Am I the asshole if I bring a gallon Ziploc and my homemade hot sauce to a restaurant? Hmm, not if you share it with the other tables there. Have you really done that before? Wouldn’t you like to know? This is a Hot Dog is a Sandwich. Ketchup is a smoothie. Yeah, I put ice in my cereal, so what? That makes no sense. A hot dog is a sandwich. A hot dog is a sandwich. Welcome to our podcast, A Hot Dog is a Sandwich, the show we break down the world’s best sandwiches. Biggest food debates. I’m your host Josh Sharer. And I’m your host Nicole Aniety. And we have a very special guest joining us today. Please welcome the host of the Too Hot Cakes podcast, Morgan Ashley Absher. Welcome! Hello! Welcome! So I’ve never brought my own hot sauce to a restaurant. Thank God. What I did do is I brought my own french fries to a Chipotle to ask if they would make me a California burrito with the french fries instead of the rice. And? And they would not. The first time Chipotle has ever cared about food safety, they wouldn’t let, and that’s the tea right there. Oh my gosh. Um, no, but thank you so much for joining us today. I am so excited to be here. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. We need a sort of spiritual shepherd through our first ever journey into the, am I the asshole? Subreddit. Um, tell me about the Am I the Asshole subreddit. It is a crazy place. Um, what isn’t on that subreddit? I mean, you will find relationship problems, wedding tea, food debates, you name it. Um, it’s really a place where people can go and have a mostly neutral, third party response to whatever issue they’re dealing with. My god, and now we become the neutral third party response, and I’m really bored for this You really were you love judging other people. I think in a great way. Yeah. Yeah, I think I think a little bit of judgments Good, you know, I’m not the morality police, but I got pretty good insights It’s a good time. I’m so glad that you’re here cuz Nicole and I have been we’re an echo chamber, right? Just in here for the last four and a half years together. We need somebody else to call us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So true. So we’re going to run through a couple stories today. We’re going to give you first crack at it, and then we’re all going to decide collectively if they are indeed the assholes, or if, as we all know, Nicole and I are. Okay. So I’m going to start with this one. It’s am I the asshole for eating before my date arrived to the restaurant? Yes. Yes. So for context, I’m not a foodie, I eat to get full and not, and not as an experience. I’ll often eat at home before dinner outings just because I don’t want to wait and rather enjoy the experience of the outing, which for me doesn’t involve the eating portion. I met this girl online and we agreed on meeting at a restaurant for dinner to get to know each other more. Fast forward day of our date, we agreed to meet at 9pm. Now my day was super busy with work and I didn’t get to eat lunch and it’s almost 8pm and I’m starving so I get ready and head out. To the date, still having no food. I like getting to a date early so I can check out the environment. He’s a navy seal casing the joint. Pick the best seats and just prepare in general, so I arrived about 45 minutes early this time. Still starving, I decide I should eat to get that out of the way or I’ll be hungry and cranky having to wait another hour or so before I can eat. I finished my meal and ordered a cocktail. By this point, my date is almost arriving. She gets to the restaurant and we instantly click she’s smiling and we’re having a great conversation. She’s she’s touching my hand It’s going over all very extremely. Well, eventually she asked if I would like to order some food to which I respond No, thank you. I’m not hungry and she insists saying she doesn’t want to eat alone But I tell her don’t worry and eat and that I am enjoying my cocktail So we call the waiter over and she starts asking him for recommendations to which he responds with no ill intentions that it’s not good Seem like really enjoy the tacos, so maybe she should try them. Oh, no. Blown up his spot, . And this, at this point, she’s confused and asked What does that mean? So I told her I ate some tacos before she arrived. She immediately becomes furious saying I’m rude and who eats before a date has even arrived. I explained to her that my goal was to get to know her and that the eating portion wasn’t important regardless, the whole mood changed. She ordered some food, ate and made an excuse to have to leave. I haven’t heard from her since then. And that was that. That was last night. So am I the asshole. Morgan, what say you? Yeah? Yeah. Oh my gosh. When you’re asking someone out on a dinner date, you’re kind of expecting both people to eat. No one wants to sit there and awkwardly stuff their face and try to have a conversation when the other person is staring at them. Oh my gosh, right. If you’re that hungry, you skip lunch, eat before you go to the restaurant, and then get a little Appetizer, but to just stare at her as she’s trying to eat that. It’s weird. It’s weird. It’s rude. It’s tacky. Not a fan This subreddit rules, man hilarious, um Let’s go through some red flags before any of that even happens if you found out somebody showed up to a date 45 minutes early To check out the environment and pick the best seats, which I would say takes 90 seconds What would you think? What would you think if somebody got there 45 minutes early? It seems pathological. Yeah, it’s a little aggressive. Like if someone’s like maybe like 10 minutes early or something for parking. Yeah. Well, we live in LA and we know how like hectic and congested parking can be so. Or even traffic, like adjusting for it. Yeah, yeah, that’s fine. And maybe, you know, he’s a little bit nervous. It’s his first day. 45 minutes is Actually, not normal. And like, to go into the restaurant for 45 minutes. Because I’ve like, adjusted for traffic and ended up 25 to half an hour early. And then I kill time by myself. I’m near the restaurant, and then I will go there 6 minutes early. You know, which is like a reasonable amount of early time, I think, to show up. Yeah, as a, someone who’s been a server before, I would have thought he was getting stood up. I would have been like, there’s no way his date is coming. Why is he sitting here, you know, he says he’s waiting for a date. I would have for sure thought he got stood up. Right, right. Like, that is too early. She’s touching his hand before they ever even order drinks though, that’s good on her for making that bold move. I know! Probably hot. Love that. That’s pretty cool. That’s probably hot. The idea for him that there’s no in between of, I’m gonna eat a full meal of tacos and a cocktail to satiate my hunger, Travel with a handful of cashews. I was gonna say Handful of nuts could have solved everything here. Take a granola bar with yourself. What are you doing eating tacos at a restaurant that you’re gonna take a girl out on? I really don’t like this. This like, this actually like kind of made my blood boil a little bit. It’s upsetting. It’s awkward then. I know. And then she’s like, well, you’re not gonna eat? She literally is saying, I don’t want to eat alone. So at that point, dude, you order something, you suck it up, and you have a little nibble with her. Put up or shut up. You Order the or artichoke dip, whatever. Something. Just live your life. It’s wei It’s just so weird to me, like one of the best parts about going on a date, for me, is like seeing how someone eats and handles food. I think it’s it’s important to see. I agree, I agree. I don’t like the thought that people are analyzing the way I’m eating. Of course! Welcome to the real world, Morgan. Ah, you just Okay, never eating in public again. You are being perceived. I’m so sorry. When have you had like a negative experience or positive experience where you noticed the way somebody ate food and were like this is either a disqualifier or I’m in love? Well, I think for me it’s like whenever I see someone eating like a Neapolitan pizza like a really like a like wet pizza Okay My instinct is, this is so stupid, I like take it and I almost like flip it, almost like a tech tech. I like, I like take the tip of the pizza and I flip it and then I bite it. But sometimes I see people like use their fork and knife to like bite the, bite the end of it off and that like pisses me off. That gives you the ick. You are like, in Neapolitan pizza rules, supposed to eat it with a knife and fork. Well, that’s my ick. Well that’s fine, but like, that’s a beautiful sort of metaphor for all this, right? It’s like, all of us are freaky little weirdos or weird little freaks, whichever you prefer. And there’s a freaky little weirdo or weird little freak for us out there. Yeah. And dating is just like trying to match those Lego pieces together. These people are awful Lego pieces to match together. They don’t fit. They don’t fit. Have you ever like had an experience watching somebody eat and judge them for that, either positive or negative? I think sushi is one of those where you really judge people. And I did Sushi on a First Date, and I will never, luckily I don’t think I have to do it again, but I will like never do that again. Don’t recommend Sushi on a First Date. It’s so awkward and the way that some people Um, handle chopsticks, it just can really, it’s, yeah. I never thought that I had an ick, because I’ve heard a lot of icks, um, mostly I feel like girls talking about guys. Yeah. Sure. Um, one good one I heard was a man who bunny ears his shoelaces to tie them. Instead of loop de loop and pull? Yeah. Oh no! And I was like, I think I just realized my ick, which is unfair, and I think by definition icks are a little bit unfair. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Struggling with chopsticks is a bit of an ick for me. It’s like I think we have different values in life. Yeah, it’s just, I, you gotta try, like at least make the attempt. I, I think when people don’t even attempt chopsticks and they go for the fork, that’s even worse. Like, I appreciate the effort, because not everyone grew up, like, being exposed to that type of cuisine. So, I get it. Don’t take out the fork. Just at least try. Use your hands. Yeah. So she’s hand food anyways. Watching my fiancée Julia, we’ve been together for five years, eat on our first date. There was a very key moment. Everybody’s heard this story. But there was a very key moment on our first date. We went to like a pretty nice restaurant and we just ordered this blitzkrieg of food. Um, and, uh, there were these like Tamarind caramel glazed carrots, and we’d had like, you know, two cocktails And and we’re just in this heated conversation about some stupid podcast Podcasts who’s listening to him anymore anyways, um, but she like is talking about the right to have uh, Internet archives deleted and whether or not it’s constitute and she just grabs a carrot swipes it through caramel eats it and goes so anyways journalistic integrity and I was like Yes, she knows how to party, but like, she gets that amount of joy and doesn’t care about certain rules in the same way that I don’t. So that was a huge moment, and I was like, we, the Lego pieces. I love that. I love that. Matched his freak. Do you think this person’s freak can be matched though? Somebody who shows up 45 minutes early to a date doesn’t understand why. Yes. You think? Yeah, I mean, every freak can be matched. Yeah, I think so. There’s definitely people out there that have punctuality anxiety, and someone will probably show up 45 minutes, and they’ll lock eyes across the bar, and the rest will be history. I showed up to a date once, and, um, my date had already drank two vodka sodas, and I learned that’s a red flag for a different reason. Party! Nope, sometimes the partying goes too far. Uh, so Pretty unanimously, that person is the asshole. Yeah. Yeah. Handope. Handope. And I hope they find an asshole that fits their asshole. Me too. Um, okay, this one, uh, I’m, I’m excited about because I love expensive dinners. Am I the asshole for blocking a man after he bought me a 500 plus dinner? I was invited on a date and he asked me, what’s your favorite restaurant? My honest answer was, my favorite place is a bit much for a first date, but I did still tell him about it because, well, I thought he was cool and truly loved the place. So I tell everyone about it, hoping they’ll go. I want him to stay booked and busy so they’ll stay open so I can keep going. I get that relationship a lot. I said the first date we could go out somewhere more casual, like a cool Mexican spot between us that has over 300 tequilas in their tequila library. Oh, they’re a foodie. But it’s still pretty cheap when it comes to food. Ultimately, he wanted to pick. I was trying to be helpful and make suggestions. Also, we live in different parts of the big city with terrible traffic that’s car dependent. My favorite restaurant, on the other hand, is 500 for two people. I take myself there sometimes, uh, after personal accomplishments or just for a treat. Sometimes I go just to have one of their James Beard award winning cocktails. Well, this gentleman, upon researching the menu, decides this is where he wants to take me for dinner. He really wanted to try it out. Of course I agree. Despite the price point, it’s actually a pretty chill spot. You don’t have to dress up. It’s a great date spot. For me, first dates are usually inexpensive considering you don’t know the person and the conversation is more important than the meal. We have apps, we have drinks, we have dinner, we have conversation, we have dessert, we have a good time from my perspective, this means we ran up a serious bill. Pay time comes. We do the check dance, sort of. Of course, since it’s a first date, I say, Oh, separate checks. Not that I don’t pay on subsequent dates, I just mean the first time when you don’t know if a guy thinks that the woman pays means she’s uninterested. He also says separate checks, so cool, we’re on the same page. Basically at the same time. I won’t lie, I hesitated and said it after he was saying it because he asked me out and also insisted we went there after he read the menu and wanted to try the food. Alright, so, the checks come, Hmm. He says separate checks, and then she kind of goes, Oh, separate checks. Seems to be the scenario. Hmm. So our separate checks come, no problem by me. I put my card down, he puts his down. When our server comes back to grab them, he takes my card, gives her both the checks with his card, saying he’d cover it, and then he looks at my card intensely. It’s not that I think he’s some sort of number savant where he’s stealing my info, though I have bartended for years, and a dumbass slash genius could memorize card numbers at a glance. It was the game he played. He invited me on a date, so I assumed he was paying. He then said separate checks, making sure I knew I was paying for myself. Then he grabbed the checks and paid it all, annoying the server and me. I feel like this is a test. Mm hmm. This is a, you both said, mm hmm, this is a thing people do? How dare they? To see if I had pony up 250 for each restaurant bill, I felt like he was checking to see if I was a gold digger or something. How, mm, anyways. Even though I literally told him we shouldn’t go there on the first date. The place I suggested we could’ve gone for tacos and tequilas would’ve been less than fifty bucks. I said thank you for dinner, got in my Uber, left, blocked him, told all my friends the story and they laughed at me saying that I was the villain. So there’s a test, there’s a test that people do, we can safely probably say men with a lot of accuracy, to see if someone will, is willing to pay. But then as a power move, they refuse that and pay themselves. Yeah. Have you had this happen? No, I haven’t. Whoa. I wish it would have though, because I would have insisted, do not take my card out of that check. I’m paying for it. Cause at that point, like you’re being rude. You were testing me. It’s not, come on, we’re getting off on a really bad foot if this relationship is built on these weird psychological games. Mm hmm. Weird. Is there any alternate explanation? Because when I, when I first read this, I thought that maybe he was just indecisive in the moment, which is like a bit unattractive and unbecoming in its own right. If somebody goes like separate checks and then they immediately have a pang of guilt and go like, Oh no, no, no, I should, I should pay. And I understand people who flubbed, they fumbled in that moment, but ultimately came to the right decision, but they actually left an edit, an update here, um, where they say that the man then took her card and said, Oh, now I finally know your last name. Which are people obscuring their last names if they’re going out on dates sounds like a reasonable safety thing Yeah, I feel like if it’s maybe a first date from like a dating app then maybe Like especially, you know today’s times you never know worth being safe but it is a weird move that he like analyzed the card and was judging it and like getting her name and It’s just, the whole thing’s a little uncomfortable when it didn’t need to be at all. I have no problem with splitting checks. I actually appreciate it on a first date. Feels like there’s no pressure. If he’s offering and really insists, then sure, take it. But otherwise, like, I don’t have a problem with that. It’s just the game and how weird he made it. Yeah. He’s playing a really weird game. Yeah. And he lost the game. He lost it and he didn’t play the game right. What do you When you say the game, are you talking about Neil Strauss book, The Game? No, no, no. That sounds like that would come from It’s, it’s, I, I never read it. I’ve read that book. I’ve skimmed it. And, but I’ve never seen anything about check play in like that, in like that sort of series. I just, I just don’t get why he did that. I don’t get why he stared at her card so intently. I don’t understand why he said yes to going to that restaurant in the first place and then acting. Why were you acting so weird? I don’t know if he’s the asshole. I think he’s the weirdo in this scenario. I don’t think he’s an asshole. I think this is just a weird, maybe this was his first time taking a girl out to a very expensive dinner and like he didn’t know how to act. I’m not sure, but I don’t think asshole is the right, is the operative word here. I think he’s the weirdo. She’s not the asshole for blocking him at all. Yeah, she’s not the asshole. She did the right thing. He, who is he to ask for separate checks, hold both checks in his hand, and then put, it’s just, I hated this from the second you read it. We knew. We both were like, ugh. You really did both know. I had never heard of this test before. Yeah, I also am kind of confused by the friends calling her the villain. It may have been some gentle shit talking. I, that’s a little goofy though. It’s like, you guys, no, like, Where are my girls? Like he was being goofy with me. This is not normal. I think it’s because she said that she loved, she probably like waxed poetic about this restaurant was like, oh, I love this place It’s so incredible. I always go there. She hyped it up and then she like took it back So maybe some of her girlfriends were thinking like, oh you like led him to think that this place is Incredible and then you took it back hoping that he would say no. No, we have to go So you think he could be telling this story to people and being like, yeah, she obviously wanted to go to this really expensive restaurant and she pressured me into doing it, but then she walked it back and said, no, no, we can go to this cheap spot. But then I thought that was a test. You think that he could be saying that? Yeah. Oh, and he easily probably is. Yeah. And I get that. But like at the same time, like if you only want to pay 50 bucks, they still had 300 different tequilas. Sounds like a rad spot. It’s a good time. Get a good mezcal and. Oh, I’m just like, it doesn’t have to be so difficult. Don’t go to the 500 spot on the first one. Date number three at least. Dude, I don’t know. There’s no reason to show off. And if you’re showing off and that’s the only reason she likes you, then that’s not someone you want either. So true. I, who do you, okay, on a majority of first dates that you’ve been on, who was fake? Because you said that you generally split. I like to split, but that Doesn’t mean that’s typically what happens. Can you describe to me the typical interaction that does happen? And like, estimate a percentage frequency if you can. Yeah. Back when I was dating, it’s been five years for me. Same. We’re all in the same boat. We’re all operating 2019 rules here. It’s so hard. But I feel like you kind of do the shuffle and it’s like, Oh, like, do you want to split it? Or like, how do you want to go about this? Like, I always just kind of ask because I always got really awkward and I didn’t want there to be like this assumption. But yeah. It would usually end with a no, no, no, don’t worry about it. I got it. And then going forward, it’s like, oh, well, I’ll get this one. Or like, how do you want to, you know, do you want to split? Or I got this one since you got the last one. It’s just a communication thing. But it is something that says, uh, it says something larger about that. Person’s character in that moment similar thing watching people eat. You’re like extrapolating all these meanings, especially if it’s an early date Yeah, we’re trying to figure out like who’s this person what makes them tick. Mm hmm, you know And so I think these little dances are important. It’s like, you know, uh Bumblebees communicating with the stupid little dance somewhere the honey is or whatever. Yeah, I know nothing about bees What is, what is your preferred interaction and then what generally happens? Okay, so when I was dating, oh my god, who was I five years ago? Who was I before I got engaged and married? Um, so for the most part, I would always, you know, reach for my bag, and then they would say, don’t touch your bag. Don’t touch your wallet. Don’t do that. And that would happen 95 percent of the time. They, they would say it with that intensity? They would say, what are you doing? I’m like, I’m just getting my, we’re splitting. And then they would be like Put your, put your bag down. They’d be like, put it away. What are you doing? This is a first date. I got this. And I was like, okay. I think there was one time that, um, I went on a date with a guy. I went to a bar with him and He got the first round of drinks and I had a feeling it wasn’t going anywhere. So I’m like, I’ll get the second round of drinks. You know, just so there’s no sort of like obligation or nobody else. That was one time. That was the one time on a first date. Other than that, every single time I’ve been on a first date, doesn’t matter what creed, what color, what anything. They’ve always paid for the first date. Wow. All the man. Cause I only dated guys. I think there’s like a thing too, like in other relationships, you know, whatever it is. I think whoever asks the other person on the date should be the one to pay. Like, I think, I think that is like a rule across the board. At least the first one. One thousand percent. I’m also in that, in that, um, arena where the men were asking me out. Yeah, so that tends to be like in like a majority, I’d say, of straight relationships. That’s what’s been like culturally coded for a long time, right? And I hope things are generally changing and getting more equitable, you know, um, I, I’ve always been the type where I, I just like showing generosity, right? I’ll pay for the homies if we go out sometimes. And then expecting that that will sort of come back to me. But I’m not doing it for that reason. But that’s like the cultural coding between me and the homies. It’s like, there’s no calculating the Venmo, whatever. It’s like, Bro, I got this 200, uh, order of Outback coming to our Reno Airbnb, um, a real thing that happened. And then that’ll eventually be returned in that situation. Kind of similar thing on dates, where it’s like a bit of a, hey, I’m a trusting, generous person. Um, I remember that dance so well of like, I would go, Oh no, I got to stop. And like. You would always see the different speeds at which people, the different speeds and earnestness at which people would reach for the wallet. Sometimes it’d be a very clear like, I have no intention of my hand ever getting there, but I am doing this. And I would not hold that against anyone. Sometimes, you know, they’d be fully like ready and I’d go like, no, I have it. And if they would, you know, fight back once, I’d say like, please, I insist. But then you don’t fight after one, it’s this little dance back and forth. Are you sure? The person, yeah. Okay. However, the person that I have the pleasure of marrying and I hope they think marrying me is a pleasure on our first date, I will never forget it. I pulled out my wallet. She went for hers and I said, no, I invited you. I got it. And she literally just goes. We’re both adults with jobs. I wanted to be here. I really had a great time. We’ll split it. And it was this like, oh, you have cut through thousands of years of, uh, stupid, antiquated, gender coded rules to a very clear truth. Right? And like, that made me so much more attracted. It wasn’t the fact that she paid for it. Yeah, yeah. But it was the fact that like, what are we doing? We can just skip all that. That’s beautiful. I’m an adult. I have a job. Let’s both split it. And it was kind of awesome. I love that. It’s like said this bigger thing about her and her character. And I like that. Yeah. I love that. Very cute. Might be a hugger person. The Lego. The Lego’s fit. She matched your freak. She matched my freak. We ordered all five desserts on the dessert menu. That’s how you know. That’s how you know. That’s the real freak match. I cannot stand people that are like, Oh, I want a donut. Do you want to go get one with me? No. At least just be like, yeah, even if you don’t want it, just so I feel like I can. It’s not about the donut. It’s never about the food, it’s about the concept of getting the food together. You want one more story, Meggie? One more. Meggie, I give you one. Joshua, take this one, or do you want me to do one? You got I mean, I think there’s one about a celebration dinner. That is a little bit maddening. Do you want it? Okay, take it Laptop close your lap. Y’all sit back. Enjoy fantastic Am I the asshole for not attending my husband’s celebration dinner due to the restaurant not having anything I could eat You can pause real quick anytime somebody says there’s nothing I can eat My husband has been working really hard for the last two years to advance at his company, and he finally got the promotion he’s been after. I’m really, really proud of him. His parents are too, and wanted to take us all out to dinner to celebrate. My husband absolutely loves prime rib, and there’s only one place in our area that serves it, so we picked that restaurant. Thing is, I’m not fond of steak. I’ll eat it, but very rarely. I prefer chicken or fish. I looked up the menu before leaving and right now they have a limited menu. The place had only one fish entree and two chicken entrees. And none of them sounded good for various reasons. I suggested that he pick someplace else so everyone can eat. He refused, citing that we rarely get to go to this place, but go to other places in our area regularly, which is true. But those places have lots of variety, so everyone can eat. He suggested that I ask if they could prepare the fish or chicken without the marinades or sauces, but I didn’t want to be difficult for the kitchen staff. His next suggestion was that I ordered dessert while everyone else ate entrees, and then when we were done, he said, He would take me where I wanted so I could eat dinner while he and the kids ate dessert. So I opted to just not go because I didn’t want to sit there not eating and not having a good time while everyone else was. My husband asked me to go so he could celebrate with the people most important to him. I told him no again. And that he needed to get going before he was late. He did go, but came back a little over an hour later with the kids and they all had to go boxes. He said he couldn’t think of what to tell the kids about why I didn’t go when they kept asking without lying or making me sound bad, so he just got an order for them to go and let the kids spend some time with their grandparents. Talking in the parking lot. I told him he should have stayed, and he said I put him in a bad spot with the kids. And uh, I knew he wanted everyone there, and that I should have just gotten over my picky eating for one night. Mm hmm. Um. Yeah. Bro. Yeah. Yeah, I’m so mad. I’m so mad. This is one of those times. It’s quite literally not about you And they had two chickens one fish That’s a lot of alternative options you could have gotten there Are you allergic to lettuce too? Like there’s salads at every place typically go there sit down shut up support your husband When when people get divorced and they like look back at the track record of like what led us here This could be one of those times as silly as that sounds like yeah, he made every effort every Accommodation to try to get you to come to celebrate his big moment. He’s been working two years for no, I’m gonna sit home What? Okay, someone else chime in. I’m so mad. What kind of sauces were on this chicken? Hold on No, I want to know I want to know your primary place that has a fish in two chicken options eat That’s, that’s great. That’s a lot. God bless the prime rim place. That’s a beautiful place. You’ve done your job. There’s also, all the things you said, yes, 100%. Yes. But if we can just get a little myopic into the restaurant industry here, and some like courtesy there. Ironic, you did not want to be difficult for the restaurant staff, but had no problem being the most difficult person in the world to the person you love. It’s that. Also, though. There’s a rule of thumb, you like, don’t make substitutions in a restaurant if it’s going to make the cook’s lives more difficult. If it’s gonna make it easier for them, that’s great. Hey, no sauce on the chicken, please. Great, one less step, less food cost, you’re paying the same amount of money for, we don’t waste the demi glace or whatever. You are absolutely in your right to do that. Um, So I understand being like a little bit blind to the way that you are acting, but when you write it all down, that it becomes pretty clear, right? You still hit post after writing it and probably proofreading. Yeah. Like, oh, come on. This is really embarrassing. Like, I’m sorry. You’re such an asshole. To your family. And like, you stood in the parking lot. Your kids were hanging out with their grandparents in the parking lot. I’m very, this is, I’m perturbed, guys. This is unfair. Also, who doesn’t love Prime Rib? Shut up. It’s the world. Love, Lori’s. I, I understand. I, you know, I’ve been out with some, uh, Vegans. The, the tough. No, hold on. Say that with a smile, buddy. I love my vegan homies, but I like the ones who are cool, Going to restaurants and sort of figuring it out. Yeah. Yeah. I have, uh, been out with some who will only eat at ethically vegan restaurants. Okay. Okay. And at that point, it’s like maybe I don’t know if we’re, so, Um, I understand them. It’s like you have your own reasons for not eating at a place. But those reasons aren’t just like pickiness, right? Like that seems like such a small thing. So much about love and relationships is I’m willing to sacrifice my comfort if but for a small moment for you. And to not do that. Oh, and the kids. Oh, and there are kids. Oh, this is really pretty. Every week, baby. It’s my brain feels a little rotten. Some days. I hope, man, I hope you have great self care out there. I try. I try. Go to a park. It was like those Facebook moderators that they hired who would, uh, videos would get flagged for obscenity and they would just have to like clockwork orange, like pry their eyes open and watch all this stuff. It’s the same. I feel like that’s you, but for like emotional nuance. Yeah. I, you know, I do mix in a palette cleanser at the end sometimes because these people out here, they’re a little, they’re a little goofy. How many, so they’re all assholes, huh? Everyone in this story was an asshole? Yeah. And I think we made pretty good judgements here. I hope so. I hope so. What was the vote on that last one? Um, they vote. I’m new to Reddit here. You take my computer now. overall vote was asshole. Yeah. So’s up. The people did the work. The people have open. You’re an asshole. . Yeah. The the update though, it this good for them. Ooh. Yeah. Morgan update. You read it, you’re the update. Oh my gosh. So update. Some of these comments were pretty harsh, but a kick in the pants. I’ve apologized profusely to my husband and I’m going to take him to that restaurant this weekend and buy him some camping gear. He’s been eyeing as a start to making it up to him and changing course. People don’t change, it’ll happen again. There you go. That’s the right direction, though. She’s going in the right direction. That’s positive. That’s positive. That gives me hope. We ended on a good note, everybody. They said we couldn’t do it, but we did it! Woo! Rhett and Link, ever heard of them? Premiered a new show on the Rhett and Link channel last weekend, and if you haven’t watched it yet, you are missing out. We are so excited for them, so go to their channel, check it out, and keep checking it out every Friday at 3pm Pacific, 6pm Eastern. Alright, Nicole and Morgan, we’ve heard what you and I have to say. Now it’s time to find out what other wacky ideas are rattling out there in the universe. It’s time for a little segment we call OPINIONS ARE LIKE CASSEROLES! Let’s get that first zip, I got it. Meggy, play the first one. Now, Maggie, play it! Hi, Captain Nicole. Love your voicemail. Love you guys and the show. Uh, this is Mia calling. I want you to help me settle a debate. Do you think that Caesar salad, eating a Caesar salad counts as eating vegetables? Oh, good one. Uh, my boyfriend does. I personally think that the um, Unhealthy parts of a Caesar salad cancel out the vegetables. My boyfriend disagreed. So, would love to hear your thoughts. I love it. Morgan, you get first crack. I feel like, no, it’s just, I bet a lettuce doesn’t feel like vegetables to me. You know, it doesn’t, it doesn’t count. Absolutely. It is a total vegetable. 1000%. Do what you got to do to get those veggies down. Um, there’s no such thing as canceling out when it comes to nutrition, right? Everything’s additive, right? Yeah. Yeah. You know, you’ve eaten some lettuce. You’ve also eaten some cheese and delicious dressing and, and bread, whatever, but there’s no canceling out. I know what. He’s saying though, um, what this ultimately comes down to is just empathy in a relationship, right? And compromise because this happened to me as well where I was trying to make like roast carrots as our vegetable for dinner and Julia goes, that’s not a vegetable. And I was like, okay, that’s cool. Well, like, we’ll eat, like, I’ll make a nice, like, a cucumber salad. She’s like, that’s not a vegetable. And so I eventually go like, I’d be like, Hey, I’m going to need you to like list all the vegetables that you know. And it kind of came down to the only thing she considers a vegetable are like broccoli, spinach and kale. What about asparagus? What about she doesn’t like asparagus? Uh, cauliflower is not green, not a vegetable. I understand. And she’s like, and she’s, she’s great. And she will also just eat anything. But like what she is talking about is, um, If I am to eat as kind of like healthy and efficaciously as possible, I want something that is dark green, incredibly fibrous, and you can eat a lot of without having to saturate it in some sort of dressing, right? Okay. And so like you sort of get down to the meat of what they’re actually talking about. I reckon, if I had to guess, I’d say your boyfriend might be the macro counting type, who’s somebody who’s eating maybe 150 200 grams of protein a day like myself, and he wants something with a lot of fiber and not a lot of added Sort of, uh, calories or added fats or whatever. Okay. And that’s reasonable. Get some Metamucil, you know what I mean? Okay. Get some spirulina powder to get the greens in. But so much of this stuff is like, you’re not actually talking about the thing you’re talking about. This isn’t about the Caesar salad. This is about your partner’s needs. And you gotta get down to the actual root of what those needs are. And so now I can make delicious roasted carrots, and then I know if I just put some spinach into the rice or whatever I’m making, she’s happy. Good. And we find compromise. There you go. That’s wonderful. We eat so much damn spinach. We don’t eat spinach in my house. I don’t buy it at all, no. We buy kale. Arugula and kale. Yeah, we’re a big kale family right now. That, I would, see that, I would consider kale the vegetable, but why don’t I consider just regular lettuce? Probably because it’s, uh, light green and crunchy and watery, and kale’s like fibrous and tough. I got a prejudice against lettuce, I guess. I think we grew up with bad lettuce based salads. I think our generation was plagued by that. Especially when you’re from Minnesota. Ooh, did you grow up eating, like, the Minnesota salads? Uh, tater tot hot dish. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you said casserole and that’s my middle name. Yeah. Tater tot hot dish is the national salad of Minnesota. Uh, Snickers salad. Have you ever had a Snickers salad? No. Okay. That deep, deep cut. It is technically from Minnesota. We talked about this on a previous podcast. Snickers salad? Snickers diced up green apples about in a 50 50 and then it’s mixed with Cool Whip. Is that right? I was looking at you to answer that one. I don’t think it’s mayonnaise. I think it’s just like Snickers, apples, some more nuts and Cool Whip. Right, right, right. No, no, I don’t claim that as my state dish. How dare you forsake your birthright. All right, next, Vinny. Um, hey guys, I’m in Cincinnati. I, um, am not trying to talk to you about Skyline Chili, although I would. You guys asked for dating advice, so hear me out. You did? Okay. I’ll take it. 27. Midwest. You know what I mean? Gluten free. Gluten free Midwest lesbian. Give me some help. I’m gluten free, and I’m trying to date in the Midwest. Oh, tough. I have many options. Cooking, I can do. Not many other people like to come over. You know, just give me some advice. If you have thoughts, go, go, go. Don’t go out to dinner all the time. Don’t go out to dinner. You live at home. Take it out. Listen, listen. Listen, you don’t always have to go to dinner to go on a date. You can go, you can go bowling. You can do axe throwing. You can go on a nice hike. You can, you know, enjoy a nice cocktail, a nice smoothie. Maybe dinner dates aren’t for you right now. I can only imagine how difficult it is in the Midwest to be gluten free. I can only imagine how difficult it is. Yeah. Minnesota’s kind of a foodie spot. It is. We have so many. Gluten free restaurants, actually. Really? Yeah. Okay, I didn’t know that. So, I think you should do a little bit more research. Find your spot and see what places can do unwitches. What’s an unwitch? What? Teach me. What’s an unwitch? Anything like that comes between buns. You just wrap it in lettuce instead. Uh, protein style. Our people call it protein style. That’s an in and out thing. I think like Jimmy John’s you can even order it as like an unwitch. Got it. And so they’ve got those. Everywhere. Everywhere. My advice. Cincinnati is like a major ish metropolitan area. Yeah, it’s poppin I think there’s actually only about 350, 000 people in Cincy. But the point is, like, there’s a good restaurant scene out there. There are a lot of cultures, if we go back to the agricultural revolution, that just, like, don’t really mess with wheat that much. They don’t really mess with gluten that much. You go to a Thai restaurant. Uh, rice noodles are a fantastic thing. You go to an Ethiopian restaurant. Gotta be an Ethiopian spot in Cincy. Yeah. Right? You’re getting injera made with teff. There’s so many cuisines that don’t rely on gluten. That’s a good point. Yeah. You know, that you don’t take things completely off the table. Because I’ve, I’ve been to, I was going on a double date with somebody who is celiac and I had recommended, um, go to a Mexican restaurant, only get corn tortillas. And like a good Mexican restaurant that doesn’t have cross contamination, they’re using imported corn from Oaxaca. You know, awesome stuff. A naturally gluten free cuisine because wheat didn’t get there until the 1500s. Sure. Sure. Right? Tamales date back to 10, 000 B. C. I could digress, but I recommended that and they were like, no, I want to go to this gluten free restaurant and we got gluten free spaghetti and meatballs and we got gluten free paninis and it sucked. And I, again, I was going out with a friend, and it wasn’t about the food, right? I was happy to eat that. But like, you didn’t have to Shift everybody’s time away and just you know, we could have gone somewhere that everyone could have eaten something and enjoyed including you So I would say that I also went online and found 30 of the best gluten free restaurants in Cincinnati Oh, I’m gonna give you a few names right now Cherbourg Cyprus The Arepa Place, Bibibop, Arepa’s great gluten free option, all cornmeal based, uh, Crown, Cantina, Whole Bulls, Soto, Arnold’s Bar and Grill, Mita’s, Alcove, Macaron Bar, Condado Tacos, Maiz, Sacred Beast Dinner, and Brew Burger Bar. Those are 14 places. Uh, go to Habesha Ethiopian Food. You got elephant walkout in Corrieville. You guys are quick with it. Twitter fingers. And now if you’re ever in Cincinnati, you know where to get Ethiopian. Now I know. Habesha 4. 4, that’s, that’s big. Hi guys, um, I need to air a grievance. I have, um, an ongoing argument with my boyfriend. He is under the impression that all mozzarella sticks taste the same. No. And he’s obviously wrong. So I would like for you guys to discuss that. Because I don’t understand how You can taste a mozzarella stick from, say, Arby’s, or White Castle, and then compare it to a freezer section mozzarella stick, or one that you could get from Buffalo Wild Wings. I don’t see how you could taste all of those side by side, and say that they’re all the same. Am I the crazy one, or is he the crazy one? Let me know. Love you! Morgan, you had a strong reaction to this. I think someone has some diminished taste buds because there’s clearly a difference between different mozzarella sticks. Especially if you get one that they put jalapenos inside. Like, there’s a bunch of different flavors. Even the bread crumb, I don’t know what, what is it, panko, you chefs? Sometimes. It’s panko. You can use regular Italian bread crumbs. The oil they fried in can make it taste different. So true. Correct. Like, they’re, they’re different. If I was blindfolded and we had like 14, like, like, I don’t know why the number 14 keeps coming to my head, but if I had like seven breads, uh, breadsticks, seven mozzarella sticks in front of me, I’m sure I could taste the difference, but I think the margins would be so small. Yes. That I wouldn’t really. Really? Yeah. Really? Is that weird? Yeah. Nicole, I will guarantee you, if you had 14, quote, different mozzarella sticks in front of you, at least four of them would in fact be the same mozzarella stick from the same Yeah, I could see that. There are not that many mozzarella stick factories in America, and Arby’s is not making them in house. Buffalo Wild Wings is not making them in house. You know, Culver’s is not. These are all likely. The same mozzarella stick. I do agree though. I’ve been to restaurants where they’re like making them in house that and they’re special Cosa Buena, they have this smoked. So more is a mozzarella stick. It’s thick and the breading is mixed with pecorino And so I thought they were talking about this like now we should go. What are we doing? Wow? I think I think I’ve heard all of our stomachs rumbling Like this’ll work Uh, but no, I think I’m more with your friend on here. And like you said, like French fries can be wildly different. I guess it takes a lot of cooking. Mozzarella sticks, even as chefs, like there’s not much we can do. No, I think, I think everybody uses the same kind of cheese, the same part, skim fat, whatever, otherwise, if you use a good mozzarella, it literally melts out into the fryer. So wet that it’ll just dissipate in the fryer. So I think everyone’s using the same cheese, relatively the same seasonings, maybe the same. Same fry technique. You make your own breadcrumbs from scratch that just ends up tasting like the breadcrumbs that you you know Get from the store or worse because they got a whole factory to make them Yeah, yeah, like you guys need to put this to the test though. Now, we got it. Okay I got a mozzarella sticks for my job You gotta start ram and lactate in Same that’s why I’m like I haven’t had a mozzarella stick in so long. I’m hearing the sound of it. I’m like, oh Uh, McDonald’s introduced mozzarella sticks in test markets a couple years ago, and then they got hit with lawsuits because they were serving people what looked like mozzarella sticks, and they would take a bite, and there was simply no cheese inside. What? It like, dissipated. It dissipated, because it’s getting fried in a factory, and then it’s moving, and then it’s getting shipped, and like, the nature of cheese, it melts, separates oils, if there’s any crack in the breading. It would just fall into the fryer. Lol. Yeah. And so, you know, if you find a good mozzarella stick factory, you’re probably going to be using it in multiple spots. Hi there everybody at Mythical Kitchen. My name is Courtney. And I have gathered that this is a controversial food opinion, but I really like to eat Granny Smith apples with salt, like table salt sprinkled on it. It’s something that I grew up doing with my dad. And I’ve never met anyone outside of my own family that does this, and my boyfriend Keith thinks I’m crazy, but it’s delicious, and I think you guys should try it, or at least should tell me that I’m not crazy for thinking it’s good. I can see it being good, actually. I was shocked by it. It’s not something I would ever put together on my own. But I could see it balancing out that, like, start sharpness of the apple. Right? Totally. You know my old adage, there’s no such thing as salted caramel. There’s merely caramel and under seasoned caramel. Yes. I believe that with everything. I think a certain amount of salt makes everything better. And, you know, I’mma sweat doing Pilates. I’mma get all the salt out. Pilates is only once a week and I hardly sweat because it’s all the weird little micro movements in my pelvis. But anyways, uh, no, I kind of salt, I salt my protein shakes in the morning. I, this morning we had a meeting. You salted your protein shake? So normally I’ll make a shake with like blueberries and all the mishigas, um, but we had a meeting at 9am this morning and so I just had to put protein powder and water in a little shaker. I put salt in it. Yum! I did a little sprinkle of Maldon. Yum! Because not because I wanted to use Maldon, but because it was in the kitchen where near where I was making it But yeah, I like salt everything and I’m curious what things wouldn’t be better salted Hmm, I don’t know but I grew up putting salt on my pomegranate seeds and I still do it and I love it It tastes delicious. I mean you go I mean the tartness of a pomegranate is very similar to the tartness of an apple a green apple So I think this is a great opinion. I don’t think you’re crazy. No, I think you’re totally fine You might be turning people on to something Tell your boyfriend to call us and tell us all the crazy stuff he does, man. He’s probably got his own problems. Hurt people hurt people. On that note, Morgan, you are absolutely a delight. Thank you so much. Everybody check out the Too Hot Takes podcast. You got anything else to plug? No, just come on over wherever you listen to podcasts. I’m gonna start listening in abject horror, but also for your great takes in mellifluous voice and thank you so much Stop by a hot dog is a sandwich We got new episodes out on audio platforms every Wednesday new on video platforms every Sunday If you want to be featured on opinions are like casseroles, give us a call at 833 dog pod 1 the number again is 833 dog pod 1 And if you like seeing our faces and you want to see us do more than, uh, just sitting and talking, uh, we cook stuff sometimes. So we’re on a channel called Mythical Kitchen. You, you’re probably there right now. Is this podcast on any video platform other than YouTube? I don’t know. Is it? I keep saying video platforms. Probably just YouTube, right? Follow us on TikTok. We got, we got one of those. We on Tubi? Are we on, are we on, are we on a Roku? We actually might be. Check out the Mythical Fast channel on Roku, where I think they may play our podcast. Oh my God. Look at you guys. If they do, write a comment, let us know because we’re going to find out when you do. We’ll see y’all next time.