Wonderful! - Wonderful! 192: I Like When the Bread Gets Wet

Episode Date: August 5, 2021

Rachel’s favorite rad superstar! Griffin’s favorite comestible containers!Music: “Money Won’t Pay” by bo en and Augustus – https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoya Support AAPI communities and those affected by anti-Asian violence: https://www.gofundme.com/c/act/stop-aapi-hate Support the AAPI Civic Engagement Fund: https://aapifund.org/ MaxFunDrive ends on March 29, 2024! Support our show now by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.

Hi, this is Rachel McElroy. Hello, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is wonderful. We're in the studio making some magic. Definitely focused, I would say. How are you feeling? Are you feeling focused? Not at all.

I feel laser focused. Like my attention is shining like a light through a prism. And it is focused entirely on the show so much. So I think I might burn it up with heat for my laser- focused entirely on the show so much so i think i might burn it up with heat for my laser like focus on the show definitely not thinking about other stuff what other stuff what else could there possibly be there's only us there's only this. Forget, regret, or ow, fuck. What is that from? Rent, the musical Rent.

Okay. See, I'm at a point now where I almost always want to guess Rent, but then I feel like maybe that's ignorant, so I should actually ask. It's probably the musical that I know the most shit about, just because it came out when i was right at the right i was i was fertile grounds for the seed i might say that a lot of people feel that i really hit my finger really hard babe i feel like you don't care i feel like you don't give a shit well it's just it's an audio medium you know you really didn't you didn't have to gesture

so wildly there's a lot of things i don't have to do to make art. And that's the end of that sentence. And I thought, this is wonderful. It's a show where we talk about things we like, things that we are good, things that we're into. It is a fucking nightmare over here, man. It sucks 10 shits here. Texas, as you may have heard, is a hellscape. A fucking nightmare.

In a different way way not in the freezing pipes bursting kind of way yeah or the thermonuclear hot eight months out of the year kind of way but in in the way that the air is charged with poison particles right yes that and uh we also i mean we are a men a menagerie of illnesses in this household. Griffin and I, just to start it off, I'll say that Griffin and I were both sick and thought we had food poisoning. And we thought, oh, that was unpleasant. And then two days later, Henry was sick. Some of the sickest I've ever seen Henry, yeah.

Yeah, and Henry does not eat the same food we eat. No. Henry eats consistently the same four things on rotation. And then we thought Gus had it, but then maybe it's just RSV. And it is RSV. And it is RSV. It just, it's, it is. I don't know when this episode's going up.

It's possible it's going up sometime this week. I think it may go up next week. We're definitely going to have to miss one. But yeah, I apologize that things are so wild, but I only kind of apologize because we are recording this show now. What does a kind of apology sound like? I think most, you know how Mario Batali, when he sort of put out an apology when everybody accused him of fostering an atmosphere where sexual harassment kind of ran wild. And he was like, yeah, sorry, I guess. Anyway, here's a kick-ass recipe for cinnamon rolls. Yeah.

I'm not sure I want to liken myself to Mario Batali in any way imaginable. Hey, you have a small wonder? I can start. Yeah, please. That sweat potion we call Gatorade. I don't know if we've ever done a big, big segment on it. It seems like the kind of thing that we will have done one on it. Yeah.

But Gatorade. Specifically the drink, not the humorous. Oh, shit. That's what we've talked about. We have talked about that. It's the video of the people talking about the first time they taste Gatorade. No, man. I mean, a lot of Gatorade was consumed in this household.

Yeah. I mean, it has value, but every time i drink it i'm like oh i'm still thirsty oh that's interesting because of the the saltiness you know i guess so like oh i wish i had more to drink i wonder this i wonder how pakari sweat goes down if you're if you have a tummy illness i bet that would be good as hell damn i want a pakari sweat can we get some of them you remember that yeah no i do, I do. It was like, it's, it's. I remember it tasting like lemon vitamin water. No, you're thinking of CC lemon. Pocari Sweat is like, I don't know, a neutral Gatorade. Well, one would argue that lemon

vitamin water doesn't really taste like lemon. That's fair. God, I like me a vitamin water too. That was certainly enough time. Certainly, certainly certainly it was you know what i'm gonna say oh gosh you know what's sad is that i think i've said this before dates going on a date or the sweets no the the sweet chewy wow fruit adjacent you don't eat a lot of dates you'd say that but oh it's in my my larabars yeah i have and i really might say that i sound so midwestern well it's in potlar bar my larabars uh they like they don't have dairy in them but they're like primarily made out of date and they have this peanut butter chocolate one yeah and it's like dates and um yeah um you go first this week and

i would love to hear what you got uh on on deck superstar singer songwriter stevie wonder okay i love i i enjoy i enjoy his work i i have a really bad stevie wonder karaoke experience oh that is like wake up in with like a flash sweat in the middle of the night did you choose a stevie wonder song i was in i was going through my stevie wonder phase as everybody in college does and uh was really into the song for once in my life and i was like i'm gonna do that karaoke no no he covers like four octaves in that song. Yeah, it's true. It does get very high. Yeah.

So it's the only time I've ever bailed out of a karaoke song. Like by the third key change, I was like, I was like, I'm done. I'm out. I'm out. I'm out. Sorry. Sorry, everybody.

Hey, everybody. Sorry. It was a stupid idea. I'm sorry. I won't do this again. Let me go through. So that was one of his earlier songs, actually. It rips. That's probably my favorite jam of his. That's a 1969 idea. I'm sorry. I won't do this again. Let me go through. So that was one of his earlier songs, actually. It rips.

That's probably my favorite jam of his. That's a 1969 song. Wow, really? That old? 1971, signed, sealed, delivered. I'm yours. Oh, you can't fucking beat that. 1974, Superstition. Oh, yeah.

And You Are the Sunshine of My Life, which is a... Man, Stevie Wonder has written a lot of very good songs, huh? Uh-huh um he he also wrote tell me something good 1975 tell me something good fuck yeah hey babe this is a great segment did ebony and ivory in 1983 that's the paul mccartney of course uh i just called to say i love you 1985 uh-huh uh part-time lover 1986 uh-huh uh i can't wait for you to get to that mulan soundtrack because it's coming i know i'm on i'm on tinderhooks oh well this is just him this is this is just i'm looking at his his awards he has received i suppose that was a uh collab 98 Degrees, I believe.

Be true to your heart. Oh, I don't know. I might be out of my fucking gourd right now. Yeah, I don't know. I'm looking at a list of awards he has won for particular songs. Yeah, I don't think he won one for Be True to Your Heart, the collab with 98 Degrees for the Mulan soundtrack. My favorite Stevie Wonder song, Sir Duke.

Oh, yeah. We could also, Sir Duke. Oh, yeah. We could also just play it. Oh, okay. Yeah, let's play a little bit of Sir Duke. That song is from the 1976 album song in the keys of life or song in the key of life rather and that is i believe the album we have downstairs yes on our wall i think that might be the only stevie wonder album we have it was true to your heart with 98 degrees and stevie wonder okay i didn't i did not imagine that in some sort of weird Mulan-infused fever dream.

Yeah. That song, man, that song just jams. It's jammy. It's so good. It's so funky and jazzy. It's actually a tribute to Duke Ellington,

which I didn't realize. Oh. It was right after he had passed. It's a very celebratory song for somebody who recently passed away. Okay, so Stevie Wonder. Do you know anything about him? Not really.

Besides the sunglasses? Mm-mm. Yeah. So he lost his sight as a newborn. Oh. He was born six weeks early, and there's a suggestion that he may have received too much oxygen in the incubator which worsened a condition he had uh called retinopathy of prematurity which is just you know when your eyes hadn't developed yeah exactly uh he was born steveland judkins fuck

yes why did he change it ste Steveland Judkins? Yes. That sounds like a name you would make up. It sounds like a, yeah. It's so good, though. This Yahoo answer was sent in from. Steveland Judkins. So he, the reason I think Stevie Wonder kind of took root was that he was like a, he's like a child prodigy. Of course. Which I didn't realize.

Like I didn't realize that he had like a record deal by age 11 whoa me neither yeah so he could play the piano harmonica and drums before the age of 10 cool he grew up in detroit which as you all know was like a big big hot spot for like motown music in that time period so yeah he got signed uh before he was 11 and has been producing music ever since. Wow. He has like been through a series of very dangerous circumstances. It's kind of amazing that he is has been as successful and healthy as he has been because he was in like a terrible car crash in 1973 that left him in a coma for four days. Whoa.

And then just recently in 2019, he had a kidney transplant okay dude is still still out there jamming still jamming he he's kind of incredible so i got to see him at austin city limits music festival with my friend ashley we were that was fun it was incredible like not only you play all the hits and you were like continually like when i was listing out the the hits, and you were continually, when I was listing out the hits for you, you're continually surprised. Like, oh, that one too? Is he in his 70s? How old is he?

So he was born in 1950, and so he's 71. Fuck off. Wow. Yeah. And when did you see him? I mean, gosh, it would have been like at least six years ago. Oh, okay. All right. That's still fucking awesome.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He climbed up on the piano. And it was a very nervous moment for all of us in the audience. He's an older gentleman. Yeah. And he climbed up there and then he just

kind of like just grooved a little bit on top of the piano and it was like watching him it was like terrifying and thrilling and wonderful that's good uh he apparently also has flown a plane before all right in 1973 he told rolling stone that he flew a plane from Chicago to New York and that during a trip to Ghana, he not only steered but landed a 10-seater plane by following instructions given by the pilot. I could definitely see that, right? The pilot said the sensitivity of his hands was unbelievable. And clearly he's a very dexterous man, you know? Sure, but like landing, operating a plane is very like buy the book, follow the rules thing. I imagine maybe if it was stormy, choppy weather that it would be a little bit more. Yeah, it's just like, it's just such a, like a strong demonstration of his, just like his spirit and his like fearlessness of just like, I can do whatever the hell I want.

Yeah. You know? It's kind of incredible. His like fearlessness of just like, I can do whatever the hell I want. Yeah. You know, it's kind of incredible. He was also one of the first people to invest in devices that could read text out loud to blind people. Oh. In 1976, he found out about the Kurzweil reading machine.

And he was the first person to buy the machine and defend the inventor. That's awesome. Yeah. He is like he's been out there doing a lot of stuff the song happy birthday you know like kind of the jazzy happy birthday song yeah uh he actually wrote that uh in honor of martin luther king uh it was came out in 1981 and it was the celebration of uh the designation of martin luther king as a national holiday that's that's yeah so cool he's

just like such a part of like our our history i know he's written songs for smoky robinson and aretha franklin uh he's done i would say maybe everything maybe everything there is to do keep it up stevie this this segment feels less like hey everybody we want to tell you about a cool thing because it's it's fucking stevie wonder y'all know but it does feel it feels like this segment is more for stevie wonder like we're like we're recording this sort of like how like uh youtubers do like thank you videos for like specific fans who donate to them this is just this one's for you stevie wonder keep it up you're doing amazing uh yeah so he um let's see hold on just a second uh so his harmonica playing can be heard on uh the 2009 grammy nominated never gonna give you up featuring cj hilton and rafael sadiq okay uh he appeared on singer celine dion's studio album in 2013.

In 2020, he started a new record label. And he is just doing a lot of really incredible stuff, including still writing music. He has singles that came out just last year. That is so sick. Yeah. He's just rad. He's just rad he's just rad and i like him yeah and that's i think that's the only thing we really need to talk about

uh somebody or something on this show if it's rad and we like it you made the cut hey can i steal you away yes We have a few blumper bombs here, and I would love to read the first one because it is for Cheryl, and it's from Charlie, who says, Cheryl, if you're hearing this, I finally got a spot on Wonderful, and I want to wish you a happy three-year anniversary. Marrying you is one of the best things I ever did in life. I hope we're swimming in Lake Caspian right now, drinking champagne in the evening and toasting to the rest of our life together. I love you. Champagne in the evening, bubbling up as the sun goes down. Did you like that? That just came out. That just came out. This is what it's like to be married to Griffin McElroy.

That's so exciting. That's so exciting. We're going to explore that after we finish this episode. Can I read the next one? Yeah. You're going to have to write a song for this one too. I guess so. This one is for past Sajan.

It is from future Sajan. Hey, future me. I hope by the time this airs, you will have kicked that English class in the butt and gotten that sweet, sweet associate's degree. I'm proud that you worked with your anxiety and finished something difficult for you. Life is difficult, but I know the best is still ahead of you. I know you will become the best you in time. I don't think you're allowed to kick a class in the butt.

Does that mean every individual person in the class and the professor got a swift one to the hiner? You want me to write the song this time? Yeah, sure. Hey, Sajan, kick an English butt while the sun goes down. That was good. That was good. That was good. It did sound like you were talking about hurting English people. So we'll workshop both those at the same time.

You know, like you're the virtuoso, and I just am humble at your feet. You're the Courtney Cox Arquette dancing on the stage in the Bruce Springsteen. So you're Bruce? Obviously! Obviously!

Hi, I'm Annabelle Gurrich. And I'm Laura House. And we're the hosts of Tiny Victories. My tiny victory is that I sewed that button back on the day after it broke. We talk about that little thing that you did that's a big deal to you, but nobody else cares. Did you get that Guggenheim Genius Award? We don't want to hear from you.

We want little bitty tiny victories. My tiny victory is a tattoo that I added onto this past weekend. Let's talk about it. My victory is that I'm one year cancer free. this past weekend. Let's talk about it. My victory is that I'm one year cancer free. But my tiny victory is that I took all of the cushions off the couch, pounded them out, put them back, and it looks so great. So if you're like us and you want to celebrate the tiny achievements of ordinary people, listen to Tiny Victories. It's on every Monday on Maximum Fun. It's on every Monday on Maximum Fun.

I want to talk about edible food containers, which is to say you can eat the container or the handle on it and not a container that contains edible food. I'm talking about bread bowls. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I was wondering if you were going to extend this to like a burrito um no i oh burrito i don't know burrito stretching a little bit because then you could say like the bread of a sandwich is the container of it no i'm talking about bread bowls and the two things i'm focusing

on bread bowls and ice cream cones of various stripes but really anything that you can just kind of hold on to and then after you eat the food it contains the whole thing's gone is cool there is something very beautiful to me about a dining experience that's like take only pictures and leave only footprints you know what i mean yeah although have you ever actually finished a whole bread bowl and that's the thing is you feel no is the answer to that is you get the bread bowl and you get the thing is you feel no is the answer to that is you get the bread bowl and you get the soup and you finish the soup and the bread bowls there and you're like this looks delicious but i'm i am full a lot of bread in that bowl there's quite a bit of bread in that bowl

um i've done i've gone to town on some but i don't know that i've ever fully fully finished a bread whereas an ice cream cone like i've never heard of anybody being like, well, I'm at the cone and I am stuffed. Time to toss it. Exactly. A bread bowl is just like, it has to be, first of all, it has to be complimentary to the soup or dip that it contains in order for me to be like genuinely stoked about it. Like a cheesy broccoli soup. Oh, of course. Like I'll just, I will obliterate that. Yes, yes.

But I don't know, like any other, most most other kinds of soup it's hard for me to get very excited about there's something about the bread bowls saturating yeah with the flavors you wouldn't want just like a like a tomato soup in a bread bowl seems wrong a spinach dip uh or like an artichoke dip that's good as hell too um i'm loving that um but for me, I just like when the bread gets wet and then it tastes good. Let me check my notes. It says here I like it when the bread gets wet and you eat it. I just like it when the bread gets wet. Ice cream cone too, of which there are three main varieties, right?

You got your cake cone or wafer cone. You got your sugar cone. The waffle. And then you got your waffle cone. The waffle cone, hands down. I've got your sugar cone. And the waffle. And then you've got your waffle cone. The waffle cone. Yeah. Hands down. I think they're all great.

I think they all serve different purposes. And I can speak pretty authoritatively on this as a former person who worked in the ice cream arts. Yeah. Now, as a yogurt artist, what all kind of cone options did you serve all of them the gamut we had we had cake like a waffle even we had sugar cones we had waffle cones and we had dipped waffle cones where they were like dipped in chocolate usually and then rolled in um different toppings so they're like butterfinger crunchums and peanuts that's the thing waffle cone is what you need if you're dealing with a lot of toppings

because you can't really fill a waffle cone with ice cream and and fro-yo alone right like it's a big it's a basket they call it a waffle cone is essentially a basket that can contain lots of things but a waffle cone is like a commitment if If like eating the waffle cone after eating the ice cream and toppings inside of it is like a little it. It is easy to feel bad after doing that because of how much you've eaten. Sugar cone is just like sugar cones, like a tiny waffle cone, essentially. But like, I feel like, OK, I've done the work of eating the ice cream. I can have that cake cone for frozen yogurt when it melts into it and it gets just kind of like sloppy gloopy glorp and you can just glorp that down oh my goodness so

the cake cone is the kind that's like kind of styrofoamy right styrofoamy yeah the sugar cone is what it's just like a uh it's like a small waffle cone okay yeah but it doesn't it doesn't have the kind of broken edges no yeah okay i got you i'm caught up if a sugar cone for me is like it's if you're just in it for the ice cream sugar cone is the way to go it's it's efficient it is functional you have it and you eat the ice cream off of it and then you can eat it and it's not much it's like a little after dinner after dinner snack snack it's an after dinner snack after snack you know what i mean after you finished it the ice cream you have the cone and that's and that's great to me um so i want there's some history here i would love to give uh on cones and bowls cones can be sourced back to uh early 19th century cookbooks

there's a french cookbook from 1825 that mentions making cones out of, quote, little waffles, which is adorable. And from what I found, they kind of went mainstream in the United States at the 1904

St. Louis World's Fair. There's a story that is probably apocryphal about an ice cream salesperson who ran out of cups. And so they went next door to the waffle salesperson and were like,

hey, hook me up. And so they folded up ice cream inside their waffle and then that was i love it it's it's not proven that that was the case that's the truth uh but there are things called trenchers that are like from medieval times like the actual times not the restaurant that were basically like stale ass bread that they would cut into plates. And so you would eat stew and shit out of them and then crunch those down also when you're done with them. Bread bowls are ancient. And I think that's powerful.

Can I just bring him in here? Yeah, let's bring Gus into the studio because he's waking up. Hi there, Gus. Welcome to the studio, August. Do you have anything to say for yourself? No. Daddy's talking about bread bowls. Do you want to hear Daddy talk about bread bowls, honey? Okay. Tell me about bread bowls. I don't know that he cares.

Trenchers. The medieval plates. We were talking about it before we were rudely interrupted by our Stay Puft Marshmallow man of a son uh and so there's a word called trencherman which describes like a gourmand a a prolific eater of food uh and it also describes somebody who like comes by your table a lot to like eat off your plate like somebody who who comes and steals your food like you know the kind of person who's like oh french fries let me grab that could be a trench a trencherman. And the etymology of that sources back to these old stale bread plates that they used to have in medieval times. I love it. I like that.

I didn't know that the medieval folks were so crafty. But there they were too, eating their stew and then eating their plate. And somebody's like, are you ready for dinner? And you'd be like, I just ate. And they'll be like, where's your plate? And you'd be like, I fucking ate it, dude. Sorry, I cussed, August. Can babies understand words and cuss words no okay cool then i don't feel guilty about it

um i just like i like the novelty of it is obviously great but i also there i have had some bread bowl experiences where i'm like some of this other food has leaked into this food and created an all new great food, which is to say wet cheesy bread. And I think that's powerful. Don't you, buddy? So taciturn. He was so, so wordy earlier today.

Well, you know, he's shy. Is that it? You know how the McElroy boys are shy. Not in front of a microphone, baby. That's true. You should turn, turn. Come on. Give us some of that heat.

Do one of those where you're like, ah. Oh, man. We got the cutest baby in the whole world. Okay. Hey, do you want to wrap up so we can love and nurture this sweet little angel? Okay, cool. Well, well hey thanks for listening and thank you to bowen and augustus for the use of our theme song money won't pay you can find a link to that in the episode description and um thank you to maximum fun for having us on the network and go to maximum fun.org check out all the great shows that they

have on maximum fun.org like one bad. What show do you want to recommend, August? Triple Click? Yeah, that's a good one too. Judge John Hodgman? Okay. Good taste. Yeah,

that's true. We have merch and stuff at McElroyMerch.com that you can go check out. And, yeah. Is it really McElroyMerch.com? I think so.

Wow. I've been saying that link a lot for a long time, so I really hope that that's it. But that's it. Yes. Again, I don't know when this episode goes up, so it's possible we won't have an episode next week or that we didn't have one last week, depending on where you are at in the time stream. It's all very complicated.

Just one cute sound. People are going to think we don't have a baby. Yeah, I know. They're going to think we made this whole thing up. You got anything? Oh, that was good. Great, son. Does that count?

That's great foley work for a sick baby. All right. We're going to go. Keep it real. Have a great summer. Love you like a sister bye Money won't pay. Work it off. Money won't pay. Work it off. Money won't pay.

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