I’m Stevie Wynne Levine, and this is my first time eating Filipino food. ((Upbeat Music)) Everyone remembers their first time. Stevie Wynne Levine, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Of course, of course, we found out that you had never had Jollibee before, but then we found out you’d never really eaten Filipino food before. I know. How do you plan on apologizing to the Filipino community today? It’s so sad. The thing is, I’ve come very close. I have amazing neighbors that actually, you remember the cheese car and the pizza car that we did on GMM? – [Josh] I sure do. – [Stevie] It was their car. They invited Cassie and I, my girlfriend, to a baby shower. They’re Filipino. And they had it catered with Filipino food. But when we got there, they also had a beautiful tiered cake and asked Cassie and I to take a photo. Around the cake and what happened was as Cassie was putting her arm around me, she punched the beautiful cake, and we left shortly thereafter, and so I never got to have any of the food. Wait, hold on. How much damage was done to the cake? We were able to turn the cake the other way, so the hole punch was facing the wall, but it was one of those things where you punch a cake and you can’t, you know, you can’t just sit and pretend it didn’t happen. You now have so many infractions against the Filipino community to apologize for. We can get to that at the end of it. You can write your apology, have the teary eyed YouTube video. Perfect. I think they’re expecting it. Today’s the show all about first. So, I’m going to ask you some questions about your first time doing various things as I make you some Filipino food. The first dish, typically a first course. This is a beautiful appetizer. It’s called lumpia shanghai. Have you heard of it? I have. You seem really excited when you saw the ingredients. I’m hungry. I haven’t met a food that I don’t like. That’s not true, but. You’re working for a very weird show to have not met a food that you don’t like. I will taste anything once. I’ll say that. Okay, you’ve never eaten Filipino food, do you remember what the first food that you ever had is? Well, no one ever, I can’t remember, like, in my actual memory, the first food that I had, but my mom likes to tell a story, cause I was born in south Texas, and I loved tortillas. But I couldn’t say tortilla, so I would say “T-tay”. And the other food I loved was the crackers. Remember if you sat down at like a restaurant, they’d have like crackers on the table? No. Is that a southern thing? I think it might be a southern thing. Like saltines. Those are, those aren’t like appetizers though. Those are for the, those are for if you order soup. I know, but I was a baby. You only eat the crackers if you order soup. Well. I got angry if you went to a restaurant and there weren’t crackers on the table, so my mom said I would just yell, “crachies!” really loud if it was a nicer establishment that didn’t have crackers. But I also really loved tortillas. “T-tays”. And I have a, a brand new puppy in my life that I named T-Tay Wait, like right now you have a brand new puppy? What? That we got exactly a year ago. And she, is from Mexico. And she’s tortilla colored. It turns out that in Tagalog, which is a Filipino language. “Titi” means penis. That adds up. You could, hold on, hold on. If somebody just said, turns out in Tagalog, titi means, I feel like 99 out of 100 people would have said penis, right? Well, I thought it sounded more like titty, to be honest. Do you know what pekpek means? Well, I feel like there’s going to be a lot of names for penis, just like in everything. I feel like you should almost switch tite and pekpek. What do you mean? What are you saying? Is that boobs? Pekpek means vagina. Oh. That’s a cute name. It’s cute, right? I like it. But pekpek implies like a, you know, like a different sort of. The fact that you just whispered that in my ear is What’s the first time you whispered vagina in your boss’s ear? Now I have an answer to that question. For anybody that’s wondering, we have a bunch of ground pork here. I’ve added sesame oil, soy, a bunch of aromatics like carrots, ginger, and some water chestnuts. I’m gonna start rolling out this lumpia. We got some spring roll wrappers right here. We’re gonna get them fried off. But I want to know what your first job ever was and what you learned from it. But also, can I guess what your first job ever is? Yeah, I think you should know what my first job was. I’m guessing that by the time you were living in North Carolina, out of south Texas, you were an animal wrangler at the petting zoo at the North Carolina State Fair. That would be so cool. I love that, but no, I wasn’t. Less interesting or more interesting? What was it? I think you know this because before Matt Carney became the Hot Dog on a Stick guy, I was the one that just got thrown under the bus all the time because my first job was at Build-A-Bear. I didn’t know that was your first job. Yeah. And what did I learn? Yeah. How to build a bear. Tell me about Zombie Cheerleader Camp. You Googled me? Did you? Yeah, of course I Googled you. Did you initially, because you were credited as an associate producer. Did you initially audition to be the lead? No. And there was, topless nudity in this movie. So I was 17, and I was looking to get into the industry in some way, but I didn’t feel like leaving the state of North Carolina, and I think it was like a Craigslist post or something, and this guy was making an indie film, and I was naive, and I was like, okay, I will be a PA on this movie. It was interesting because it quickly became apparent that like he didn’t really know what he was doing, and so. Yeah, don’t say. I was like, well, I’ll do more things and then I was like now I will be the AD of this thing So I became, I like entered as a PA And then I left as Associate Producer and AD of this movie. And also, it was where, we shot in the dead of summer in North Carolina. And, one day I came home and I, because it was the dead of summer and you were in a field, you had to, like, strip off your clothes. There’s ticks everywhere. So I, like, stripped off my clothes before I went into my house. I looked down and there was a tick on my boob, and I screamed, there’s a tick on, I screamed, “cratchies”! There’s a tick on my boob! Is this the plot to the sequel of Zombie Cheer Camp? Zombie Cheer Camp 2 Electric Boogaloo? Yeah. Oh my God, I saw so many boobs that summer. Like, just, but they was zombie boobs, you know? It’s like boobs, but like, kinda green. You know. – That makes sense. – I mean, if you’re into that. Did that make you feel some type of way, not about girls, but about green people? ((Laughing)) Stevie, what’s the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning? It’s so unhealthy. I check to see how that day’s videos perform. Same. Oh my God, doesn’t it feel good some days and doesn’t it feel terrible other days? It doesn’t usually feel good for GMM on Tuesdays and Thursdays. ((Laughing)) Yeah, heard that. You mostly know when you’re gonna feel good and then you mostly know when you’re not gonna feel good. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there’s very few surprises, but you do it every day. Yeah. Well, I got some lumpia rolled. We’re gonna roll a bunch more of these. We’re gonna fry them and then we’re gonna eat them. You excited for it? Yes! Let’s do it. ((Upbeat Music)) We’re coming straight out of the fry basket. Watch your ass. There you go. Little golden nuggets of deliciousness. Dig in. And the perfect serving size. Absolutely, you’re gonna want to eat these four at a time. So, we have some sweet chili sauce right there. Typically, it’s either served with like sweet and sour or sweet chili, something sugary. My favorite thing about Filipino food is the term that they’ve coined, sweet meat. Which is a combination of sugar and meat. I’m very excited. Also, speak, dig in, dig in. Speaking of sweet meat? No, I was going to say, well, kind of. I was going to say speaking of Tagalog and genitals. I have a Tagalog language mix up genital based story. Okay. There’s a Filipino food called kamote. ((Celebration Music)) Which means sweet potato. Wait, I didn’t hear anything you said. How are you feeling about the lumpia, not the Honduran penises. This is so good. The ginger bits that still have like the crunch to them too. Can I double dip if it’s the back? I think once you, once you go to the back, you’re totally in the clear That’s not, there’s no sexual innuendo there. Okay. This is so good. – Right? – I love it. Tell me about the first time you remember getting in trouble. I was a very good kid. Go on! Oh, we’re making pork belly adobo, by the way. But in third grade, I had two teachers pull me aside and told me that it’s not okay to laugh at people when they get hurt. You need more context because sometimes it’s very okay to laugh at people when they get hurt. I think it’s okay if they start laughing. I had this thing where like, if someone got hurt and didn’t start laughing, I was also angry at them for not laughing, because that meant I couldn’t laugh too. Where do you think this was conditioned into you? How did this happen? It’s just so funny when people fall down, I mean, is that not true? And sometimes you have to just feel out the situation. Is it a person who’s going to laugh at themselves, or did they really hurt themselves? I don’t think anyone really hurt themselves and I was like violence, you know? I think it was more like I tripped or you know, someone pulled my chair out. Was there a specific instance? When you were a child that somebody hurt themselves and you laughed that was very inappropriate because there could be a multitude of things that happen, do you remember one specific one? You know how some people have that thing when like something really bad happens, they involuntarily laugh. Because they don’t know what to do. I got it. That is real. And I try and pivot it into a half cry. Sometimes like. ((Laughing)) I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It’s just. Yeah, it’s bad! That’s so bad. I would get it in like, situations where you shouldn’t laugh, like, is it called moot court? You know the thing? What? Where students pretend to be, lawyers and judges and they like set up a. – Mock trial? – Mock trial, but I think there’s also called court. Yeah. Isn’t moot like a, term that very hyper online people use for something? Vagina. Is, no, wait, what? Vagina. What? I, Stevie, I’m so sorry. I have a lot of earwax. Can you say it? “Crochies”! ((Laughing)) But anyway, I remember being like trapped in the court, for some reason I was watching this thing. And it was inappropriate to laugh, and I, that’s all I wanted to do the entire time. There’s something that triggers, like, you’re not supposed to do this for that particular thing. But when you’re a kid, you don’t know. Like, the first time I got in trouble, I was eight years old, and I threw a rock at a train. Me and my friends, you know, we’re just hanging out at Oceanside, California, throwing rocks at trains. How kids do. How, who, like, did it actually cause some kind of damage, or like, who said something to you? I don’t know, but somehow the police showed up at my friend’s house. We thought it was super cool and super funny. And we’re throwing rocks, kind of big, at a passing Amtrak train. And then we went home, didn’t think anything of it, and then cops knocked on the door. And then, Ricky’s parents told me that I was going to jail for life. And so that was super cool. Oh, okay. I’m like, I want to have a better response. Oh, okay. ((Laughing)) All right, so we got, we got some water, we got the pork belly in there. It’s nice. I’m gonna add some soy. I’m gonna pop this lid on. Stevie, we gotta simmer this for four hours. Meanwhile, Stevie, can you tell me in excruciating detail every emotion you felt while watching Titanic for the first time? Now Stevie, when you say you felt sad as Jack was dying in those frigid waters, sad for whom? For yourself? Realizing your own mortality? Yeah, yeah. That’s what I was trying to get at. Wrong show. Every show’s just gonna turn back into Last Meals. Alright, so we got, we got the pork simmering away and the soy and the vinegar. I’m gonna add a little bit more vinegar. What do you, what do you smell in here? I’m gonna like. Mostly vinegar. I’m gonna be honest. Yeah. But I do like vinegar. So, I’m all about it. What’s the first vinegar you ever ate? God, I’m such a good interviewer. Alright, I’m gonna dish up some of this adobo right here. No garnishes. Let brown food be brown sometimes, then we got some nice jasmine rice on the side. There you go. Dig in. It’s not hot. Thank you. Before I eat this I have had this in my lap for the past minute, and so I want to talk about the Mythical Cookbook! I don’t know how much of this you’ve shown little sneak peeks at this point, but, this little section, of our fun fondue times together, if you recall. I was told to wear patterns, as was everyone else, but one of us did. ((Laughing)) I can’t stress this enough, I do not read the emails. Shut up, you! Sorry. But, I mean, you did such a great job with this. I’m so, like, the whole team, the amount of work that went into this thing, and I know that Link said it a bunch, but even if you don’t cook, and you just like pretty pictures. You need to get yourself a copy of this at mythicalcookbook.com I’m so excited about this. ((Music)) Stevie, dig into the adobo. Okay, and you recommend? I like spooning a little bit over the rice, but then I also like keeping them separate. You just get a little bit of that pork fat into the rice, and eat the whole peppercorns, that’s like the best part to me. We gotta dink. It’s gonna be so hot. ((Joyful Music)) Oh, my God. That is so good. Isn’t it? Because the vinegar isn’t overpowering at all, but it does, like, the acidity kind of cuts the fattiness a little bit. So much of cooking is literally just about balance, and if you have more fat, you can add more salt, you can add more acid. Pork belly adobo is one of those foods where you can add so much of everything. It’s so good. I almost want to. I just want to mix everything together into one thing. Make like a little slider with the lumpia and the adobo? Well I kind of want, I like the spiciness of this too. This is allowed, right? Wait, hit me up, hit me up, hit me up. I feel like that combo is going to be. They were much better separately. Yeah, maybe. But still! But it’s still good. I still would eat an entire dish of that. Stevie, tell me about your first kiss, and I want to rank your performance on a scale of one to ten. And your kissing partner’s performance on a scale of one to ten. Oh, no, you know what? I’m, I’d like to apologize not only to the Filipino people, but. Finally. To every boy I ever dated, it got, I mean it was horrible for me, but it was probably really bad for you too. My first kiss wasn’t until my junior year of high school. And I was studying abroad, actually. What was her name? ((Laughing)) I’m sorry, I would never call a woman that. And my mom had packed me Hanukkah gifts, because that was the time period it was. And she packed me a gift for each night. And so every night I had the nice ritual of opening my Hanukkah gift from my mom. Which I would have preferred to do by myself. But one night, this guy that I wasn’t even really dating, but all the other girls thought he was really cute, so I was like, this is a good hiding spot. Joined me for my opening of that night’s Hanukkah. Present. And, that was my first kiss. Kissed me mid-Hanukkah present opening. What was the present? I don’t know. I just was like, I’m gay, I’m gay, I’m gay. Oh, poor thing. Poor me. Performance, a zero. It was so bad. And I was just like, is this what kissing is? Like, it was the type of like, butthole mouth, tongue smashing. Your first kiss was on a butthole? Yeah. That’s impressive. I told you, I only had one signature. He was like, Happy Hanukkah! As long as it was blessed by a rabbi, it’s kosher This is not kosher. Oh yeah, I forgot we were doing that. Well, what are you gonna do? What was the best kiss that you ever shared? What? I just want. It was absolutely with Cassie. But which kiss? Well, Cassie and I have been together for 13 years. So I don’t have a favorite. How many times have you kissed? Thirteen times. We do it annually. ((Laughing)) Just on Hanukkah while you’re opening your gift. Yeah! ((Laughing)) And she’s like. She’s like, Happy Hanukkah! Okay, okay, okay. First off, tell me about the first date you ever went on. The guy I unfortunately dated my senior year of high school because one of my friends had a crush on him. I’ve since apologized. I’m, I couldn’t, I don’t know. I was just like, he must be good. He would show up at my house after school to watch The game, which just meant whatever sports thing was on, because I guess that’s what straight people did in my high school together. Like, that’s what they. I can confirm that’s a straight thing. Yeah. Sure, I was dating him. But he just showed up at my house. I didn’t want to hang out with him. And he would just sit on my couch with his arm around me, and then we’d have to watch sports, and all of it was terrible. It’s like, I don’t want any of this. None of this makes sense to me. God, that sounds like my ideal night. Now I’m wondering what Julia’s thinking. You know? ((Laughing)) She’s so happy the football season’s over. Yeah. Oh my God. There’s always a new season of something, though. Always. Yeah, when Bulgarian indoor track season is on, and this boat’s a rocking don’t come a knocking, you know what I mean? You ready to try some Jollibee? Yes! Let’s do it, let’s do it. ((Upbeat Music)) Stevie, for the grand finale of Filipino food, we have Jollibee. Yes. This is a chain from the Philippines. They’ve opened a couple locations in Los Angeles. I’m a huge fan. I used to get their little $1 corned beef pandesal mayonnaise sliders all the time. That kept me fed throughout college. I’m gonna open it up. First, we got the Chickenjoy Now, Filipino fried chicken is a big thing. It is generally served with gravy, so here’s your glass of sipping gravy. Nice. Can we get a straw for the gravy, please? Gravy straw. And then, spaghetti. Now, Filipino spaghetti is very distinct for a lot of reasons. You will likely see things that you don’t see, in like an Italian American spaghetti. Most notably in here, hot dogs. There is actually a Filipino basketball team, a professional team, just simply called the Purefoods Hotdogs. And so that speaks to how important hot dogs are to both my culture and the Philippines. I freaking love hot dogs, and Filipino spaghetti is great. It’s also made with banana ketchup, typically. The sauce is gonna be a lot sweeter. And there’s generally some sort of like processed cheese on top. I think we start with the chicken. I’m gonna, I’m gonna liberally gravy up my chicken, but you can eat it any way that you want. Can I dunk? You can absolutely dunk. Oh, this is hot. This is hot. Wait, are we dinking? Are we, are we cross contaminating gravy? It’s hot. That crunch. That’s so good. Sounded like the TikTok sound effect. I’m not tasting like any kind of like distinct, spice, per se. Fried chicken really ended up in most of the world because of Americans. It’s like, after, it’s hot. That is so hot. Oh yeah, drink, drink your Pineapple Quencher. So if I, so if I say something about the Philippines, how familiar are you with General Douglas MacArthur? I’m not. No? Battle of Guadalcanal? Mean nothing to you? No. No, it doesn’t not mean anything to me. I just don’t know what it means. No, there was a big like military occupation. Fom the Americans in the Philippines and that is also likely how Korean fried chicken became a thing where American G.I.’s there and so like brought American food over and now the world over loves fried chicken. It’s like equal parts, you know, depressing, neo colonization, but then also more fried chicken for the rest of the world. That is good. Not that, but the chicken. And the Pineapple Quencher is really good. I thought it was gonna be really sweet, but it’s not. The spaghetti is really, to me, like the crown jewel of Jollibee. It’s messy. There’s a Filipino spot next to my house that makes a gallon bucket of spaghetti. That you can buy? Oh, you can’t not buy it. That doesn’t taste like I thought it was gonna taste at all. What were you expecting and what are you tasting? Well, because you said it was gonna be sweeter, which it is sweeter, but it almost has like a barbecue saucy type of taste to it. So there tends to be like a lunch meat ham that’s almost like chopped or ground up into a sort of sauce. So, you’re probably tasting the smoke off of that and then you’re tasting the ketchup. So when you taste smoke and ketchup, you’re probably tasting things similar to American barbecue. Man, I’m like the Emily Deschanel of food. Anyone? Bones? Second Bones reference on Mythical Kitchen? Where are my Bones heads at? It’s good, but it’s so, it’s like looking at something that you usually look at that tastes a certain way, but it doesn’t taste that way. It’s a different, it’s a. In French they call that a trompe-l’œil a fooling of the eye. Is that, are you being serious? Yeah, I shook my napkin dramatically and I think I shook some half eaten spaghetti into your spaghetti, so that’s my bad. Okay. I wish I could say that’s the first time that’s happened. It’s not. It’s not. Speaking of first, Stevie. We got your first selfie. Oh my God. Hold up, tell me where you were and what you were thinking when you posted this. And can you read the caption but do it dramatically? – [Stevie] Shoot with at Ezra Spurrier yesterday is the caption. Poetry in motion, Stevie. What does it all mean? That’s the name of a photographer who took this photo. And, that’s all the caption says. Although it does look like, because the photo quality is so grainy, like there’s some, there’s some mist on like, Instagram back then or something. It kind of looks like my hair is tied around my, under my neck. Is that an ascot? Yeah, it’s an ascot. Also, I love that he was like, yeah, just put your hat like that. That’s cool. That’ll be cool. Lean into it. Wear this spaghetti strap. And wear this cocked hat. But, yes. What was your first major accomplishment? What is the first time where you really thought like, man, I’m gonna make it in this world. You know, when I played soccer, I, shockingly, there was a period of time where I was actually pretty good at it. And, there was, I don’t know if you’re familiar with the, the levels of playing soccer. I don’t know what you call it. You know how there’s like rec teams? Yeah, yeah. And then there’s like challenge slash classic is what they call it and those are like the teams that you actually have to really try out for and that travel around and that usually there’s a pipeline up. And so I played for one of those teams and that’s like being, that was like one of the first times where I was recognized as like being good at something, you know what I mean? And so, but I will say I much enjoyed. Much preferred being very good on the rec team to being okay with the rest of the people who are actually good. But yeah, that’s the first, like, pat on the back moment, I think. I had similar experiences in sports, except, I was so much bigger than all the other kids that the opposing team’s parents, they would jeer at me. And one time I fouled out of a game and an adult man stood up and went, get that monster out of there! And I was like a 13 year old boy, and so. Dude, the parents were so mean at these games. Like, so mean. And because I was in North Carolina, they also all had southern accents. So it was like, get that monster out of here! Yeah, yeah, and then it just sounds racist. Yeah. Like, listen, no, and that’s nothing against not all southern people, you know what I mean? What I’m saying, it just sounds. Like, if you were casting in a movie, racist guy yelling. Yeah. There’s an accent. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was scary. The parents were the scariest part, honestly. Stevie, this was an incredible meal. How do you feel about Filipino food overall? I love it! I’m so, like, there’s not many times where I get to eat something for the first time, so I was really, genuinely excited to come on and eat all this food, and it’s so good. You guys did a great job. I love it. I’m gonna be going to Jollibee every Tuesday and Thursday morning. ((Laughing)) And you’re gonna post your Instagram stories to prove it, right? Yes. You just go once, bring 15 outfit changes, and then people will forget. Okay, cool. Well, Stevie, I am honored that you chose to have your first time with me. Now, I was like, I was like, should we? How far can we push first time? We’ll figure it out. Everybody from the Filipino community, thank you so much for doing what you do, and please find it in your hearts to forgive Stevie. Stevie, you have any last words for them? Stevie, you have any first words for them? Sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. – [Josh] The Mythical Cookbook is finally here! Order your copy now at mythicalcookbook.com and make any kitchen a Mythical Kitchen.