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Ringer Food

Cult Melons, David Beckham’s Farming, and Tasting Dubai Chocolate

This week, Juliet and Jacoby once again follow up on Red Lobster’s financials, take a look at the weirdest food in NFL stadiums this season, and share their thoughts on Campbell's Soup’s name change. For this week’s Taste Test, they try the viral Dubai chocolate. Finally, they share their Personal Food News and react to some Listener Food News.

Do you have Personal Food News? We want to hear from you! Leave us a voicemail at 646-783-9138 or email ListenerFoodNews@Gmail.com for a chance to have your news shared on the show.

Hosts: Juliet Litman and David Jacoby Producer: Mike Wargon Musical Elements: Devon Renaldo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Duration:
36m
Broadcast on:
13 Sep 2024
Audio Format:
mp3

This week, Juliet and Jacoby once again follow up on Red Lobster’s financials, take a look at the weirdest food in NFL stadiums this season, and share their thoughts on Campbell's Soup’s name change. For this week’s Taste Test, they try the viral Dubai chocolate. Finally, they share their Personal Food News and react to some Listener Food News.


Do you have Personal Food News? We want to hear from you! Leave us a voicemail at 646-783-9138 or email ListenerFoodNews@Gmail.com for a chance to have your news shared on the show.


Hosts: Juliet Litman and David Jacoby

Producer: Mike Wargon

Musical Elements: Devon Renaldo

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A restaurant's best dishes tell stories, their flavors embed themselves in our memory like song lyrics or lines from a movie. So much so that a little slice of a restaurant's story can become part of our own. I'm Danny Chow, and this is Shift Meal, a new video podcast from The Ringer where we're sharing a bite and chopping it up with chefs and restaurant people during their off-hours. Look out for episodes of Shift Meal on Ringer Food starting September 18th. This episode is brought to you by United Airlines. You guys know we've partnered with United on trips to Spain and Australia. Here's what I've noticed and I'm loving about United lately. They're transforming the experience for every passenger. I'm talking to seat back screens, empowered every seat, and Bluetooth. You can connect your own wireless headphones to the seat back screens. That's a total game changer, and they're adding bigger overhead bins to fit everyone's bag. Let's also talk about their app. These fan-breaking tastic tells you the exact door to get dropped off at the airport, helps me skip the bag check line. It gives you live updates without having to unlock your phone, and it even tracks your bag. Book your next trip today at united.com or download the United app. This episode is brought to you by Chase Sapphire Reserve. With a Chase Sapphire Reserve card, your dining experiences are about to get a whole lot better. It was made for adventurous eaters like you. You can earn three times the points at restaurants, including takeout and eligible delivery. Plus, you'll get access to more sapphire dining events across the country. Like at the infatuations eats con, a food experience built in the spirit of a music festival, but with restaurants as headliners. You and your taste buds will be so happy. Check out everything this card has to offer. Learn more at chase.com/saphirereserve. Cards issued by JP Morgan Chase Bank, NA member FDIC, subject to credit approval terms apply. Welcome to Food News, I'm Julia at Litman. I'm David Jacoby. Let's put 30 minutes on the clock. Yes, 30 minutes. And here's our weekly reminder to join the show, give us a call at 646 Stu 138. All right. Let's get going. First story. Great story. It's from the New York Times. Love it. Taehao Rauch. I love her writing in general. This is about a mad man that doesn't say this. What? Mad man? A mad man who makes amazing lemons. His name. Lemons. Sorry. Melons. I was looking at the word and I like had dyslexia and I like changed the M and the L. Makes sense. Alex Weiser, he makes melons. He grows melons, all these special kinds, and shout out to the chefs of Los Angeles, because they do a lot of amazing things. They're freaking these melons. All over the region. It's really, really cool. First of all, I love exceptional produce. I've had a peach from a special spot, which I can't share on this public forum. Because you don't want people to buy them. Exactly. And it was one of the best culinary experiences I have had. Just a pure, delicious, perfect fruit is better to me than like a Michelin star dish. You know what I mean? Totally agree. That sounds so good. So good. So he, he makes like exotic melons, basically. He sources seeds from all over the world. A lot of Tokyo and India sort of seems like a lot of eastern seeds. Yes. A lot of Asian seeds to make different varieties every year and they're small varieties. People, you can get them at the Santa Monica Farmers Market and people wait on long lines and it's chefs. And as the article says, it's aunties and it's new parents. People just really want these melons and every year he does different kinds. This year, he did the a purge, a dark Persian mulberry, which sounded amazing. Yes. They all sound so good. And we're going to get to the chefs that freaked them. But one thing I really like about this article, which if you're going to buy a melon at the store, how do you evaluate the melon? Oh, for me, myself. Yes. I smell it. I don't, I just kind of go off like gut, like I don't even have a strategy. That's kind of like, look at them. Like that one looks good, but I never really considered my technique or what I'm even looking for. So you smell the melon. You're smelling. I'm smelling. Interesting. Yeah. I think that's like a pretty well known thing to do with fruit. Well, because in the article, they sort of, you know, the writer of the article bought of one melon for each day of the week and they picked different melons based on sort of like how long she was going to eat it in. And they touched it, smelled it, felt it, the rind, the consistency, they have a real technique. She's like, I would have never picked these melons. They're professional melon selectors. Yeah. They have, like, they know what they're doing. His melons are so exciting that he went on a KCRW, the NPR station of L.A. and talked about how he had some white flesh who's Becky melons coming and people are like losing their minds. Like what are they hitting the market? They eat it with Becky melons. When are they going to drop? Yeah. What were some of the dishes that stood out to you that you were really excited about? The soft serve ice cream. Because, you know, I love it when we've discussed this on the pinkberry before, where I like it when a dessert is guys, it's a health food. So I could almost convince myself that this sort of like soft serve melon ice cream just sounded. I could see it. You know what I mean? I could taste it. That is a perfect product for post meal. And you're referring to what they're doing at Gang's Kitchen in Alhambra where they are using the sweet cantaloupes to make this soft serve, as you said. That sounds really good to me. The pale orange. Yeah, it sounds awesome. That sounds really good. There's a lot of desserts that sound really good. There was also one at a place called Azizam, which is an Iranian restaurant in Silver Lake. That's basically like, it looks like a shaved ice kind of thing. It's called Paludet. It looked awesome. It's a granita perfumed with rosewater layered with craggy pieces of a half dozen or more varieties of raw chilled melon with a cool, wispy undercurrent of mint syrup. It just seems like the perfect sort of like how it cleanser, you know what I mean? Like it's not heavy. Like sometimes I skip dessert and relax. I'm like, I don't know. I don't want like a cake right now, but that just seems so light and fruity and delicious and like just the rose water. God, I love this guy's melons. I know. It's so nice too. He does look really nice, Mr. Wiser. I want to talk to him at his little farm stand. Yeah, you should go. I mean, the Santa Monica farmers are, it's a great place. So, you know, just take a trip to, while you can, got to get him before the melons he's over. But before those, what are they called? Is Becky Whites? Whatever. Whatever. Those drop. Yeah. White flesh is Becky melons. Yeah. I hope someone goes to this market and calls in 6, 4, 6, 2, 1, 3, 3, please, please, please, someone try these melons, they, I generally only eat melons when they come in a fruit salad. I very rarely, very rarely will I full melon enter my home in my kitchen and will be cut and then eaten, but I always enjoy them. Me too, because I'm lazy. Yeah, I'm lazy too. My mom doesn't. If my mom has come over or something, she will bring melons. It's great. Yes. She's a great dicer. The last melons I have read in the honey deuce. Oh, nice. Yeah. You know, I went to the US Open myself. I didn't get the honey deuce though. No, just the sweetness. It's so sweet. Yeah. No thanks. No thanks. After two, you're like, I'm good. All right. Let's move on. Those are good melons. Someone, someone, please, please eat these melons and call in. There's been so much chat about Red Lobster, like so much coverage. We've talked about it. If it was my personal food news last week. It was your personal food news last week. Which I believe started all the chatter. Let's be honest. Um, it couldn't have started it because we had already discussed Red Lobster going to bankruptcy on this podcast beforehand. Allow me and my delusions, please. Well, that's just like, that's like a memory or a ratio of your own experience. Well, some people call it memory or ratio of my own experience. Some people call it delusions. Okay. Fair enough. Um, here's what's up though. They're going to turn around. They're coming out of bankruptcy, which basically means they're like absolved from a lot of their debts can sort of start over. And there's one person who's been omnipresent lately who was really excited about this. And that person is flavor-flay. So I'm glad you brought up the omnipresent part because when I saw this story, I was like, Oh, I remember that he supports Red Lobster. But we are in the second flavor science, because he had his first run with public enemy. And then he had his VH1 show, of course, Flavor of Love, which I watched every second of every season. It was a, it, it, it captured the culture in a way that you forget how important that show was and how much people talked about it. You know what I mean? Like that was a big show. And then recently with the water polo thing during the Olympics, he was at the US Open. Do you remember him at the US Open? Of course. Yeah, I was there. This is the VMAs last night. He's just doing a press tour. I think this is the third wave of Flavor Flav. That's kind of what I mean. Yeah. The second flavor science. Sure. But I think that's a little hard to follow. So let's go with third wave. Third wave of Flav. Third wave of Flav. Better, better, better. You're right. I think you can take my D and make it better. Yeah. No problem. And it's, it's pretty stark. Like he really is everywhere. I'm like, yes. Is he in bankruptcy? Is he just getting paid to do all this shit? I don't know. But he bought a lot of stuff at Red Lobster. But I also love that he had a very sort of like red lobsters in financial trouble. How can I help? I'm going to go to Red Lobster and order a lot of food. It's like, hmm. And now he has a partnership with them. Yes. So here he is. And he said he, he's excited about it because he loves their biscuits in particular. Yes. Well, who doesn't? Did you have their biscuit last week? No, I'm trying to be healthy. Remember I'm trying to be healthy. Sure. But one of the things about Flavor Flav have always just been curious about is his relationship with Chuck D. Because Chuck D is a serious activist thinker and Flavor Flav is whatever Flavor Flav is. He's a clock guy. And I've always just wondered how they like coexisted for so long in this partnership. Are they still friends? I imagine so. I mean, I haven't heard anything to the contrary, but like Chuck D watch Flavor of Love. I don't think so. No. He's like, I've lived Flavor of Love. I don't mean to watch it. I think I went to her with this man for decades. I've seen this before. I mean, I will say it seems like they are still friends based on some recent articles. And his likability is high. Chart Flavor Flav? Yeah. Totally. He's like a real like for the people kind of guy. Yes. Man of the people. And on that show, like when someone was sad or whatever, he'd always like pull him aside and give him a little pep talk. He's got a heart. I like Flavor Flav. Yeah. Good for Flavor Flav and Red Lobster. Me too. I'm happy for everybody involved. Okay. Let's move on to one of my top topics, which is just like what David Beckham is doing every day. That's not just top topics here on Food News, just in life. Exactly. And you know, he's off in Miami as he's the principal of FC, or into Miami. But he's also often at his country estate in the UK. And when he is there, he makes a lot of video content of him and his backyard. And in his backyard, he recently gave a tour of all of the like leafy greens in the garden that are ready. And he was like showing them off. He was like, here's my kale plant. Here's my rocket, like all this shit. And they also have chickens. And of course, he has bees, red cabbage, and he has berries that he was growing. That's what I'm saying seem to be sort of new for him. He just popped one in his mouth. I have some thoughts in this, I'm sure you do too. My initial thought was this. Why is he so out of breath? This man is a professional athlete walking around his backyard and he can't get a sentence out without heavy breathing. Is he altitude high up there or something? That's a good question. No. He's a professional athlete. Not high. I thought he was sort of sniffling. Was he out of breath? Or was he sniffling? Maybe he's under the weather or something? I think he's under the weather. But he's like out of breath walking around a garden. I'm like, my guy, like, were you okay? I hope he's okay. I'm sure he is. So I've seen his workout videos too. He and Victoria, they're hitting the gym. Anyway, he's just become like a farmer guy. He's like, just fitting in in the UK, hanging out on his farm. So this is, there's certain cycles of wealth, right? And I think that there's, a lot of it has to do with like dress, like when you first get, well, get some money, you dress like someone that has a lot of money and then you get so much money that you dress like someone that has no money. And I also feel like this is another one of the wealth cycles where you've had all the material things you could possibly have and you literally go back to like the dirt. You go back to like prehistoric existence. So I think this is pretty disingenuous. I love it and I support it, but David Beckham is not at his home continuously. There's no way he's maintaining this garden or farm on his own. I've done some research because I knew you'd be in on this topic. Of course. So I was like, let me learn a little about this guy. No, Juliet knows everything about this. Because also Jennifer Garner just showed off her house in architectural digest and has like a farm in the backyard, like all these fruit trees. It looks lovely. She has like this whole gray water system like to like reuse the water, why not? These people are not themselves farmers and also that's okay. But it's sort of like not having your nanny in the photo. It's like not having the actual farmer be a part of the content. It's like David Beckham is not doing this alone. And by the way, it's totally fine. He's out there. He's out there. You can't maintain the farm. He's out there. If you're in Miami. Yeah, exactly. It's in the countryside of England. So I love this content. And I do think he's like really into it and excited, but it's like, he's like putting on a costume. And he's like, today I am playing farmer. And the hat. And the shirt. Like, yes, that is exactly what my feelings were as well. And I knew you would know a lot about this. I was like, let me look up this house. Let me just like catch up with Juliet on some of this Beckham's, you know, content. And I learned that they built a tree house for their kids, which is lovely. It's an amazing $100,000 tree house. He's got this like a man cave backyard kitchen thing. That's like 60 grand. I love it. Outdoor indoor. Yeah. So this is, this is a quote that I got from Hello Magazine. Okay. Quote. The former football star 48 in his fashion design wife, 49 hired three time Chelsea flower show winner Marcus Barnett to transform their outdoor space into idyllic fairy tale garden. Yeah. He bought the garden. Oh, yeah. And they basically had someone like set everything up and then he like, when he's there. Yes. And then there's a staff, which like also farming is hard. Yeah. Yeah, but it's like, it's just funny how he presents it like, wow, I've done such a great job drawing these lettuces. I'm so proud. Yes. I think you did a great job. I think like a cheeky wink, like a knowing wink or like a little, even just something indicating that like he's not out there tilling the soil day after day and like trimming whatever you do to kale. I think that that would have been, it would have helped it a little bit. It also would have added to like their purse, like this, like persona they're cultivating from the dock where that's like, we are not actually salt of the earth people because he kept pushing Victoria, and he was like, who, who, what kind of cars you really have? Yeah. The famous video, of course. Yeah. Exactly. Anyway, I'm happy for him and I love the content. I love it too. Let's be real. One of the, one of the things I loved about it the most was that Victoria was pushing him to make it shorter. Yeah. I just love that. I can totally see that. The video has been, but like this is like 45 seconds, dude. It's the internet. Come on. God. Okay. Let's talk a little bit about football season, American football, just a quick story. We often baseball gets all the attention, we're having weird and wacky food, but football wants in. If there's an opportunity to monetize the NFL and its associates, we'll find it and take it. Oh, they will. Man, is that true at the various stadiums as well? The New York Post has a list of some of the weirdest things you can get at a football stadium this season. And a lot of them are honestly quite weird. So this is one thing I learned from perusing this article because it's a long list. I was like, I was, I kept scrolling. I was like, oh, we're still going is they follow two categories to me. Okay. Quirky things that sound delicious and things for Instagram and I, the guy with the Cardinals, the Cardinals. You mentioned when he's talking about the cotton candy burrito, it's a, it's a literally a, it's imagine M&Ms, Fruity Pebbles, Fruit Loops, Candy wrapped in ice cream, wrapped, literally wrapped in cotton candy, like a joint, like that's what it looks like. Looks gross. It's gross. And he said himself, he's like, we are familiar. We know this is sort of like an Instagram world. Yeah. And that, but then you have other things like, like, uh, like, uh, flaming hot cheetah wings where I'm like, I don't know. Sounds pretty good. Sounds interesting. Well, there's one that I think that the entire staff of the ringer needs to go try and Indianapolis or the cult stadium called the ringer. The ringer. Yeah. A corn dog with blue, tacky crumbs. That sounds like kind of interesting. Yeah. I mean, that's edible. Yeah. Like the cotton candy burrito is not edible. There was this other one at the cowboy stadium, the pizza burger. That's not even edible either. No, no, no. Tell people what the pizza burger is. It's ridiculous. It's a burger, a cheeseburger. No, no. 16 ounce burger. Okay. Think about a corner pounder. It's one pounder. It's a pounder. Think about the size, just the meat itself and then you have, you have a pound of meat. So anyone who's listening to this podcast has been in a grocery store and has bought and ground beef before, right? That is a pound. It's a pound of, it's a pound patty between two personal pizzas. It looks like a hat on top of. Actual pizzas. Pepperoni pizzas. Like a real pizza. But like from the microwave, like a microwave pizza, they look, the whole thing looks so revolting to me. The pizza itself looks revolting. Also, you would get so messy and dirty eating this. How would you eat it? It's like got to be for at least four people. It's for zero people, Juliet. It's for zero people. It is not for people. I don't think they've sold one of these. It's a stereotype of Texas too. It's like, come on. It's gross. Everything's bigger in Texas. We get it. But you do do better. What are we doing? The other one that was like also for Instagram, but also kind of interesting to me was at the Texan Stadium, Strawberry Cheesecake Dessert Pretzel. Mm. Time me up. I love it. They're good. Yeah. They're really dead. Yes. I will never think of pretzels, not think of you in Australia, leaving the table in hunting for more pretzels. That was awesome. And then you found the pretzel source and this is there. I love that. Yeah. It was awesome. Yes. That has changed the way I look at pretzels forever. No one will ever love a pretzel as much as you love that pretzel. You know who loves a pretzel? Sean Pennacy. Really? Yeah. He loves a pretzel. Oh, I love Sean Pennacy. Let's move on to talking about a brand we are once very nervous for their survival. Yeah. Liquid death. Liquid death. Both fans of their beverages, confused by the branding, but a fan nevertheless. They are, I think they're doing okay. They're sticking around. Yeah. And here they are making news because they partnered with Yeti, which makes coolers and beverages to make a cooler that looks like a casket. And it's also casket size. It's like. That's the part. That was the part that changed it for me. I thought it was just going to be like a cooler size that looks like a casket, but it's casket sized. It looks like a casket. Yeah. It looks kind of awesome too, by the way. It does. It looks kind of cool. I don't know the use cases for this. Maybe like if you're playing your college football team is like playing their rival and you like want to have a funeral for the rival or something like as a joke, maybe that's the use case for the liquid death yeti casket cooler, but otherwise I'm not sure. I am having trouble thinking I think it's it looks like there's only one in the world and it's on auction. I think it's sold for about 40 grand, right? Worth it. So I think whoever has this has some disposable income. Hopefully it was purchased by a funeral home. No, I think it's cool. Like a backyard thing would be cool. You want a casket in your backyard? I don't know if you're having friends over football Sunday. You want a funeral home to have a casket with everybody? Yeah. But back. Yeah. Because another good fall question, Mike Morgan. I think that's more appropriate. I don't know. I don't think we're here for yachts at the funeral home. You know what I mean? Maybe some people. I guess they handle their grief with laughter. Yes. A lot of people do. Everyone creeps in different ways. I just I like liquid death. I like the beverage. They sponsored a basketball tournament I played in this weekend. So we ended up with two cases of liquid death. My son carried them both home with the the cherry seltzer, which is fantastic cherry under underrated flavor. I know you like the cherry idea. And we got some mangoes to you, I think. It's good. Nice. Yeah. Okay. One more quick story and then on to our taste test. Okay. This I think is a big deal. Campbell soup. Are you familiar? Am I familiar? I'm the soup guy. It's also it's Campbell soup. It's like fundamental to American life. Yeah. Yeah. They're changing their name from the Campbell soup company to just the Campbell company. Interesting. Soup is gone. I had no idea that I kind of thought this is and there's a whole like the story of this is the Campbell was a distributor and he had a vote of partner named Anderson, I think. So it was Anderson and Campbell at first. And then it went to Campbell soup because they mainly made soups. But I always thought it was just Campbell's, but I didn't realize how many other brands they own. Yeah, they also. Like Cape Cod potato chips. Yeah. Prego pace. Rayos. Rayos. Goldfish. Ripperch farms. Cause those those rail sauces are in everywhere, every sauce I also the best on the on the shelf you can get from the grocery store. I was thinking we should do a taste test. I like the car bone ones a lot too. That's a good idea. We should do a taste test of marinara sauce. That's what I was reading this. Good idea. We will. But I was pretty surprised by this as a soup person, but I think it makes perfect sense. It's also. Is you think soup is in trouble? No. Soup is never in trouble. Okay. I'll keep soup alive. I'm like flavor flavor flavor is to bread lobster. I am to soups. But I will say that in like a boring business way, like if you go to like an investor's call and you make this decision, it can actually like bump your stock price up. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like this this actually has like like financial Wall Street implications. Yeah. Agreed. It's a rebrand. It says we don't just make soup. We make all these other things and sort of and not just sort of the financial world, but the regular world will be like, Oh, this is a big company. Maybe I should buy some. Like I bet their stock went up based on this. All right. I hope it did. They seem like a nice company. So they just looking at the best. This episode is brought to you by experience. I don't know if you've ever looked in your subscriptions on your phone and noticed that you had like four or five subscriptions. Maybe you didn't realize you were still paying for or maybe you got some email for something and you're like, I thought I canceled that. Well, this is what happens. These days anyone can be missing out on savings from subscriptions. They've totally forgotten about. It's not just the ones you forgot to get rid of. It's the ones that they have better deals. And that's where experience comes in. It's like a personal assistant for your subscriptions. 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You can go shopping down your local wherever and you never feel like you're either under dressed or overdressed. You're just comfortable. You can wear it when you're training, traveling, lounging around the house. Go get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing in the planet. Here's the deal. The best thing is get 20% off their first purchase at Viori.com/simmons. Once again, v-u-o-r-i.com/simmons. All right. Moving on to today's taste test, we're actually going to start with a little bit of a story that I pulled up from today from today.com. Have you heard of Dubai chocolate? I have now because it's everywhere. It's everywhere. And we didn't really need today to tell us this, but it is a major TikTok trend. And people are just totally obsessed with it. The bar features a crispy katapi, pistachio, and tahini paste all wrapped in milk chocolate. Individual bars are pretty expensive, but Mike, how much did you spend on getting it for us? Like $18. Oh, he's going to expense that one. It's that world of nuts here in New York is that what's called? Yeah, that's what I passed it this morning. That's fantastic. It's an it's viral. They come in and buy something. I was like, oh, OK. Here we are. So we're going to try it. It is essentially a pistachio chocolate dessert. Chocolate dessert. It sounds fantastic. I'm excited about it. It looks messy on Instagram, so I'm curious to see like, does it like leaking stuff? Like what are we dealing with here? It's also a very thick item. Jacobi had to go get a knife for us to be able to, I wasn't going to mention that, but OK, Jacobi got lost in the confusing office. Anyway, the cutting is going a little bit difficult. It's goopy here. It does look good. Take your own chunk. I'm going to start eating while you get it up. It's very goopy. It looks like a baby, baby poop inside of chocolate, but it also looks delicious. That's a really tough sell that you just gave. Oh, yeah. I can't even get my piece out. Oh, yeah. You're going to want to get that out. It's giving me like crunch bar. Yes. It's got a very good texture. It's very crunchy, very sweet. It's like honey and pistachio, essentially is what I want to call it. Honey, pistachio and sort of like a crunchy pastry. It also really has a flavor of like a Middle Eastern dessert, but that flavor profile. Oh, man, it's really good. I'm going to have another bite. I thought the pictures make it seem like it's more pistachio heavy, but it's really more honey and sort of flaky pastry. Yeah. It reminds me of what are those called, not span of COVID, but it's sweet things, baklava. Oh, yeah. Baklava. Of course. I used to get those in my mooks. Yeah. Yes. It's got the baklava crispy pastry and pistachios wrapped in chocolate. It's fantastic. I understand the trend. Me too. It's delicious. Also, I understand the trend because it's messy, so like there's a visual aspect to it. You can't see right now. I didn't. Yeah, the pictures. The pictures online make it look a lot less messy than it is. Yes. Like you just crack it open. It's like Mars a pan in the middle, but on TikTok, it does make it seem messy. Yeah. So I get that part. Yes. It's good. Delicious. It's great. All right. Onto personal food news. We've been hinting at mine and I think all the people are feeling the same way. You have the Yeti cooler kind of made me think about it. Oh, really? And then you mentioned your perfect peach. This is a great tease. I'm entering a morning period because I'm really going to miss peaches. I don't really know where I go from here. I was at the farmers market yesterday and Mike is like really laughing at me. He never, he never laughs at me. So I guess I'm doing something, right? I was at the farmers market yesterday. There's like the last batch of peaches from the Kernan farms in South Jersey. And I got some peaches. I got some nectarines. They smelled good. I still owned them. And then I had to concede and get some apples. I was like, fuck. And then like honeycrisp, it's back. All the things I bought are very sweet. That's sort of like the common thread there. But I'm just really sad. Like I love stone fruit season so much. Stone fruit? Is that a category of fruit? Yeah. With the big pit in the middle. Oh, okay. Peaches, pomps, apricots, cherries. It's like the saddest part of approaching the autumn equinox, autumn equinox is the end of stone fruit at the farmers market and the grocery store. Yeah, it's just like, it's really a loss. And I really like just feel sad about it. You can get peaches year round, but they're just not the same. That's the thing. They're not the same. South America, which a lot of our fruit in winters in South America. But in particular, the stone fruit doesn't travel well. Local stone fruit is such a luxury in life. This peach that I had was so good. And I think that I have a very slight allergic reaction to stone fruit, a very slight allergic reaction to stone fruit. But it's so good. I just kind of fight through it. I do to pineapple and I just go. I just go through it anyway. That feels like a little irritating. Yeah, a little tingly, a little like it's like it's not going to hurt me. I'm not going to break out in highs or anything, but I have it like this peach was so good. I was like, I don't even care if I'm allergic to this. I'm eating it. It was so good. I understand that. But that's, but Juliet from like a big picture perspective is that's what makes it so good in the first place. Smiles. Does it happen? No, don't cry. It's over. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I'm telling a little. I'm telling a little blue about it. Just to be clear, I didn't make that up. I know. Okay. All right. Your turn. You know, I'm a big app person, a big time app user. If I have your app on my phone, you're the earliest adopter of the Starbucks app of anyone I know. Really? Oh, we're going to came out. You were doing it at Grantlands. All the time. 12 years ago. Oh, yeah. All the time. And I have the sweet green app and there's a sweet green in my neighborhood. And this is phenomenal. It happened to me at least. I'd say three of the last four times I've been there, right? I will order on the sweet green app 10 minutes before I get there. I will get there. I will not be ready. I will inquire about said salad. They will go to the back and try to find it. There's a whole other one time the guy said, he goes, I'll go downstairs and check. I'm like, there's a downstairs where you make my salad and people are walking in the sweet green, waiting on like a four person line, going through to the cash register, leaving with their salad. In the time that I'm still waiting for myself that I ordered 10 minutes previous. This is this I let me just calm down. The amount that this frustrates me is a me problem. Okay. The fact that it does frustrate me is a them problem, but I get so mad and I'm nice to people. So I don't like I don't like I'm like a jerk to some might say some might, but I'm not a jerk to them about it. But I do I do I do sit there. I'm like, this makes no sense. I gave you the information of how to make my salad 20 minutes ago. These people gave you the information to how to make their salad four minutes ago. Why are they getting theirs first? I don't think you're wrong here. This is a significant problem for sweet greens. They need to if they're going to offer an app, it needs to be a viable ordering system. Yes. And I also think there shouldn't be some sort of second production line for the app salads. There's a whole other area needs to just be one one production line doesn't get lost. Exactly. Cause like there's I feel like the app salads are sort of a secondary thing like those people aren't even here. So we don't have to make those salads now. Just salad to its credit. I feel like it's the opposite. I feel like they prioritize what's coming in on the apps. I like that. Yeah. So that comes this isn't my second personal food news, but this happened to me today. I had a just salad salad today and this is the thought that I had. And this is a real question I'm being dead serious about is a salad a snack. I don't think a salad is a meal. I'm thinking I put no chicken, no protein in there. So it's just vegetables and I ate it. And I was like, that was a snack. Can't anything be a snack? No hamburgers, not a snack. A pizza is a snack. Slider? Is that a snack? Sure. I mean, sure. Anything can be a snack depending on how much you eat of it. Sure. Right. Let's say the salad, right? Depends on if you don't put anything, no proteins in it then. I just feel like whenever I eat a salad, I don't get the bread cause I'm trying to be like healthy or whatever and I won't eat the bread and I will be hungry 40 minutes later. Right. I think it's a snack is not a real, it's not a real meal. I can see that. I don't totally buy in but I get where you're coming from. So just how it had pickles. I like pickles a lot. I love just salad. It's a great place. You love just so. I do. It's just what it's sufficient to. All right. Let's get into today's listener food news from Alex and Minneapolis. Hey, Julia and Jacoby. This is Alex from Minneapolis. Unknowingly, my wife and I did our own personal taste test at the Minnesota State Fair. We waited 20 minutes in line at 8 a.m. to try the deep fried ranch and let me tell you, it was pretty good. Would I wait 20 minutes again to eat it? No, of course not. But was I happy I was able to taste it and see all it was worth all the buzz? Absolutely. So my question is for you guys with state fairs being a thing in the Midwest and I know the Texas State Fair is coming out. What are three essential state fair foods if you would have to throw your own? Would you have on the menu? Thanks for taking my question and look forward to hearing the answer. Thanks for this reporting. This is great reporting. It's exactly what we need. Yeah. So one thing that really stuck out about Alex's experience is... The line? What? No. The time. Mmm. 9 a.m. Yeah. Fried ranch is not a breakfast food. Eight in the morning. It has the fried ranch at 8.15. Like, but he hasn't even had a coffee yet. That sounds delicious. It does sound good. Um, I really respect their game and thank you for going. Yes. I really appreciate that, Alex. I really appreciate that, Alex. Of all the state fairs, I feel like the Minnesota one is the most storied. I feel like it's like... Texas. I feel like for me, it's Minnesota. We have heard the most about it. Really? Yeah. I've been to the Texas one too. I've been to no state fair. So I actually can't answer the question. Oh. What do you mean? I've been to zero state fairs. Well, my Texas state fair experience was like, uh, for a gig, so we tried everything. Mmm. Fried butter, fried coke, fried Oreos, uh, just everything fried. Sounds great. Yeah. I think fried, fried Oreos, top of my list to try. Those are good. Fried ranch. And then like probably like a funnel cake. That's the thing I was going to say. Is fried dough slash funnel cake is like the best of these things. So good. It is the best and everything else is sort of like, uh, it's, it's fried dough adjacent. Yeah. Like the fried Oreo is just an Oreo wrapped in fried dough. Yeah. Totally. Essentially. Agreed. Um, thanks so much for going, man. Yeah. Thank you, Alex, for doing the research. Someone, please go get these melons. Yeah, you know. That sounds awesome. We need you to go try these melons and call us back. Alex Leiser. He's at the Santa Monica Farmers Market. Yeah. Six, four, six, two, one, 38. I am, I am so obsessed with these melons. Thanks for producing Mike Wagon and we'll be back next week. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. You might say all kinds of stuff when things go wrong, but these are the words you really need to remember. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. They've got options to fit your unique insurance needs. Meaning, you can talk to your agent to choose the coverage you need, have coverage options to protect the things you value most, file a claim right on the State Farm mobile app, and even reach a real person when you need to talk to someone. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.