and I were like, let's try it. Turtle soup. Woof. Yeah, bad. Couldn't even cook it. You just open that can. And the smell. And just, yeah.

All right, we have to get out of here now. We have to move. Forget the security deposit. We're leaving. All right, let's go back to the phones. Heather from Baltimore. Hi. Heather also has a chili story, Tom.

Oh. I do. I was so excited to hear that you guys were talking about chili. Nice. But mine's more of a reheating story. Okay. We take those. We're not picky.

Good, good, I figured. So when I started my job about 15 years ago, I brought in my lunch, and it was in the Tupperware container. So I microwaves a chili. I put it back in my cube, go get a drink. The lid was on the Tupperware. And when I come back, there's chili exploded all over my tube. Oh, wow. And the lid was nowhere to be sound.

To this day, 15 years later, nobody's down the lid. Like, this story is kind of like lore in the office. Nobody's found that lid since. Did it? And then I had to clean up. Oh. Go ahead. Did it leave your cubicle?

Like, did you, was there spatter in neighboring cubicles? No, it was just in mine, but it was, it's those gross fabric cube walls. Yeah. You know, they're not easy to clean. Yeah. And I didn't clean it very well. So, yeah, it was There was spatter evidence for years, is what you're saying.

Everywhere, everywhere. It was in, like, my phone buttons everywhere. Oh, my God. That's one of those where you clean and clean and clean, and then you go to make a call and it's like, oh, it's still going. Yeah, it smells. I sure is not over. Yeah, yeah.

Now, how much was left in the Tupperware? Like, how much volume became air? The whole thing! The whole thing, I was starving afterwards. I know. Oh, that's amazing. I would have thought like maybe some off the top just because the pressure, but wow. That thing must have been hot.

Yeah. It was really hot. Well, you learned your lesson. You got it. You got to let the steam escape. Good thing you weren't in the cubicle when it exploded. No kidding. Oh, my God.

I know. Yeah, yeah. And it was just so funny. Nobody heard it. Nobody, you know, batted an eye. When I came back, it was just all over the place. That's pretty good. Oh, that must say.

Did you, because that's the kind of thing where when you, when you come upon it, you're like, you can't believe. Like, am I seeing what I'm seeing? Yeah, like, what the fuck? I was cracking up. It was hilarious. Yeah. So, yeah, that's my story. All right.

Well, thank you, Heather. Thank you. All right. Bye. Now we have another chilly story. Come on. Hoop, poop. It's Weezy from St. Louis.

Weesey, you there? She likes chili. Yes, I'm here. Hi, Weezy. You got another chili slide? Hey, how are you guys? This is our chili block here. Okay, so I have two funny stories.

I'm a chili story that's funny, but I also have a thing for your vegetarian chili. Oh, okay. So instead of you doing all that bowl or eat and doing all that, there's a product called TDT, texture, vegetable protein. Yes. Use that just like raced. regular ground beef. Easy, cheesy.

Thank you. Okay, but the crazy story, yeah, the crazy story about the chili is, okay, so I wanted chili cookoff back in the day, made a turkey chili, right? But so then my friends in catering, she hired me to make 10 batches of this, so that's 10 pounds of chili, right? She's like, I'm like, all right, well, here's what I need for my chili. And so her caterers, get it together. I cook it at my house instead of in the commercial kits.

So hopefully no one got food poisoning. They did it. But so I asked for like a cup and a half of chili powder. The guy gave me a cup and a half. Her one worker gave me a cup and a half of cayenne. The minute I tossed it into the white chili, I was like, that's not chili powder. It was so red and so vibrant.

Yeah. So then I had to go and get like more half and half. I was like, that's the hottest shit ever. but it was so cold in St. Louis. It worked out and everyone loved it. Were you making one batch, like a single batch? Oh, yeah. I made ten single batches.

Wow. You must have had a large pot. I do have a large pot. Nice. I mean, I don't want to put you in a position where you get to brag, but you must have a large pot. No. I do have a large pot. Yep, yep, yep.

My husband was a chef, and he left me with a lot. He passed away, but he left me with some large pot. Oh, good, good. But yeah, that whole thing with the vegetarian chili, you know, you can just get that one product and make it just like you would your regular red chili, you know? TVP. We'll do. Thank you so much, Weezy.

Oh, I love you guys. Thank you. Love you, too. 855-66-2604 is our number. We're continuing with Peter from Chicago. Peter. Chicago. Hello, hello, Peter.

Hey, hello, hello, hey. How you doing? Nice to meet you or, can you hear me? Yeah, we sure can. It's me and Tompapa. Yeah. Hey, so I'm from Chicago, and I went to, this is an exploding sake story, not exploding chili. So I went over to, my daughter lives in Ravenswood, and she had just moved in with her then-boyfriend.

They're now married, and it had it, so it's a new place that was kind of like a, you know, high ceilings, you know, your typical, you know, northside kind of a nice place. He was out of town and we said, hey, let's go over the sushi place, but it was B-Y-O-B. So we said, okay, let's heat up some sake and we had a thermos and we'll bring it with, you know, some other, you know, cocktails or whatever and then have that with our sushi. So are you familiar with like superheating of water and that's basically when it boils, but it doesn't bubble. No. So it traps all that, all that, that energy and

in oxygen and as soon as you move it, it explodes. Right. It all but comes up. Fun. So I threw this sake in the microwave. Wasn't really true, I know, two, three minutes, whatever. And it was, and it was, it was, it was corked. You weren't, yeah, it was like, no, no, I took the top. No, I took the top off. But what happened was, as soon as I tilted the bottle, the poured in the thermos, it shot out like 15 or 20 feet went on the ceiling, went on the walls.

Thank God, no one was standing in front of it because it was basically scalding sake, but it was it was kind of crazy. Luckily no one no one got scalded by it. But yeah, yeah, it's for some reason, you know, that I think yeah, again, it just kind of holds up all that that moisture. So, so we tried to clean it off again. It was all new. Everything was painted.

We're trying to clean it up. And it's tall ceilings. We don't have a ladder, so we're trying to clean it up. You know, so we did the best we could. I did have to end up going and help paint. Oh, really? You wouldn't think sock would stain, you know? Yeah.

I think that superheated liquid, it just gets into that paint, you know, and it just, yeah. That's why I always took on. Yeah, it was like the white ceiling and then a lighter wall. The walls cleaned up pretty good, but the ceiling, you could, you could see. It's, it wouldn't. be it's a good it's a good thing to remember if you've got like a very slow home intruder who has a couple minutes you know to just be like you hold on you know what before you brutalized me

maybe you'd like some hot sockie in the moment it sounds good okay ha ha take that for blueie all right peter well thanks for the call great talking with you yes it's a it's a it's a not just to call a warning. Tim from Florida. What's up, Tim? Tim. Andy, how are you? Good. How are you doing? Good. Good. This is another one of those fun college fraternity stories. Oh, nice. So I was pledging at the University of Florida, and all our pledged brothers, we had, one of the jobs we had to do was we had to prepare the Friday night dinner for all the brothers. And so they were having this special steak dinner, and they were kind of.

saying, hey, maybe you guys can join in on the dinner with us. And so we did all the legwork, prepared all the dinner and got a table set. And they basically said, no, sorry, you guys aren't going to be able to eat with us tonight. And so one of my other brothers that was pledging said, let's go out to spaghetti dinner and I got an idea. And so we all went out and just grabbed a bunch of spaghetti really quick and shoved it down our throats. And one of the pledged brothers, his father was a doctor, and he pulls out this vial called Epicac. and we're like, we didn't know what it was, but we're stupid college kids, and we're like, he's like, it'll make you throw up. So let's, let's all take this, and then let's burst into the dinner and let's

throw up all over the brothers. And so we had this idea of taking this smart, brilliant, and epicact stuff after we had this spaghetti dinner. And it's supposed to work pretty quick, I guess, in about, you know, 10 minutes or so. So we all took this epicac waiting outside the dinner room for something to happen. Nothing was happening. And one of our brothers, Pledge brothers said, Paul, the name was, said, I feel something. Let's go. So we burst into this, dinner, and we're all just standing there and nothing's happening. We're just waiting for Paul to throw up and nothing, nothing was going. And then all of a sudden, we hear in the back, a guy we called Shorty, just hurl like volumes of vomit over a shoulder onto one of the tables.

And then the chain reaction, the chain reaction started, as soon as you see that, every one of it started throwing up at the same time. And so we had about 20 pledges throwing up all over the other tables and the steak dinner. And then we split in it and we were doing, you know, the water slice. Oh, Tim. I wish I hadn't picked up on you, to be frank. I've never, it was a first since I've started this call-in show. I wish I hadn't. It's a visual that you wanted, Andy.

It's terrible. That is not a cooking story. And first of all, to a vomiting, a group vomiting prank, you guys should have gone right to the goddamn mental hospital. Something is wrong with you young men. Good Lord. It sounded good at the time like those often do when you're there. But this is vomit. What water balloons are.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Right, exactly. A bunch of deadly snakes. Pull the alarm. We wanted something very memorable. Yeah. Well, it was memorable. Oh, my God.

And that's, oh, and I bet. Obviously, we had to clean it all up. Yeah, and the room probably stunk for days. For days. I feel like I smell it right now. Tim, I'm not a fan. So now you've got the beer and the vomit together. Oh, Tim, stop it.

Oh, Tim, please. Of course. I probably love it, I know. No, it's terrible. I'm a grown adult human being with, you know, a sense of hygiene. Not really. I'm not from Florida, sir.

To quote one of our earlier calls. I have to go home. Yeah. Well, Tim, thanks for the call. Thank you for the call. As upsetting as it was. I guess I'm glad I heard it. I'm glad we could share.

I appreciate that. Thank you, Tim. All right. That was horrible. Oh, my God. You know, honestly, I mean, having had children, you have to get used to lots of things. But I would rather have my kids shit on the floor than puke on the floor.

It's the worst. Puking is the worst. The worst. And to think like that's your plan. Let's go do that intentionally. Honestly. I think a normal life. I think any men is spent.

Trying not to throw up at all costs. Right. In fact, there's a few mental illnesses that are surrounding, you know, that it's a central feature. I don't like him. Oh, Tim. I feel like I can smell. Tim, I'm sorry, Tim, but yeah, you've upset us. You've upset us.

You didn't even have anything to do with cooking. Well, it was food. And they had been kicked out of a kitchen, I guess. Aaron from Riverside. Yes. Oh, please. Hello. Cleanse our palettes.

Please. Hi. I will save you with French toast. Yay, French toast. How could that be bad? Everybody loves French toast. I'm Tom Papa's book. But I'll start with the French toast.

So French toast was my favorite as a child. And I was about maybe eight or nine years old. And I wanted French toast. And it's two things. It's toast, but it's not in a toaster. Right. And I thought it was. Oh, boy.

And so I put it together. Yeah, I put it in the toaster. And fortunately, my mother was not too far away when, you know, Things went wrong. Right, when the eggs caught fire. And it's in the 70s, and that's a good 70s toaster. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, a little bit of flame, but Mommy put it out, and I was told if I ever want a French toast again, that I was to ask instead of taking the initiative.

Right. But also, Mr. Tompapa, my German Shepherd really enjoyed your book. Yeah. Oh, no. She ate about half of it. Oh. It was very enjoyable. Oh, yeah.

Good thing. Yeah, now you need another one. Yeah, so you can read. I will. I will definitely new, and this was one of the ones you had signed for me after one of your shows in Anaheim. And I was so bummed. I thought, if I get to go again, I am bringing that book. Yeah.

You can see what dog teeth really can do. Oh, I'd love to see it. Yes, it's great. Dan Bill Brooks, too, so you're in good company. All right. Thank you so much, Aaron. You bet. Have a good evening. All righty. Do you remember when they came out with like a French toast Ego?

Yes. It was a toaster. Yeah, yeah. It was like almost good. Yeah, yeah. Right? There's like some kind of. Yeah.

And Burger King had French toast sticks. Yeah. Which were very strange. They were very like just goo. Like goo sticks. No one's pulled it off. Yeah, yeah. Damn it.

But French toast is pretty good. My grandpa called it. Fried Breast. Bread, having fried bread, maybe some fried bread. All right, we've got time for one more. What? Dave from Arizona, were they, I think, a fittingly Southwest-themed call, I'm assuming? Yes, sir. Thanks for taking my call.

Thank you. So we were making tamales. And if you know, tamales is quite a process. Labor intensive. It was me and my wife is very labor intensive. Clean the chilies, boil them, you know, make the sauce, and then you've got to make the mossa. Once you make the mossa, then you've got to work it with your hands for about 20, 30 minutes.

Yeah. So anyways, yeah, several hours. Anyways, we got to the end of them, got them rolled up, got them on the pot to steam. And, you know, there's a little screen in the bottom of a giant pot with, like, 50 demolies. A steamer. Yeah. And, but, you know, it's a tamale pot, and it's, you know, so, We got to the end, and we decided to have an edible, some brownies that my buddy had given us.

And this was back, you know, 10 years ago before you could buy them at the store. Yeah. And so we had some edibles and put them on the pot. Usually, you know, it takes around an hour or something. I went and laid down in the bedroom and woke up two to three hours later after, like, one of the strongest edibles I've ever experienced. And the house was full of smoke, and I come out to the living room. my mother-in-law and my wife were asleep, and the tamales are completely destroyed. And the whole house smelled like burnt protein.

It was so gross. Because it burnt down to a dry pan and then ruined everything. Yes. And, yes, the cost, the hours of labor and the looking forward to them, oh, my God, it was the worst. So we've made tamales sense, no more edibles. That's the rule of some going forward. See, weed is a gateway to the death of tamales. I've seen that on a post.

We kills tamales. We kill the tamales. I love it. All right, Dave. Well, thanks for calling. Thanks for guys. All right. Now, we usually, we come up with a, we pick a favorite.

Oh, yeah? Yeah. And we've got a list up there. Mm-hmm. Hmm. Hmm. I think I got to go with the exploding chili in the, cubicle. That's the most memorable. Yeah, there's a lot of visuals to that. There were a lot of

disturbing ones. That human flesh cornbread was very disturbing. Yeah. I feel like I could taste it. Yeah, or see it. Yeah. And, you know, we don't want to talk about that the most gross one. Oh, no. That was really horrible. I've already, I've already boxed it up and thrown it away. Yeah. Uh, uh, Saki, the Explos. exploding things. Yeah, I think the chili exploding was the most fun. Gotta be. Right? Got to be. All right. Just everywhere. No one really got hurt. It was, like, when she was telling it, I was like, oh, it's kind of like throw up, but it wasn't. So it was fun to listen to. Yeah, no, it had not been processed by bile.

Congrats, Heather. You win absolutely nothing but our admiration. Yeah, you're the best. You're the best. We like you the best. And Tom, I want, I think. think you should check out your own podcast. Okay. Breaking Bread with Tompapa, the host is a riot. Thank you. And you can go to tompapa.com for tour dates. Anything else you want to remind the people?

No, all the stuff is at Tompapa.com. At Tompapa. Yeah. You'll find all, access to everything or social media, Tompapa. Well, thank you so much for coming. It was really fun to have you. Thanks for having me. It's always great to see you.

Yeah, likewise. And we had an impromptu train or plane ride where were we coming back from the big you were coming back from the big slick oh right and i had been performing in that town at the same time we sat next to each other on a plane coming back from can't city it was delightful we both slept we both slept yeah yeah with our mouths open all right everyone uh next week we will not be here uh there's a scheduling conflict but as always feel free to leave us a voicemail at 855 266-2604 fill out the google form in my social bio with your wild cards.

There we go. All right. Thanks. Andy Richter. Out. Conan up.