Pleat Bargain

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

This week, pleat bargain, Ann Elizabeth files suit against her wife, Tiffany.

Ann Elizabeth says she doesn't cook because she finds it too overwhelming.

Tiffany says that because Anne Elizabeth is such a talented seamstress, it's surprising she would have trouble with cooking.

To Tiffany, those skills should be transferable.

But Ann Elizabeth says, that's not how it works.

Who's right, who's wrong, only one can decide.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom and presents an obscure cultural reference.

Well, Banner wants to show everybody he can lead this thing, but he can't lead poop.

And he's going to pay.

They're all going to pay.

Bailiff Jesse Thorne, please swear them in.

Ann Elizabeth and Tiffany, please rise and raise your right hands.

Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

So help you, God, or whatever?

Yes.

Yep.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that the only sewing he's ever done is his wrestling costume that he made after he was bitten by a radioactive spider?

Yes.

Yes.

Judge Hodgman, you may proceed.

I hope I got the order of events right.

I didn't actually end up sewing anything.

Elliot Kalen just texted me.

He's mad that I messed something up.

No, you got it.

You got it right.

Except I don't know that Peter Parker sewed that wrestling costume.

I think, at least in the movie, he just wears like a ski mask.

But then later, he makes his own costume.

Okay.

In the Sam Raimi Spider-Man's.

And then later, an alien turns into a costume for him.

An alien says, hey, let me wrap myself around your body.

This can't go wrong.

He says, way to go.

Sounds great.

Wrap yourself around me, alien.

And Elizabeth and Tiffany, you may be seated for an immediate summary Judgment, one of yours favorites.

Can either of you name the piece of culture that I referenced as I entered the courtroom.

This is a tough one.

I'm going to give you another

quote from this thing.

I'm going to give you another quote: Lord Keldar, it is your hypocrisy that has been a noose around the realm for so long.

Lord Keldar.

Yeah.

And Elizabeth, why don't you go ahead and guess first?

Judge Hodgman?

Yes, it's me.

I

have no idea, so I am going to randomly guess that these are quotes from background dialogue

in

I'm going to just guess Dune because I honestly

filmed production of Dune are we talking about here?

I'll guess the 1984.

The David Lynch Dune.

Okay, I'll put that in the guess book.

Tiffany, do you have a guess?

Well,

the first quote, you started with Banner, and so that makes me think of Banner Publishing,

where Peter Parker works.

But your second quote stymies me, and I'm not.

But I'm, how could you be stymied

when I am the one who is stymied?

Peter Parker works at Banner Publishing.

Not Banner.

No, Banner Publishing is from Down with Love.

It's run by Tony.

It's the classic confusion.

We've all been there, Tiffany.

So you can tell that I know exactly what this is.

I had complete confidence that you are a much more up-to-date comic book reader than I am.

Darn it.

But okay.

Just the other day, I said something.

I thought it was from Game of Thrones, and it turned out to be from the Hugh Grant film

Music and Lyrics.

Wow.

Yeah.

Thank you, Jesse.

I don't feel so bad now.

All right, here, I'll give you, you know, I'm going to change it now in the spirit of this.

This is the new quote.

This is a new quote, completely different property.

You shall not pass.

Well, that's Lord of the Rings, Judge.

Incorrect.

That's love actually.

Love actually.

Oh, that scene.

So instead of Tony Randall, who is Tony Randall.

She's the head of Banner Publishing.

Right.

Right.

Yeah.

It's Tony Randall is not in this.

A final hint.

It's a movie.

Everybody wants to be a hero, and in everyday life, most of the time, you don't get to be the hero.

That's the last quote I'm going to give you.

I don't.

Wow.

I think all guesses are wrong.

I think all guesses are wrong.

Yes, they're all wrong.

The only superhero movie I know at all is Mystery Men.

It's not a superhero movie.

Hang on.

See, I was talking before I took in what you said.

Mystery Men is the only superhero movie that you've seen.

Well, I've seen some of this, but I haven't retained them.

The only one I've memorized is Mystery Men.

With Janine Garoflo with that bowling ball with the skull in it?

Yes.

She said something about graduate school.

I remember.

That was funny.

And of course, our friend Paul Rubens was in it.

Yes.

The farter.

The spleen.

Yep.

The spleen.

Yeah.

Sorry.

Not the farter.

Well, in any case, all guesses are wrong.

It is not a superhero movie.

It is a documentary from the year, I want to say, 2006.

Yes.

Called Darkon, D-A-R-K-O-N, a documentary about live-action role-playing gamers

that was to be adapted into a scripted fiction film called Darkon

by Me.

But after many drafts of the script, it was put on hold where it has stayed ever since.

Ah, well, Darkon,

you shall rise again.

And I looked to Darkon because I see here in the brief that was prepared that you two met at a Renaissance fair.

And I know that LARPing is not Renfair.

I don't want to cross the streams.

I apologize if that's offensive.

Not at all.

Okay, but it was the closest piece of culture to Renfair that I was willing to reference.

Thank you.

While also seeding, I hope,

the producers of Darkon out there to rethink, maybe restart that old, that script again.

I still got it.

I still got it, everybody.

It's in an accordion folder somewhere in this office.

The Venn diagram of the LARP world and the Renfair world is almost one complete circle.

So definitely.

Okay, good.

I'm glad to hear it.

There were definitely some Renfair scenes in the script for Darkon that I wrote, which

I cannot share with anybody, but now I've talked about it enough.

Let's move on.

The point is, when your dispute crossed my desk, the only words I saw on it, aside from your wonderful names, Ann Elizabeth and Tiffany, was renaissance and fair.

And I'm like, yeah, we got to get them on.

i don't know what your dispute is i don't understand your dispute i don't honestly don't care i want to talk about the renfair but let's go ahead and try this case who seeks justice before lord british himself i do your honor all right ann elizabeth what is the justice that you seek so um tiffany equates cooking and sewing and um while tiffany herself is also a seamstress and has made many beautiful garments in her time

I've made more garments.

Not that it's a race, because it's not.

We're not competing.

But the two processes I maintain are in.

Who has made more garments in this marriage?

I have wrought

the majority.

But Tiffany maintains that the process of cooking is identical to the process of sewing and therefore should not intimidate me.

Whereas I maintain that in sewing, the materials while being attached to each other are not catalyzing one another and converting one another into a new substance.

Whereas in cooking, you're creating a new chemical substance out of other chemicals.

And so you can't just fix it.

You have to throw it away and start over.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

By cooking,

it's very simple.

Ann Elizabeth.

Cooking is very simple.

You roast the turkey leg, you sell the turkey leg.

You have to salt it heavily first.

Okay, there is some seasoning to turn it into a turkey ham.

But yes, I mean,

when you want to celebrate history of medieval Europe, you call it the Renaissance, even though that's a different time period.

Correct.

And you roast a New World food that was never seen in Europe until...

And you sell it alongside pizza, and what you tell people is shepherd's pie, but it's really just mashed potatoes with some beef in it.

Huzzah.

Huzzah to the tipper.

Yes.

It's been a long time since I've been to the Wren Fair, and I miss it a lot.

Well, it's been a long time since we've been to the Wren Fair as well.

That's a long time ago.

The mead is just cream soda and Everclear.

And the absinthe is really just melted licorice.

That's what the blacksmith is doing.

That's right.

Aunt Elizabeth charges that

you would like Aunt Elizabeth to cook more than she does.

Does she not cook enough?

What's going on?

I don't want her to cook more, but

I want to help her get past

her

hesitance to cook.

I see.

I think that

the processes, while not identical, are similar.

And

they both have instructions.

And sure,

you can take a garment that's sewn wrong and you can pull the seams apart and correct it.

But Ann Elizabeth, what about the blue dress?

The one that I absolutely failed on and had to throw away and start over.

What about the blue dress?

I did have one garment that

turned out like many of my cooking experiments,

where I made so many mistakes on it that I wore it once and had to throw throw it away and start over.

Which is what you do in cooking.

Let me understand this metaphor.

The metaphor is that when you

are making a dress, in this case, one that is blue, and it doesn't come together the way you want it to, you can try to fix it, but sometimes it's unfixable and then you throw it away.

Is that right?

That you make mistakes in cooking is no big deal because you can just wear it once and throw it away.

Your Honor,

I'd like to argue that the inclusion of the blue dress as an argument is flawed because in that instance, that was just my own

rage at having made many mistakes.

I could have shortened the gown, made many adjustments, but I was very angry at it, and so I disposed of it.

But I could have gone back and fixed it.

But if you make a casserole and you don't add the onion soup or whatever ingredient at a specific time, and you get to the end you can't just add it in at the end and go

and and and assume that it will taste the record show that Ann Elizabeth raised two

fatalities

yeah let the record further reflect that Ann Elizabeth and Tiffany are speaking to us from Milwaukee where

it makes perfect sense that the example for cooking is you forgot to add the onion soup to the casserole

yeah I was just I was just about to say where where where are we speaking to you from Milwaukee I see North Coast.

The home of the Bronze Fawns.

Yeah.

Milwaukee pon the shores of Lake Michigan.

Lake Michigan, one of the Great Lakes.

One of the Great Lakes, indeed.

It's hydrologically identical to

Lake Huron.

Apologies to Bailiff Jesse Thorne for delving into Great Lakes material.

Just saw it, by the way.

I just saw that Great Lake of Michigan.

I was in Chicago briefly for an unrelated side quest.

And

boy, did it look great.

Really liked it.

Sorry that I haven't been to Milwaukee lately.

Love that onion soup casserole.

It's funny, though, because casserole is truly one of the most forgiving of cooking

endeavors.

But you are intimidated.

Let me just make sure I understand this.

You are intimidated by cooking.

You don't like to do it.

It gives you no pleasure.

Tiffany, your argument is that

Anne Elizabeth, if she did more of it and got better at it, she would enjoy life more?

Or you just want more casserole than you have time to make yourself?

Well,

I think that I grew up in a household where my mother started cooking at age 15.

She started helping a neighbor in their household, and that was her job.

And I grew up with a really great, positive role model.

In fact, all of my siblings, I'm one of seven.

And no matter what our gender identities, we all learn to cook, clean, sew,

do laundry, make food.

And I think that cooking together can be a pleasurable activity.

And one that you do not currently enjoy

in your partnership, your marriage with...

I wouldn't say that.

I think that we...

I don't mean to say that you don't enjoy it, but that you don't enjoy it as often as you would like because of there has to be a reason you're here.

I do flip out when I try to cook.

Okay, here we go thank you tiffany is being too kind she is it's true i admit it yeah you do flip out

you're i don't come from as happy a family background and um cooking was weaponized during my youth um yes so um so it was made first of all

Because I was a girl person growing up and the only girl person in my household.

I have one brother, an older brother.

My mother, who lived with various

mental illnesses and addictions,

she

viewed me as a threat,

which no one can understand.

I mean,

it's not a thing to be understood.

I simply don't know.

I can only understand that that is horrible, and I'm sorry.

Oh, thank you.

So I was not included in the teaching of any domestic skills.

I wasn't taught how to do any sewing, any cooking.

I had to figure out cleaning on my own.

My brother learned everything from my mom, but I was excluded.

You weren't allowed to do chores.

Correct.

Okay.

Most would celebrate at this.

I'm not trying to spin that as a good thing.

I find it so, so,

you know,

a lot of the time on this podcast, we try to scratch the surface a little bit and get to the crux of what's going on.

In this case, I'm pretty good with the surface.

It sounds like it was awful.

It was bad.

It was bad.

I think anything that's serious enough to make a child wish they could do more chores

is something that we can just take, we can just accept, we can stipulate was real bad.

That was bad.

Yeah.

So

now cooking carries that extra weight of me having, I immediately flash back to

times when my mother was trying to cook, but was inebriated.

And so everything went wrong and it resulted in a huge family fight.

And so I know that that's something that I have to work on and I have been working on it.

But

cooking for me carries that extra little flavor of

terror

because I feel like if I do it wrong, and of course, I'm just a little the best.

It's just a little soup

trauma.

Mai ris, en petit.

Ann Elizabeth, is that true for other domestic activities?

No, just cooking, really.

Well, it can't be Jesse Thorne because have you seen this evidence that they've sent in?

Let's see this evidence.

We have some evidence from both parties.

Submitted by Ann Elizabeth, we have photos, and this is you in these outfits.

Correct.

These are, and I'm going to guess you're at a Renaissance fair in these photos.

Okay.

Because it's a very specific look.

Most of them were taken at Renaissance Fair.

Some of them were taken at Moncaster Castle in England's beautiful lake district, the home of the original Tom Fool.

Oh,

what is the original Tom Fool?

I mean, we're all familiar with Tom Fool's imitators.

Yeah, I know.

Tom Foolery.

So, you know, Tom Fool 2 was actually his brother.

Right.

He followed him around.

Tom Fool's dad got together.

Tom Fool Cred all over the place.

Tom Fool.

So Thomas Skelton was a fool to the Pennington family in the late 15, early 1600s.

And the Pennington family has possessed Muncaster Castle since 1066.

So it's been handed down matrilineally, which is unusual.

Oh, interesting.

That's cool.

Right?

It's neat.

So

Thomas Skelton was their fool, and he was less of a ha-ha fool and more of an uh-oh fool when um somebody tried to discredit the reputation of the family's daughter he went into town and beheaded them and brought their head home and put it on the the newel post of the grand staircase classic tom foolery what a wacky tom fool

so yeah so every year they do an international festival of fools in the springtime and i was invited in 2007 and uh once I went once, they said, you can just come back whenever you want.

So we've got

Yeah.

Well,

first I thought you were going to say the Tom Fool was less of a ha ha fool and more of a, oh, I get it, fool.

Right.

No.

In a way,

in the style of John Hodgman comedy.

Not so much laughter.

No, he was more of a

fool.

Oh, no.

But

to these outfits that you have, and these extraordinary outfits that you have created for yourself, I say, oh, yes.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you.

Holy, everyone should go check this out on the Judge John Odgman Instagram page, also on the show page at maximumfund.org.

How would you describe?

Because I'm at a loss for words.

Pick one of the outfits that you are proudest of and describe it.

Certainly.

So

I'll just pick the bright blue one.

I call that one the pastoral motley.

These are all jesters motleys that are

a combination of a silhouette that is historically appropriate to the 16th century and what I know the audience is going to expect when they see a jester.

I know that the audience is not going to be used to the idea of a historically appropriate female jester, but the character that I'm portraying in these instances is Jane the Fool, who was fool to Elizabeth I,

one of Elizabeth's many fools.

She had both female and male fools and like 17 at a time.

sure.

And uh, and so it's good to be the queen, no fooling, right?

Exactly, you can just have all these pet humans around to entertain you.

And um, so Jane the Fool in real life, sorry, I'm sorry, Anna.

I have to interrupt you for one second, Jesse Thorne.

Yeah,

how dare you am I fired?

You can never be fired.

You're good

and could create this show.

Yeah,

I'm lucky I still got a job.

Oh, no, I missed it.

But how dare, how dare you?

How dare you?

I dared.

Oh, fooling.

As the wife of Noah from Noah's Arcade in Wayne's World said,

I just opened my mouth and out it came.

That's fooling.

I mean, that was Jean the Fool's style.

She was pure fooling.

That's what she was known for was blurting out the first thing that came into her mind all the time.

So you say this is the silhouette of a traditional fool's costume of the time.

How is that, describe what that is and how it is different from what maybe people expect a fool's motley to be?

Certainly.

So a 16th century noble lady's gown would include

from the bottom up, there's a hooped farthingale, which is a hooped petticoat.

It looks like a hooped farthingale to me.

It's funny.

I knew it was a farthingale, but I couldn't put my finger on whether it was hooped or.

Yeah.

Your farthingale credit is a colour.

I apologize.

I fire myself.

I'm fired.

I shall be quiet.

So there's a petticoat that's stiffened with steel hoops.

In the time period, it would have been stiffened with whalebone or reeds, but

those don't go in the laundry well or get imported well or involve too much cruelty.

So

mine are made of steel.

And then over that are a series of petticoats and an overskirt and a padded roll called a bum roll

that is really more appropriate to the very end of the 16th century, but it's too funny.

I don't want to say anything.

I'm not going to say anything about it.

Thank you.

It's very kind.

Yeah, it's the predecessor to the bustle and to that

bum roll.

Right.

The bum roll.

I understand what it's called.

But mine's so big that I've named it Bumroleo because it's like my Shakespearean friend that's always got my back.

Wow.

And

you're also fired.

So

that was a justified hot chat.

Yeah.

Fair enough.

If you're going to be a fool at a Renaissance fair, you're going to need some bum equipment.

It's true.

It's true.

And it provides not only a lot of comedy material, but it gives people a place to leave stuff.

People frequently leave like dogs and babies and beers and all kinds of stuff back there.

Wow.

So, yeah.

So the bum roll that I wear is comically large.

They would never have been that large in the time period, but the audience likes it too much for me to give it up.

So, I got a giant bum roll.

The audience likes big bum rolls.

They cannot lie.

We knew exactly.

They cannot feign deceive us.

That's I like that.

There we go.

Only the Renfair could save a shop-worn Sermix-Alotte joke.

Amazing.

You're wearing a lot of really intensely bold colors, but very carefully coordinated.

And you're also wearing a lot of

details on this gown or outfit

that recall the

ring-a-ding flap hat that we associate with the fool.

Thank you, Jesse.

That was exactly the effect that I intended to achieve.

So the details that I've selected are exactly that to give the audience a clue that this is the the same sort of gesture that you would see on a playing card or that you would see in a pastiche of medieval life,

but also have a link to the era.

When you say a pastiche of medieval life, for example, the Renaissance fair.

Exactly.

But

these tassels with the bells on the end that we associate with the court gesture, that would not necessarily be what a ladies' fool of the 16th century would be wearing.

That is correct.

There is one portrait of Jane the Fool that is at Hampton Court Palace.

It's part of a triptych that is an allegory of the family of Henry VIII.

And she's just wearing a dress, just a kind of a wool, nothing dress.

She's actually wearing a little black dress.

She originated a little black dress.

Exactly.

Very simple.

And she has this simple shift, right?

It's so, it's so

you, you would hardly notice her up in the corner with the spaced out look on her face.

No, because you know what?

Being a fool isn't about dressing up funny, it's about saying the first thing that comes to your mind.

Correct.

No fooling.

Let's take a quick recess.

We'll be back in just a moment on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

You're listening to Judge John Hodgman.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

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So

this is great.

Tell me about how you met Tiffany.

Oh, No, excuse me.

Tiffany, tell me about how you met Ann Elizabeth.

We both started at a specific Renaissance fair in Wisconsin.

We started in 1990, and we actually

didn't meet until 1998.

That's right.

We both sort of

had our separate you worked different zones

for the fair.

Different clicks.

Yes.

What was your world of the Wren Fair, Tiffany,

compared to Anne Elizabeth's?

Tiffany was a jet, Anne Elizabeth was a shark.

Correct?

Yeah, pretty much.

Well,

I'm transgender, and at the time, I was still living as my

natal male self.

And

I was in the queen's court.

I was one of the knights.

And I followed kind of a path that was more

male-centered.

I started a military group with one of my best friends that was a slice of what the town militia would look like.

And

we both, I think, we both were involved in unhealthy relationships, partnerships.

And

we broke up with our significant others and we both moved away.

I moved to San Francisco, and Elizabeth moved to Los Angeles.

And we both kind of had a little sabbatical for a year.

Without really knowing each other.

Yeah, we didn't know each other.

But did you not know each other at all?

No.

Or just sort of.

We knew of each other, Your Honor.

Bustles passing in the night.

Right, right.

That other person over there.

Bustles passing by the night, as it were.

Correct.

Nice.

Look, I'm trying.

Tiffany was literally my knight in shining armor, but before that, she

was part of this group of these four super physically attractive dudes who the rest of us in the cast just wrote off as decorative.

Like we couldn't imagine.

It was bad.

We were very biased against how pretty they were.

It was, I admit that it was bad.

That's a big problem at the Renaissance Fair, is anti-pretty bias.

It was bad.

We were like, they couldn't possibly be functional.

How can they be both decorative and functional?

Purely decorative.

What a Ren Fair dish.

It was terrible.

Incredible.

And yet we got together.

Right?

Yeah.

There was one night at a restaurant where somebody else was making everyone in the restaurant laugh.

And I was like, who?

Who dares?

This is my territory.

Who dareth?

Tis, I am the fool at this

Shoni's.

It was a Shoni's.

no was it

it wasn't it was down highway 50 from the shonies it was the phoenix oh how appropriate so tiffany was stealing tiffany was was getting laughed she was hilarious and i was like she's funny and smart and adorable this is not possible all in one human this was after we had moved back to the area and come back to the show came back to the show and met

and

got married and then you got married

i have to say incredible romance i can't attest to how good at renaissance fairing tiffany was uh but looking at this picture of of tiffany and her outfit i can confirm that no one has looked so good in a leather hat since the the prime days of the rap group houdini

wow

confirmed and both in houdini from what i've heard at both in houdini and at the renaissance fair the freaks come out at night i've heard that the freaks come out at night.

I've heard.

Oh, that's actually a.

I've heard with adults at the Renaissance Fair.

When y'all are working the Ren Fair, you were working the fair.

You weren't purely decorative.

You were functional.

We were.

We were there for the audience.

And so did you live on site?

Did the freaks come out at night at the Ren Fair or what?

So I did live on site for a while.

And I know that on some weekends, Tiffany also lived on site, but

the gig is so exhausting that

I maybe there was some freakiness somewhere on the periphery maybe out on the weird campground but most people are just so tired after a gig and so filthy and just pass out I guess I'm just more curious if people live in like tents and caravans they do like at a state fair or something or if they if they go home yep there you are living on site there are a certain number of people who are local and and just go home home afterwards, but there's a large number of people who live on the circuit

and make an RV park out in the parking lot.

I get it, though.

If you're hauling around those hoops of steel all day, you're going to be tired at the end.

Bum rollio is a burden.

In any case,

well, that's a wonderful story.

And Tiffany, I mean,

you also have submitted some photos of food.

Yes.

These are your photos of your food.

It's all very appetizing.

Tell me what I'm seeing here.

First, some scrambled eggs on toast with locks.

Yeah.

Some scrambled eggs with smoked salmon on toast.

I believe there's a picture of

like an apple crisp, but it's crustless to keep it low carb.

And then

some perfectly poached eggs, no vinegar, no grape nuts.

I have to say those eggs are perfectly poached.

And

Kenji Lopez Alt would be proud.

They look delicious, and I want to eat this whole photo, frankly, because it's out.

I spent a good portion of lockdown learning how to make perfectly poached eggs.

Well, you did a great job, it would seem to me.

And since you know how to do it, who cares if Aunt Elizabeth knows how to do it?

My point exactly.

That's true.

Why make that redundant?

I love to cook.

I'm not saying that.

Oh, and one woman, our giant cat is attacking them.

Oh, this is how could this episode get better?

Let me see that cat.

Pay the tax.

Pay a tax.

Retrieve him.

Shall I?

I'll retrieve him.

I wonder what the cat's name is.

Tony.

Tony the cat.

Tony the cat.

Classic beefy buddy.

That's good.

That's a good cat.

So, Ann Elizabeth,

we have to settle this dispute.

As much as I would love to talk Renfair with you both and

look at your cat some more and everything else.

How does Tiffany

encourage you

to cook more such that you would come to

me, but a stranger on a podcast, to ask your loving wife to leave you alone about it.

So,

Tiffany,

when I will ask about

the finer points of a particular recipe, she'll say, you just do this, and then you just do this, and just do this, and just do this.

But each of those justs are infinitely expandable because they include fine measurements that

many cookers and people who frequently cook food are very casual about.

But as it turns out, there's a very big difference between a teaspoon and a tablespoon.

And also, when a person says teaspoon or tablespoon, they may mean a different implement than the one that you have in your drawer.

And there's just so many things that can go wrong that it's not...

To me, it doesn't seem like it's just a follow the instructions as they are written.

Very exciting.

ann Elizabeth is your objection that when a recipe says to use a teaspoon of something you don't use the spoon that you would use for tea

i i think you can figure this one out ann elizabeth i believe in you

i'm beginning to sway over to tiffany's side here

oh no

i um i see so if we were going to say a dry cup measure versus a liquid cup measure of course you'd be absolutely right there is a difference there and it is very confusing.

It is.

And I just made that mistake the other day when I, what was I trying to make?

And I...

Pancakes.

I was trying to make pancakes.

That didn't work.

But didn't we fix it?

Well, we did fix it.

We did fix it.

And we had twice as many pancakes.

Right.

Which we ended up throwing some away because we had far too many pancakes.

And they got bad.

Too many pancakes.

Yeah, but what you lost, what you wasted in pancakes, and of course, wasted food is always a sad thing.

You gained an experience.

Next Next time you'll know, a dry measure cup is different from a liquid measure cup.

That's true.

This is true.

Well, how would you describe how you felt when you messed up those pancakes?

This is a nexus of anxiety for you.

Yes, it seems.

Yeah, heart-racing panic.

I mean, you know, admittedly, I was mainly making pancakes for me.

So it wasn't as crucial an issue as if I were making food for the both of us.

Tiffany lives with type 1 diabetes, which means that mealtime has sort of an added

urgency to it.

So

if Tiffany has counted for carbohydrates that are anticipated and those carbohydrates are not delivered in the food in a certain amount of time, it could be a crisis.

Not that Tiffany would ever,

you know, say to me, you are responsible for my sugar crash, but...

But I don't, I fear it.

So there's that.

Does she often talk in that voice?

No.

That's entirely me making a cartoon out of everything.

You are responsible.

I am the one who lives in the tree.

That's entirely me.

That's me all the time.

Answer three riddles.

You shall not cook.

You shall not pass.

It is I, your primary care physician.

It is I, Andrew Lincoln, in love actually saying, you shall not pass.

I remembered Andrew Lincoln of all the people in that movie, the creepiest one.

The deep cut there.

Yeah.

Tiffany, this is what I'm struggling to understand.

Why do you think that anyone who can follow any kinds of instructions is capable of cooking?

Do you think that people who make, all people who make model rocket chips can cook?

I really don't know.

That's not,

That's not kind of in my mind.

I just think that

I see that Ann Elizabeth has fear about this process that is required for all of us to gain sustenance.

And

she is the smartest person I know.

This is how smart she is.

She says that.

How smart is she?

Well,

ask her what her current hobby is.

I will.

What's your current hobby?

What on earth do you mean?

What are you learning?

Oh, Norwegian.

She's learning Norwegian.

Every day, she goes onto her app and she learns Norwegian and then she tells me about it.

I know so many languages, not because I wanted to,

but because I'm around her.

So I don't know.

I just feel like, I feel that there are some fears that one has that one can overcome

by doing the task.

What do you think Anne Elizabeth will gain by overcoming this fear?

I think she will gain more confidence in making a meal and enjoying having a meal.

Does she have this kind of anxiety surrounding anything else?

I don't really perceive that.

I don't think so.

How do you feel when she refuses to cook with you?

I feel sad and hungry

and hungry.

This is not the only food you have to live on.

You are capable of feeding yourself.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

It's not that you ask for Anne Elizabeth's participation

for your sustenance, your physical sustenance, it's emotional sustenance.

Yes, I think that we can have an enjoyable time making a meal.

We've never had an argument.

We've been together 22 years.

We've never, ever had an argument.

This is our sole dispute in all of that time.

Yeah, I was going to say, you can't, you can barely manage to have one on this podcast, which is supposed to be about arguments.

Well, I'm sorry.

We're frustratingly agreeable.

See?

Tiffany, in my family, I'm the,

as Aunt Elizabeth so eloquently put it, the cooker,

primarily.

And

I feel that were I to teach my perfect and wonderful wife to cook, it would be a disaster.

Not because of anything about my wife, but because of me.

I'm incapable of

having,

I get uncomfortable when someone else is in the room while I'm cooking, much less trying to help someone cook.

Do you think you're the kind of person who could help your wife through this anxiety in a way that would support her enough that she could overcome it?

Or do you think you would contribute to it?

I think I can help her overcome it.

Is that true, Aunt Elizabeth?

I think possibly to an extent,

but we're just going to have to work very hard on a shared glossary of what it means when you say, just flip it over.

That's not a simple thing to do.

Why?

Tiffany, is it that you want Ann Elizabeth to learn to cook, or is it that you want to teach Ann Elizabeth to cook?

That

had never occurred to me.

That idea had never occurred to me.

I love her so much

and

we just enjoy so much of life.

We sit around laughing quite a bit and we comfort each other.

And I just want to share with her and teach her so that we have another enjoyable activity to engage with each other in.

Did I say that right?

Yeah, no, it makes sense.

Do you think that the sharing and teaching is a little one-sided in your relationship?

That you don't get to share and teach as much?

I don't think so.

Do you know what I mean?

I don't know.

I'm asking Tiffany and Elizabeth because what I'm accusing you of

is getting to be the sharer and the teacher more than Tiffany gets to be the sharer and the teacher of you.

This may not be true.

Do you see what I'm saying?

But

I'm just wondering if that may be part of why, like, Tiffany has taught herself how to make perfect poached eggs.

She makes food for herself.

You have

a complicated relationship with cooking.

And it may be that Tiffany wants to share these skills with you because she wants to help you.

And also she wants to be able to share something with you.

And maybe you're doing more sharing than she gets to do in the relationship.

More teaching than she gets to do in the relationship.

This may not be true.

Does any of that sound true to you, Tiffany?

Yes or no?

Or maybe.

Yes or no.

And maybe.

Right, Right.

Okay.

Tiffany, is

part of the appeal here beyond just wanting to share an activity with Ann Elizabeth?

It's clear that there are many activities you could share.

Is part of the appeal here that the two of you have been so supportive to each other and you would like to have the opportunity to support her through this

difficult growth opportunity?

Absolutely.

I see how her upbringing has shaped her ability to cope with certain things.

And I always try and be a cushion or a comfort to her in those things.

And I think perhaps this is yet another activity where she has,

you know, a lot more fight or flight.

And by

being a guiding presence, I think that it can become something that is less anxiety-provoking

for her,

whether I'm here or not.

Let the record reflect that Ann Elizabeth is offering Tiffany a gaze that can only be described as parodically loving.

I consider it to be merely decorative.

But not functional.

But actually functional.

That was a functional loving gaze, not merely decorative at all, of course.

And Jesse Thorne, may I

functionally gaze lovingly at you for asking a question that really was what I was trying to get at, but couldn't got tripped over all my own words.

So thank you for that.

This is a good partnership.

You're unfired, and so am I.

We're rehired.

Oh, that's good.

I'm going to come make a mess in your kitchen and see how that goes.

Jesse Thorne.

I'm going to unorder your refrigerator.

Yeah, you know, we need you to come over and make that macaroni and cheese again because it's been a, it's been quite a few years since you came and made macaroni and cheese in our kitchen.

And boy, oh boy, did you know how to sport an apron?

So you, Aunt Elizabeth, you've heard all of Tiffany's words.

Yes.

It says here that if I were to rule in your favor, you would want me to order Tiffany to cease

false comparison slash equivalence between cooking and sewing.

Yes.

And to acknowledge cooking involves chemical changes that are not similar to constructing a 16th century costume.

Correct, Your Honor.

All right.

I will consider that order.

But you'd have not asked me to order Tiffany to knock it off and cease trying to get you to cook with her.

That, Your Honor, may have been a lack of foresight on my part in considering what I wished Your Honor to order.

But that being said, I do acknowledge that.

Why hath we most, all of us, speak this like Renfair when there is, isn't there overlap between Renfair and fake legal speaketh?

Yes, John.

I doth not speak like Renaissance fair.

I speaketh as a guy at Colonial Williamsburg.

You guys really got to work on your verb conjugations, if I may speak entirely out of turn.

Hey, hey, sorry we don't speak Norwegian.

Okay.

I'm only learning Indonesian, the favorite foreign language of the Yale football team.

Yes, listen.

Would if you like me to order that Tiffany knocketh it off?

Mary, I would.

And yet, I would feign.

I am at sixes and sevens with myself, Your Honor, because I...

From this conversation, I have learned that this is all of this is simply a quarrel with myself about being bad at something and like your honor often expresses in your honor's books and comedies

um i really like to be good at stuff yeah you like to be good at stuff and you don't like being not so good at stuff i hate being bad at stuff i can't abide it abideth it not tiffany uh you request that ann elizabeth work with you once a month to find some type of a recipe that you both can make together correct so once a month you're asking for just some cooking time.

Yeah.

Like a date night.

Right.

A date night with literal dates.

Well, we'd have to buy a wok to make some poached eggs.

Right.

The Kenji Lopez Altway.

Right.

What would be

the first thing you would tackle in the food department on date night?

I would

request a lasagna with spinach.

Oh, Oh boy.

And now I'm getting nervous.

Either ground turkey or

some other

good animal protein or plant protein.

It doesn't even have to have any animal product in it, but like a lasagna.

As Tiffany describes this, she is offering a pure, a functional gaze of pleading at Ann Elizabeth with each

with each option for the recipe,

looking at Ann Elizabeth

and hoping that Ann Elizabeth will not, I don't know, feel what.

When I say, let's make a lasagna to you, Ann Elizabeth, or when I should say when Tiffany says, let's make a lasagna, how does it make you feel?

I am less frightened, Your Honor, of a lasagna than I am of other dishes.

I once coveted it.

It could be more terrifying than a lasagna.

It's notoriously one of the hardest things to make of of all the casseroles.

A lasagna, you can, it takes a long time.

So you have time to take labor intensive.

But you have time to consider your failures while the lasagna noodles soften and soak over many hours.

You have time to panic.

There's not a lot happening in a very small space of time with micro amounts of

ingredients that if you err by one grain one direction or the other, it will imperil the brain.

There you go.

You did a very good job of making Tiffany's argument for her.

I

think I have heard everything I need to.

I am going to go to the,

what's a good Renfair thing?

Tell me what's a

you're going to retire to the Star Chamber Court, Your Honor.

Yeah, thank you very much.

Did you hear that, Jesse?

I'm going to retire to the Star Chamber Court.

I'll be back in a moment with my verdict.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Ann Elizabeth, Tiffany.

Yes.

There's something I need to get to in a second, but first I'm obliged by the format of the program to ask you how you feel about your chances here in the case.

So Ann Elizabeth, how do you feel you might come out of this?

I know I'm going to be ordered to cook once a month, but once a month is not...

is a good start.

It's baby steps, and I'm resigned already to my fate.

That's what we're looking for in any activity.

Resigned to our fates.

By the way, I just emailed Kenji.

I suggested he changes lasagna recipe to add the step: consider your failures.

And then in parentheses, former gifted children only.

Yes.

Tiffany, how do you feel about your chances?

And how does the drama of the gifted child express itself for you?

I feel okay.

I understand understand

that

trauma in anyone's life can weigh heavily on them and that if things don't go my way,

it won't impact me greatly.

But

I feel that I have at least a 50-50 chance.

Now to the thing that I feel like needs to be addressed before we continue.

So you two are sharing a Zoom frame here in our video conference that's allowing us to record this program.

And I see a carefully composed living or sitting area behind you.

There's also two skeleton feet just barely entering the frame.

That's Uncle Fweddy.

I don't know how to make this short.

We host a weekly web show.

And Uncle Fwetty is a character on the show.

He's just a skeleton.

He just sits there, but he's very, very popular with the audience.

He's a dry skeleton, unlike the skeletons within Tiffany and I, which are perpetually wet.

But we've got Uncle Fweddy, and we dress him up in dumb clothes.

When we do our space fun show week, we put him in a space suit.

When we had our Jewish space lasers show, we put him in a Jewish space laser suit.

Right now, Uncle Fweddy's just reclining on our overstuffed easy chair with a pillow on his lap so that the cats can sleep on him,

which they like to do what is this web show called it's called fool and the gang i'm the fool and you're the gang when ann elizabeth and i stopped performing at the renaissance fair

her character is jane the fool

and she spells fool p-h-o-o-l-e

So when we stopped doing the Renaissance Fair, she has such a global following that we transitioned over to music and and she is now DJ Fool.

It's true.

So the show is called

Fool and the Gang.

Spinning all the hottest madrigals.

Weirdly, we have in the 10 years that actually nine years that the show's been on the air, we have only had four tunes that have recorder in them.

Amazingly.

And they're all by Vlad Koshimar,

who is himself a skeleton.

We don't have time to get into into this.

We're trying to make a podcast, not four podcasts in a row, each on a different fascinating topic.

We didn't even get into Dragonlance, Jesse,

and how I know Margaret Weiss.

We're not even going to enter into this discussion.

Do we want to talk about any other

softcover books that I read as a 10-year-old sitting in Aardvark books in San Francisco?

Okay, look, we didn't have time for any of of this.

We'll be back with the verdict in just a second on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

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Please rise as Judge John Hodgman re-enters the courtroom and presents his verdict.

So,

first of all, Tiffany is absolutely right.

If you can learn Norwegian,

you can learn to cook.

Tiffany is also correct.

If you can create a full costume of this precision, you definitely can make a lasagna.

That said, and Elizabeth is also correct,

that there is a catalyzing,

sorry, as I was saying, catalyzing, the cat walked through the frame.

Is that magic?

Am I a wizard?

You summoned him, Your Honor.

Am I a medieval, am I a Renaissance fair wizard, perhaps?

You cast cat.

There are, okay, okay, Jane the Fool.

Only the jester can speak truth to the king, but I'm asking you not to do it because I'm trying to get this verdict out.

Thank you, Your Honor.

There are obviously differences between cooking and learning Norwegian.

There are obviously differences between cooking and making costumes.

The intricacy of your costuming suggests that I suspect you probably

do have translatable skills towards making a lasagna, which is, after all,

what is it called again?

The roller bum, the bum roll?

The bum roll, Your Honor.

Yeah, it is the bum roll.

It is the bum roll of all casseroles.

There's a lot of layering of, there's a lot of frills and layering and steel hoops involved to both lay down and jump through when making a lasagna.

It scares the heck out of me.

I'll tell you what.

I love to cook.

But you are right, Ann Elizabeth, that

there is also the difference.

You know, different things are different.

When you are sewing a thing, you can rip it apart and resew it again in ways that you can't when you're dealing with the chemical reactions of food and it sounds to me like the thing one of the things that makes you nervous are is fast cooking right like the poaching of an egg where it truly is very difficult it is

the the consistency will change in in the breadth of a second that is correct your honor

the problem with with the two of you is you're so adorable you're so obviously in love and you really don't have any fight here

that

you honestly,

Ann Elizabeth, methinks thou doth protest not enough.

I am maligned in this, Your Honor, and yet I shall yield.

You, I mean, yes, I agree that there are differences between the skills, but there are indeed similarities as well.

I bet you can learn to cook, is the point.

I bet you can.

I'll bet a hundred gold pieces

and a dragon's hoard that you could.

But does that mean you should?

Does that mean you should?

And this is where I am not so sure.

Tiffany, I appreciate very much that you would like to enjoy cooking with your spouse.

But I will also say

that fun, joyous cooking with your partner is something that mostly happens in rom-coms.

I don't know if there's a scene in love actually where two people are cooking successfully together, but it's only in the movies.

Let me tell you what.

Cooking is not really very collaborative in my experience.

I don't think you go to any commercial kitchen.

where three or two people are in charge.

And I would encourage you, well, I think that you probably are both able to cooperate and everything else.

There's a reason why it gets hot in that kitchen and people need to get out of it.

And it's not just because the stove is on.

It's, you know, in many ways, I think your suggestion of a lasagna is good for reasons, paradoxically, that your fool of a wife pointed out

because it is a slow process, right?

It is a good introductory process, but it nonetheless is cooking together.

And

why I warn you against this road is that

Ann Elizabeth has trauma associated with cooking.

She also wasn't allowed to learn how to become a seamstress,

and yet she triumphed in that realm.

I'm

sure you're absolutely right, Tiffany, that she can triumph.

But because cooking with your spouse is already difficult and challenging in most cases,

emotionally, I would especially encourage you not to entangle yourself, Tiffany, in the trauma that Ann Elizabeth feels around her mother.

I just feel like it's a minefield.

And, you know, one thing you can say about

Renaissance fair times,

you know, knights in shining armors didn't have to worry about minefields.

I was not not something that did just, I don't know what, you know, I guess you could go into a castle and have boiling oil poured on you, but at least you didn't have to worry about stepping on a landmine.

I think that it's a delicate issue that I have to respect, and I know that you also respect about Ann Elizabeth's ambivalence around cooking.

Ann Elizabeth, if you want to cook, if you want to learn, and I encourage you to do it because it's great and it's fun,

you should consult a

cooking teacher online or off, and a therapist online or off.

Yes.

I don't know, Tiffany, if it's going to be fun until Ann Elizabeth works through these things.

So I can't order in your favor, but I will offer this

legally binding suggestion.

Make the lasagna,

right?

And Tiffany, you make it.

And

Anne Elizabeth, you just sit and watch.

And Tiffany, Endeavor, you know, do a cooking show.

Everyone, do you get, do you get an anxious Ann Elizabeth watching cooking shows?

No.

I mean, real cooking shows, not ones where you have to like, you get a basket of

artichokes and banana slugs and you have to make a cupcake out of it in 35 seconds or

whatever.

No one enjoys this.

No, I'm talking about like

a Julia Child.

Right.

Graham Care.

Yeah, right.

Okay, old school.

I like the way you think, Tiffany.

Be a cooking show.

Perhaps it will awaken curiosity, and perhaps you will be able to explain

gently, over time, once a month, what the difference is between a teaspoon and a spoon you use to stir your tea.

It's a reasonable confusion.

I understand.

But, you know,

I cannot wait.

I cannot wait, honestly, and Elizabeth, until you start to dig into culinary history of the period that you're interested in.

Because there's some foolish stuff that

goes on there and weird historical artifacts like we call a teaspoon a teaspoon, even though we would never use it for tea, etc.

Although, Your Honor, I promise never to make a goat's foot jelly.

I'm not doing that.

That's too gross.

Oh, I also order you to make a goat's foot jelly.

No, no, Your Honor, no.

Within one year.

No.

Oh, boy.

It's the color of sadness, Your Honor.

Market, Market.

Well, I would like it to be a vegetarian goat's foot jelly.

Market, we are recording this late April, the fool's month.

It is.

It is, Your Honor.

I want you both to come back in a year and report, and I want to see that.

I want to see some kind of jelly.

I want to hear a report on the lasagna.

But my verdict is, and Elizabeth, if she wants to learn how to cook, with your support and encouragement, she should consult a third-party cooking expert/slash therapist to work through whatever the trauma is.

But I do think once a month, sit down and just make a lasagna once a month, make a lasagna once a month for her.

I guarantee you, by the time it's time to make that jelly, Aunt Elizabeth will know a lot more about cooking.

She'll get to have learned what her mother never taught her.

And what do we want more out of a marriage, after all, than to marry our mothers?

It's everyone's goal.

This is the sound of a gavel.

Judge John Hodgman rules that as all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Ann Elizabeth, how do you feel?

I am sentenced to a monthly lasagna, but I'll get to eat lasagna once a month.

So

that's definitely a win for me.

But Tiffany's going to explain to you what she's doing and show you.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And I want a three-camera setup, Tiffany.

I want you to be able to speak to all three cameras.

We have that capability.

I have a feeling you do.

Yikes.

Well, that gives me an incentive because you know I love setting this all up.

I know you do.

Tiffany, how do you feel?

To quote Shakespeare, though my stars have fallen, my skies shall not want handry v wow yeah nice one i think was it yeah um i'm fine with this i i understand that

this goes beyond um a grilled cheese sandwich this is a little bit more emotionally charged or can be and i'm fine with uh

making lasagna, but I am very afraid of that goat's foot jelly.

Tiffany and Elizabeth, thanks for joining us on the program.

And Tiffany, congratulations on quoting Henry V in a literalization of the drama of the gifted child.

Maximum meta achieved.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

And thank you, Your Honor, Judge John Hodgman.

Yes.

Everyone, check out Fool and the Gang.

I'm definitely going to be checking it out.

Outstanding, Your Honor.

Another Judge Judge John Hodgman case is in the books.

In just a minute, we'll have Swift Justice.

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Now, Swift Justice, where we answer small disputes with quick judgment, here is something from David.

My weekly Tuesday night movie crew likes to watch werewolf films when a full moon lands on that night.

I contest full moons happen on one day.

Others argue that full moons occur on up to three days around the time of the actual full moon.

Well, according to my very swift Googling,

the moon can appear to be full a day before or after

the technical full moon, but the technical full moon is one day.

I'm going to say it's one day.

One night, I should say.

Full moon is one night.

Why?

Because there aren't enough decent werewolf movies to watch.

Yeah, you're going to run out of werewolf movies.

Make it special.

Make it special.

Make it a special treat.

Maximumfund.org/slash JJHO.

We'll talk to you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

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