Sue Chef

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman Podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

This week, Sue Chef, Natalie brings the case against her sister, Juliana.

When they lived together last winter, they came up with a leftovers cooking challenge in order to limit their trips to the grocery store.

Juliana thinks that Natalie is too stingy with what they call creativity points.

But Natalie says the challenge is more fun when it's harder to score.

Who's right?

Who's wrong?

Only one can decide.

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

This was a random audition.

I'm like, what's it about?

Cupcakes?

Okay.

At least this will not be picked up, but we made 120 of them.

People assume I'm a baker.

I've never baked a cupcake.

So this is now about reestablishing myself and my passion for the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Bailiff Jesse Thorne, swear to Lil Digginson, please.

Natalie and Juliana, 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.

I do.

I do.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that he's never made me anything from leftovers?

I do.

I do.

Judge Hodgman, you may proceed to make me something from your leftovers.

I had some leftover coleslaw.

I made some very nice, spicy coleslaw over the weekend.

Oh, that sounds great.

Is it a mayo slaw or a vinegar-only slaw?

It's a little both.

A little cider vinegar, a little mayonnaise,

and I used whole grain pomery mustard.

Oh, that sounds great.

Whole grain pomery mustard.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Natalie and Juliana, you may be seated for an immediate summary judgment in one of your favors.

Can either of you name the piece of culture that I referenced?

Do you have a guess?

Juliana, you're on the top of the conference call, as it happens.

I wanted it to be from the Leftovers, the TV show, but I know it's not

because you've used it before.

Well, I might have used it again.

I love Tom Perada.

Tom Perada authored that novel upon which it was based.

I love Damon Lindelof too.

I like that show.

I'm going to guess, I don't think it's right, but there is a cupcake recipe in the cookbook that is holding up my phone called Now and Again by Julia Tershin, which is all about using up leftovers.

And I'm going to say that's the head note to

a cookbook recipe.

Wait a minute.

This is how to make cupcakes out of leftovers.

I have these cold scrambled eggs and this leftover coleslaw.

Okay.

Juliani, it's good to come in with a plan, but sometimes you need to improvise when things go sideways.

No, I'm genuinely like,

what

cupcakes are you making out of leftovers?

Oh, cake pops.

Okay.

So like leftover cake.

I made cupcakes out of leftovers, leftover cranberry sauce.

Wow.

Anything else?

Could put jam inside the cupcakes that you'd made already.

All right.

All right.

I'm not a baker at all.

I don't bake.

Natalie, do you have a guess as to the obscure cultural reference?

I haven't.

Here, I'm going to give you both.

I'll give you both a hint.

And if you tune into it, Juliana, you can guess again.

Okay.

So this is for both of you.

Here it is.

Obviously, it does not end with Judge John Hodgman podcast.

That was something I slotted in because I was afraid you would get get it too easily if you knew what this person's original passion was and is.

Quote, this was a random audition.

I asked, what's it about?

Cupcakes?

Okay, at least this will never be picked up, but we made 120 of them.

People assume I'm a baker, but now I'm reestablishing myself and my passion for magic.

I think that there are people screaming at their podcatchers now.

Maybe.

I don't know.

Uh-oh.

Natalie, you want to throw something out there?

We still have Juliana's guess of leftover spaghetti cupcake book or whatever.

I feel like with more time, I could logic my way there because it sounds like it's a musician who is now running a cupcake business.

It's not a musician.

Sorry, I'm a magician.

Okay.

Sorry.

A magician.

I'm like, you could logic your way there.

A couple more sounds.

I think you're making it harder for yourself.

I think you like, you're the one who likes difficult competitions, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, okay.

I guess, like, does David Copperfield own a restaurant?

Yeah, does he?

All guesses are wrong.

I'm sorry.

Jesse Thorne, do you want to take a guess at this one?

I don't think Nicole Bayer does magic, but if she did magic, I would go see that.

Right.

If Nicole's passion was magic, I'd be into it.

Nicole Bayer, host of Nailed It, and an incredibly funny comedian and podcaster and all-around person.

And I don't know, guest producer Valerie Moffat, do you have a guess?

I got nothing.

You got nothing?

I got nothing.

Nobody remembers the Cupcake Wars?

Have we totally forgotten about the Cupcake Wars?

I remember the Cupcake Wars vaguely.

Cupcake Wars ravaged our land.

And we've just moved on?

Cupcake Wars was a show from 2009 until some other time on the Food Network hosted by Justin Willman, whom I met backstage.

at the Meltdown comedy TV show.

We were hanging around around with Weird How Yankovic and Tyler the Creator, and Justin Willman was there doing magic tricks on everybody.

I mean, literally doing them onto them.

Like, it was like playing jokes and pranks on them with sleight of hand.

Very, very talented magician.

I'm like, wait a minute, I know you.

You're from the show that my children watched, The Cupcake Wars.

And he said, yeah, but I'm really a magician.

And I was always haunted by the fact that this guy.

got this incredible,

I think, very lucrative career hosting a cupcake competition show.

But they didn't even care that he's a magician by trade.

Like he went in for the audition and was like, I can do some magic.

Like, no, we just need you to talk about cupcakes.

Like, they never thought, like, can he do a magic trick with a cupcake?

That would be a value add as far as I'm concerned.

But no one who watched the cupcake wars even knew.

Now, just Moman does magic professionally on Netflix and stuff.

But

it always haunted me.

Anyway, Natalie and Juliana, welcome to the Judge Sean Hodgen podcast.

So who seeks justice in this court?

Is it Juliana?

No, Natalie is.

I guess it's me, technically.

Okay, who filed the case?

Natalie, me.

Yes, Natalie.

What is the nature of the justice that you seek?

All right.

Well, it all started back in the winter of 2021 when Juliana and I were isolating together

on Martha's Vineyard, where our family has a house.

And you are sisters, correct?

We are sisters, yes.

All right.

Important, important.

Please continue.

Yeah.

So there was not a lot to do then.

So we were really occupying ourselves cooking elaborate meals.

But as you all remember, winter 2021 was really scary and dark in the pandemic.

So we were also trying to cut down on our trips to the grocery store.

Sure.

In part because of the pandemic, but also because

we had a CSA giving us regular deliveries of beautiful produce.

We also had

a lot of

carrots.

So many carrots.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So many carrots.

and also

this house has a problem of like a perennially stocked freezer and pantry that just overfloweth so we had we really wanted to incentivize ourselves to eat what was there so we came up with a little game to make it fun and entertain ourselves i guess we called it the leftovers cooking challenge we surprisingly wrote down the rules i love it i like that you were serious enough to write down the rules but you have to guess as what as to what you called it yeah i guess we called it the leftovers cooking challenge.

Here's the show Bible we created, right?

Until I found this photo of the rules, I could not have told you we called it the leftovers cooking challenge.

It says right at the top of the rules, and this is

the evidence that you submitted, which is all going to be photo evidence, all going to be available at the show page at maximumfund.org and also on our Instagram at judgejohnhodman.

It says at the top of the page, the leftovers cooking challenge.

I'm going to read the rules, please.

One point per raw ingredient, two points per cooked/slash pre-prepared ingredients, aka

the Sandra Lee rule.

Up to five points per meal for creativity assigned by other players.

Hmm.

This also takes into account age of ingredient.

That you get one point for finishing something off or last chance to use.

All right.

These are all clear.

What did you want to say, Natalie?

I wanted to say that the aside for the creativity points also takes into account age of ingredient.

That feels redundant to me now if I'm editing the rules, but we can leave that aside.

Well, how about this?

Natalie, we'll record the podcast and then you can provide us with a red line.

Yeah.

We'll respond to changes.

And

I think we can come to agreement by the end of the week.

Nillie picked up on her personal.

Sounds good.

Sounds good.

We'll be in touch.

And then you have some of the things that you made on the 13th of January, nachos,

on the 14th of January, turkey burgers.

And there are codes here: JRB 18, JRB 11.

Juliana, can you tell me what those codes mean?

There are initials for who I guess we say.

Yeah, took charge of making that we cooked together often.

And then the numbers are the dates, and then also the points

for that particular meal.

So

on the turkey burgers, it says JRB.

So that's you, Juliana.

You took the lead on the turkey burgers.

I did.

And you got 11 points.

I did.

Which is fairly low compared to the butternut, squash, galette,

the sheet pan chicken.

Definitely the nachos, as far as I can see, really ruled with 18.

That was you as well.

Yeah, the nachos started the game.

Juliana, you, you really took you on the 18th curry with squash carrot soup base.

You are the leader at 19, totally.

And then Natalie, ooh, you really bit it hard with salmon, with farrow, and broccoli at six.

Now, here's my question about these rules before we go further, because this actually speaks to what you brought up, Natalie.

These rules are

some of them are just assigned by the game, as it were.

Like if you use a raw ingredient, you get a point.

If you use up or use a leftover, a pre-prepared ingredient or a cooked ingredient, you get two points.

But then this big mushy middle, which is, I think, the point of this contention here, which is the five points for creativity.

First of all, assigned by other players.

So you're being assigned creativity points by your opponents in this game.

Creativity is subjective, aside from the age of ingredient.

There's still a subjective element of creativity.

Is this why we're here today, Natalie, to talk about this mushy middle of the creativity, the cranberry sauce in the middle of this leftover cupcake?

Yeah, yeah, that is.

We are here to talk about the creativity because the dispute was about those turkey burgers on night two.

The second, it didn't take long for us to realize we had a problem and we didn't see eye to eye.

What went down with the turkey burgers?

She was stingy.

She was stingy with the points, is your contention?

She was stingy.

She was stingy with the points.

How did you prepare and cook the turkey burgers, Juliana?

I used a recipe from Bon Appetite magazine by Claire Saffett that has avocados and mayonnaise in the turkey burgers to help keep them moist and juicy.

I think we serve them with some sweet potato fries.

Terrific words we love to use.

Moist, yes, stingy.

And juicy.

I can say them a couple more times if that would be helpful.

Hold on, let me finish eating this turkey burger.

How moist and juicy.

Yeah, so moist, juicy, rich beef sausages ground up and put into a turkey burger.

Yeah, and I don't remember exactly how the points were scored, but I think I got maybe zero creativity points for that one.

Is that true, Natalie?

Did you award zero creativity points for the turkey burgers?

Yes or no?

I don't remember if it was zero.

It was low.

Why?

Okay.

To me, taking ground meat and making a burger out of it is not scoring high on creativity points.

It was delicious, that's clear.

And I can talk about my feeling about the taste issue here, but I didn't think that this was a particularly interesting new way to use the ingredients we had.

We make this recipe frequently.

We made it while we were living together multiple times.

It's a great recipe.

We love it.

But it was expected, maybe we could say, from having ground meat to make a turkey burger.

So I wasn't like, let me give you all the creativity points.

Here you go, five.

Not if it was ground emu.

No one would expect a turkey burger.

Yeah, if it was, if she told me it was ground meat, ground beef, I would have been surprised.

How do you make a turkey burger?

I'm now paying closer attention to the meals we we made, and your meatballs got 17 points, which is also a way to use ground meat in a nice

way.

All right,

before we go any further, another two words that don't sound great on a podcast is ground meat over and over and over.

Juliana, what elements of these turkey burgers were leftovers?

or need to use at the last minute elements?

That's a good question.

Because it sounds like you just, from what you've described so far, it sounds like you got a nice recipe from a magazine and cooked it.

That's a good question.

I think I'm guessing the avocado was probably lying around.

If I had to guess, there might have been a quarter of it in the fridge, maybe a piece of onion, you know, like a quarter of an onion or something like that lying around.

I don't know if I threw some herbs in it too.

That's something I tend to do.

So that's one point for leftover avocado because it's raw.

One point for the ingredient and one point for finishing it.

Okay, right.

I understand, but I'm just trying to understand your rubric here.

The avocado would count as a raw ingredient.

You get one point for there, and you use up the avocado, you get another point.

Correct.

You had some onion in there.

That's one point for leftover onion, raw, another point for finishing it up.

Correct.

That brings us all the way to four points.

You're forgetting the meat.

Well, the meat is a raw ingredient.

I have a theory.

Standby moment, Natalie, please.

Okay.

Natalie, please shut your pie hole.

Thank you very much, Bill.

Let the record reflect that Natalie gave an affirmative thumbs up.

She's looking up the recipe, I think.

She's looking up the recipe.

That's right.

She's on her own mission now.

And now the turkey would be the final ingredient, it would seem to me.

And you must not have used it up because you got a total of five.

No, you got 11 points for this thing.

Okay, I got you.

I'm guessing the turkey was in the freezer and we used it up.

So clearing out the freezer was part of it.

So there's creat, there's not creativity, but there is

there was an interest in making sure that the freezer didn't overflow.

So that's six now because you used it up and it was and it was raw.

There was mayonnaise in it.

So that would be

I don't know if we counted that as one or two points.

I don't know.

You count you count condiments in this

game?

Uh-huh.

Look, I condiments that went in something, not on it.

I wore mayonnaise a thousand points every day, but I

it's not like smeared on my own.

When I'm working on a jar of Hellman's or Duke's or whatever, I don't consider that a leftover in there.

That's just my store.

It's my stash.

Well, this isn't just like a condiment.

It is an ingredient in the recipe.

Right, because you're putting mayonnaise and avocado and these incredibly moist, juicy burgers.

Got it?

Correct.

Okay, so mayonnaise is a point because

it's not cooked.

It's pre-prepared.

Yeah, I don't know how we counted that.

It might have been two.

So that's eight because you surely didn't use up the mayonnaise at that point.

No, I don't think so.

And the fries probably

also came from the freezer, and we might have also used that up.

So that's like 10.

So that's 10, 11 right there.

Right.

And how many points do we have left here?

You got 11 total.

There might be some other.

other, I don't, I don't have the recipe in front of me, so I don't know if there were other things from the pantry.

We were coming together.

I'm just saying that by your own rules, 11 is a very low score.

Yep.

And would suggest that there were zero creativity points awarded.

Indeed.

Not even for age.

Indeed.

Because I bet that frozen turkey was very old.

It probably was.

Let's not talk about it.

Yeah.

I'm already, I'm too grossed out.

I was grossed out by, I mean, look, putting the mayonnaise into it.

It's really good.

All right.

Natalie, you had objected earlier.

I will now sustain your objection.

What did you want to say?

I just had to get to the bottom of the points, and I apologize for asking the bailiff to

ask you to close your pie hole.

No, I was just going to say what Juliana had already said, which is that the...

turkey probably came from the freezer and that was one of the points.

I was simply trying to help her explain her own point.

Natalie, stop helping.

It's a rare occurrence.

We should let it go.

So zero creativity points were awarded this burger, it would seem to me.

Essentially zero, Natalie.

Is that correct?

Yes.

Juliana, how did that make you feel when you got the big, the big goose egg on creativity for the turkey burgs?

Like, uh,

It was unfair.

That's what I felt.

It was an unfair judgment.

Natalie mentioned taste earlier.

We had yet to determine where taste fit into everything too,

and to decide what was the nature of creativity

in this challenge or game.

And I just felt as though she was being unnecessarily harsh in her allocation of points to me.

Let's take a quick recess.

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

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What are the stakes of this competition, Natalie?

I would say primarily bragging rights.

Do you agree, Juliana?

Bragging rights?

Yeah, yeah.

No money's changing hands.

No, no money.

All right.

But something richer.

I can see it in your eyes.

Bragging rights is...

Bragging rights is not just bragging rights.

Rich.

So rich, it upsets my stomach, that kind of richness.

Right.

Bragging rights that are like heavy cream.

Yeah, there is some sense of like bragging rights as also like the gratification and satisfaction that is encompassed within that.

Which of you is the older sister and which is the younger?

I, Juliana, am the older sister.

You are the older sister.

Does this speak to any dynamics that you recognize in your sisterdom and past?

Has Natalie nagged you on points?

Ooh, has she nagged me on points?

Probably not.

We do, we are very competitive, so we don't let each other win just to be

nice.

That's what I would say.

What forms, what are you competitive in aside from

putting mayonnaise and things?

I would say everything.

Natalie, can you be more specific than your sister?

This is a chance for you to win.

Yes, I surely can.

I can win the competition of being more specific.

I would like to say, I don't think we are competitive in like the big things in life.

We're competitive about dumb things, which I find to be an important distinction.

Okay.

We

play a lot of word games over the holidays.

This past year, we got into like marathon anagram playing.

I don't know that one.

Bananagrams.

Bananagrams.

Sorry.

Yeah.

Bananograms or anagrams.

Yeah.

Okay.

I think I've heard everything I need to in order to make my decision.

Thanks very much.

I'm going to go into my chambers and not come back.

So, okay, bananograms.

Wow.

Wow.

You know what's a fun word to make

in bananagrams?

Anathema.

Anathema.

Or dead to me.

Or

cut right scrabble.

Wow.

We know.

We know it's cut right scrabble.

Scrabble for cheaters.

Okay, bananagrams, very popular game.

And that game has a winner and a loser, right?

Yeah, it totally does.

Yeah.

The first person to use up their tiles, winner.

Yeah.

And who's better at it?

You, Natalie, or Juliana?

Natalie had played before.

I had not played before in December.

So I'd say she's better at that game for sure.

And what other specific things are you competitive at?

Small bore things, not big bore things.

Natalie.

Remember, this is a competition on the line.

I know, and that's why I'm trying to think of good examples.

You ever play Scrabble?

Okay, so Scrabble is trauma for us.

Yeah, I understand.

We have to face our trauma and work our way through it.

We don't, there's a reason we were playing Banana Grams and not Scrabble.

Tell me, tell me why you don't play Scrabble anymore.

There's always a story around why someone doesn't play Scrabble anymore.

Exactly.

So our mother is an amazing Scrabble player.

Like incredible, plays non-stop online, literally non-stop online with friends.

Non-stop.

Right.

One friend.

Just the two of them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then anytime they're in person, they're playing all the time.

So to us, Scrabble is like what adults do.

Scrabble is the child in your family that your mother loves, is what you're saying.

And literally,

the competitive nature is not just us, it is everyone.

When I say we don't let each other win, our mother did not let us win when playing Scrabble either.

Of course not.

So, not even to be nice?

No,

because she is also competitive and didn't feel that it was a good lesson, I don't know, to

just let your kids win.

But she's also the Scrabble player that knows, has all the two-letter words memorized.

That kind of like really.

You mean a basic Scrabble player?

Sure, great.

A basic Scrabble player.

Well, we can ask Nat whether or not she thinks the two-letter words should be used in bananagrams because she says no.

That's not what I said.

That's not what I said.

That's not what you said.

That's not what I said.

What did you say?

When we were playing banana grams, we got into this thing where we would yell out, mom is, our mom was playing with us originally, and we'd say, like, is AI a word?

Yes, it is.

And eventually she got annoyed with having to constantly tell us yes.

So she was like, I'm just going to write down all the two-letter words for you on a piece of paper that you can reference.

These are the two-letter words that Scrabble recognizes.

No, they're in the Scrabble.

It's valid plays.

Yes.

And that.

My sister and her friends who was with us were referencing at that throughout the game.

And my feeling was like, it's one thing if you have those in your head.

It's another thing if you have them on a sheet next to you.

But who was asking if AI is a word?

All of us.

But you also didn't play the two-letter words because you said it was not the point of the game.

The point of the game for you was to make the most creative

words because it's not about like building points up.

You were like, the essence of the game is to make the most fun words and two-letter words here and there.

It says that right right in the instructions to Scrabble.

I mean, I've read the Scrabble instructions.

It says, don't even keep track of the points.

This is about having fun and being creative.

You can tell by the way John relates to Scrabble.

It's clear that when he and the missus play Scrabble together, they're just trying to play and explore.

We don't play it very often anymore.

We used to play it a lot.

But our vocabularies are particularly our Scrabble vocabularies, which is a kind of different than English language vocabulary.

Indeed.

is exactly the same at this point.

So it just becomes these,

it looks, you know what,

the crossword doesn't look elegant, right?

Because we're constantly putting down two letter words, two letter words, and eventually it looks like a rat king.

It looks like a nest of snakes tied tightly together.

There's no way to build on it.

And my friend and co-creator and co-star of Dick Town, David Reese, we used to play Scrabble with him.

He's a very, very talented Scrabble player.

Once

Bingoed across two

triple word squares.

But he was like, you know, in my relationship, it is considered to be fair play to throw the board in the air if you just get too mad.

And that relationship doesn't exist anymore.

I don't know if I've ever thrown a Scrabble before.

No, no, no, no, no.

Okay.

Well, I'm not going to, but the point, I can, I get the sense of the competition here because it's not merely who is winning the game, but how the game is played.

Yeah.

You are invalid, Natalie, you are invalidating the use of the two-letter word list that your mom provided.

And then you, and then Juliana is invalidating that by saying, you don't even care about that.

You want to make creative words.

You're competing on multiple levels here.

Sure.

I would just like to say I don't agree with Juliana's characterization, but for the purpose, like we can go with it.

Another competitive point that's like just about everything is like someone always has to be right.

And you can see Natalie just like feels the need to be right in this situation.

She just allowed you to be right, even though she rolled her eyes and so do I, frankly.

Okay.

I'll take it.

Yeah.

No, I mean, she, she can play whatever way she wants.

It doesn't mean she's playing right or wrong.

If you want to win, play those two-letter words, though, I'm telling you.

Exactly.

Natalie,

is the accusation that you are being creative, and frankly, I apologize that you received such a slur upon your reputation.

I know.

Is the accusation that you are being creative and bananograms true or false?

I think it is true that there was a moment in which I was

having more fun myself, like coming up with great words.

Like anathema would be incredible.

And I would say, guys, I just got anathema.

Wasn't that great?

So I agree with that accusation.

I'll take it.

Fair enough.

So you sent in some other evidence.

I want to take take a look at it here.

Exhibit B is Juliana's galette.

And this is what Juliana describe the galette for us here.

I don't have it in front of me, but I'm pretty sure it was a rhubarb galette that I made when we were visiting our cousin once, just

thrown together.

Actually,

you just tossed off a rhubarb galette.

I did just toss off a rhubarb galette.

Yes.

It looks beautiful.

Thank you.

It looks like a photo from a magazine.

Oh.

And your sister, Natalie, is gesturing in many dramatic ways.

I would ask for the interpretation of those gestures now.

What am I to take away from this rhubarb goulette?

Yeah,

that Juliana is like an excellent, excellent cook, like really a spectacular cook.

That's why you got to hobble her in the creativity department?

Exactly.

Yeah, basically.

Unfair.

Unfair.

Oh,

so

if you gave her creativity points, she would always win.

Specifically, if she was, if I counted taste, it would be like three points for her.

Everything Juliana makes tastes incredible.

So why should that be held against me?

It is assumed that I make things that taste good.

I'll allow Natalie to answer the question.

Why, Natalie, just to be nice?

Because I think the baseline assumption and with the people who are participating in this game, which is the two of us, it's a fair assumption that it will taste good.

We're the only players.

We're the only players.

We're the only players.

We're the only players and the only judges.

Yeah.

And so I think it's a fair assumption that it will taste good.

And that should be the baseline.

And to make the game to me more

challenging and interesting, we should make the creativity not just about taste, which is something that like, yeah, we can do that.

We can make it taste good, especially.

That's a game you're always going to lose, is what you're saying.

I mean, yeah, a little bit.

I'm always going to lose the like.

You're a good cook, too.

That is the most aggro compliment I've ever heard given.

Don't you even start with me.

You are a good cook and you know it.

It's true, though.

It's true.

She's a very good cook and baker as well.

She may not have to.

She couldn't throw together a galette like this.

Natalie couldn't throw together a pizza with artichoke hearts on it and spinach and whatever else is on this other photo that looks really good.

Also looks like it's from a magazine.

What else is on this pizza?

I think either some like spinach or broccoli raw, maybe.

Yeah, something like that.

Some kind of grape.

Natalie made that.

It would look like sheer garbage.

False.

We made pizzas together.

She makes great pizza too.

Natalie, are you taking a dive, as they say in soccer, pretending to be a terrible cook here to get the benefit of the rep?

I'm not saying.

Jesse, excuse me for a moment, Jesse.

Did you hear my make my sports reference?

That was really great sports referencing, John.

You're a jock now.

Congratulations.

I knew it.

Finally, do I get a medal?

I speak on behalf of my fellow jocks.

And then we have Juliana's sourdough bread.

Oh, this one I'm proud of.

Pre-pandemic.

Long before there was a pandemic, you were getting into that.

You were a sourdough mother lover.

I was.

You wouldn't make that mother.

Sourdough mother is the starter, right?

The starter.

I'm proud of this one.

We sent it our family friend who runs a bakery where we grew up, and he was impressed with the loaf.

Where did you grow up and what was the bakery?

We grew up in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the bakery is called Aldmarle Baking Company.

And Natalie is friends with the owner's daughter, and the owner, Jerry, said it was a nice-looking loaf.

It's a nice-looking loaf, good bake.

And this is you holding it, Juliana.

It is, yeah.

You seem very proud of of yourself did you send this in as well natalie this photo this nice loaf yeah again to prove that juliana is more skilled than you yeah why didn't you send in photos of your garbage food if you were going to take this tack of argument so to go back to your earlier question am i taking a dive i am not arguing that like i'm a terrible cook and i don't make anything that tastes good i would never argue that because i've been tutored by Juliana, but she is the more skilled cook.

So like I know that like, I know I can cook.

I know I make things.

So the reason you're not winning this argument is because is that you were tutored by Juliana against your will.

You were made.

Yeah, I was forced.

You were forced to be a competent enough cook that you can't even send me pictures of garbage food.

Well, also, I'm not going to work against my own case.

Obviously, she could have submitted evidence.

I'm trying to submit evidence that supports my case, which is that she's amazing and she makes amazing food and it looks beautiful.

You are attempting to kill her with kindness, and I appreciate that.

But complimentary evidence of your case would have been photos of bad food that you made.

I'm just saying,

you know,

this is why we don't represent ourselves in a court of law.

A competent attorney would have taught you how to make a terrible looking,

you know,

cranberry sauce muffin.

They were really good.

Sorry, not my too tart.

I don't like sweets anyway, so it's just on me.

So, So, Natalie,

let's take a look at the at the scores here one more time.

Nachos, Juliana, 18.

Turkey Burgers, Juliana, 11.

Butternut squash gallet, Juliana, 15.

Sheet pan chicken, no initials.

Who made that?

I'm going to guess that was me, actually.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

15.

You don't remember making a sheet pan chicken?

I vaguely do, and it's the kind of thing I would make.

And then you come in again with pasta with 17.

These are respectable scores.

Then Giuliano comes in with 19, and then

you turf out it with six with salmon.

Overall, it would seem to me that Juliana won the competition.

Yeah, I think that's right.

If you did the math.

Yeah.

Well,

I'm not going to do the math.

Hey, producer Valerie, can you do the math quickly?

Let's see what we got here.

We were like keeping track of it, but I would say despite the fact that we are competitive about like nearly everything, it was more competitive with ourselves and like as a collective to use things up.

And that's why I think like challenge is like the best way to say it.

It was more of a challenge than a competition.

Than a competition, despite the fact that we are very competitive.

We didn't tally it up to see who had more points.

And guest producer Valerie Moffat, when you have the final tally

just raise your hand okay yes you got it one thing i notice here is that juliana at least on this sheet the score sheet contributed more meals is that correct yes so like you you have one two

three

four

to natalie's one two

three

it looks like to me that that feels like the right-ish ratio that like for every four meals i made Nat might have made three, and then definitely like collaboration.

How long did this go on?

How long did this go on for?

How many pages more of this are there?

Well, I can see on the back of that, I couldn't find the actual hard copy because I have that's I have it somewhere that there are a couple more that were kept score on the back.

I can see it fled through.

Um, I'd say we played for like a month-ish.

Um, so producer Valerie, let's knock off Juliana's top score of 19, just to even it out on this one.

I was really proud of that meal, though.

That is the curry with squash carrot soup based because I made this is the best example of the challenge for what it's worth.

Okay, okay.

All right, that and your sister who's making dramatic agreements.

I mean, nachos was the start of the game for a reason, too.

But this, I took, I had a carrot soup that I made in the freezer, and we were making like a vegetable curry, and instead of putting stock into or uh coconut milk like with coconut milk with the curry paste whatever i put the carrot soup that already had coconut milk and like delicious asian flavors into it so it was like

orangey and thicker and tasted like carrots on top of it was inspired by somewhere i had had already five creativity points probably absolutely yes

that's why we have to knock it off your score well I have we haven't talked about

you mentioned subjectivity, which I feel like is an important point in here, but we can deal with the objective nature of who had more.

Let's talk about subjectivity.

Well, so, okay, if we don't take, I still think taste needs to be accounted for somewhere.

If it's not in creativity, I can be okay with that.

But I do think taste is subjective.

Where is taste going to be accounted?

Taste is never even mentioned in this document.

I know.

So it makes sense in creativity since that is where the subjective element of the other person eating it comes in because everything else is just like factual these are points and this is the mushy category of subjectivity nowhere in the rules does it say a dog can't play basketball nor does it say anywhere in the rules that taste is even an element of this competition And now you're trying to shoehorn taste into creativity because you didn't get the points you wanted on that turkey burger, even though I have a feeling that guest producer Valerie Moffitt's going to come back and tell us that you won the overall competition?

What's the injustice here?

I don't get it.

What are you after?

So I, well, back points.

That's what I want.

But

tell me what back points, tell me what back points mean, first of all.

I want creativity.

Because, you know, I'm a job.

I'm a well-known job.

I've never heard of that.

Exactly.

Back points.

I want my score re-evaluated for previous ones and for the points to reflect the creativity that went into the meals.

I also think Natalie's interpretation of creativity does not allow for, like,

is it about technique?

Is it about what kind of ingredients we're using?

And, like, does that reward some kind of simplicity that is also in creativity?

Like, turkey burgers could be a simple meal, but that doesn't mean that it isn't creatively using ingredients, which I would argue it is.

Yeah, you know, you are an incredible cook, I can tell.

And one of of your famous dishes apparently is word salad.

Boy, oh, boy.

Yo, bird.

I'm just, I'm just teasing.

I just feel it's like you're trying to come up with some kind of justification for getting these precious back points.

Why are they important to you?

Well, I think that,

yeah, okay, I, sure, Natalie, I'm a better cook, or like you're a very good cook.

I'm not arguing with the fact that I might be a better cook, but I think there is an expectation that I will make good food and that it is perhaps sometimes taken for granted.

And I would like that creativity to not be, oh, deep breath coming from her.

I would like that not to be taken for granted.

I feel as though it's like an unfair, I'm being held to a higher standard when it comes to things like creativity because I am known for it.

That's interesting.

Do you feel that consciously or unconsciously, Natalie withheld creativity points from you because the bar is already set very high for you?

Like, it's just a given that it's going to be good.

Is that what you're trying to say?

Yes, I think the bar is set high because she assumes that I will do well when it comes to cooking.

And we'll find out.

I mean, we'll find out what the score is in a moment.

Producer Valerie Moffat is ready with the score, but before we reveal the score, I mean, you know,

even if you win, and my guess is that probably you're going to win on points, you want to do as well as possible.

You believe that these turkey burgers deserved how many extra back points?

Ooh.

I mean, if I were being spiteful, I'd say five, but I'd say the full amount.

Spite is all part of the game.

I'd say like three.

I'm not saying every meal needs to have like the maximum amount, but I think there is some recognition.

due

in this case.

And the three back points would be awarded on what element of creativity that was overlooked.

Well, I think the creative use of ingredients, things that normally go on top of burgers being included in the burgers.

Yes, but before I can hear you sighing very deeply,

I also sigh deeply.

And let me just say, I adore you both and I admire you both, but you followed a recipe from a magazine.

Yeah.

You didn't decide, oh, I know what I'm going to do is I'm going to shove some mayonnaise and avocado in here.

You read it.

So how is that creativity?

I thought, oh, I have these ingredients that can make this recipe.

Like, what else would you do with like, oh, I happen to have these things around.

Let's do something

with them.

I got you now.

That it's not just.

I didn't, the whole point is that I didn't go out and buy avocado and mayonnaise to make these.

It was that we had these things around and we're trying to figure out a way to use them up.

So, oh, we have a savocado, right?

And thought burgers.

Uh-huh.

Yeah, because you remembered that recipe.

Yeah, exactly.

And you're like, I'll bet dollars to cranberry sauce

cupcakes that there's some frozen turkey in this freezer.

There definitely is some frozen turkey, among others.

Pretty creative.

Pretty creative.

So your creativity was remembering that there's a recipe you guys like to use?

I think this is the first time we'd made it.

That's part of the art of using leftovers, I think.

Okay.

Yeah.

That's a strong argument.

I got to give you, Juliana.

It's like seeing what you have around and figuring out how to use them, even if it's riding off of someone else's recipe.

You know, you can't copyright recipes.

You can't copyright the ingredients lists or things like that.

So we're just building off of and adapting someone else's recipe.

My understanding is that, for the most part, the art of recipe creation is a long personal narrative that takes up the first five whole screens

after you Google how long should I roast Brussels straps.

Yes, yes, I think that's right.

Natalie,

how would you want me to rule if I were to rule in your favor?

I would rule, this back points thing is new to me.

So I would ask you to rule, like no back points.

No back points for the meals that already existed.

I would ask you to rule that taste not be counted in creativity.

And I want to add one thing here.

Part of the reason is that would also allow us to play remotely fully.

Because if we did not count taste, we could continue.

We've played a little bit, you know, while we're not living together, where we'll text each other, this is what I made tonight.

Here's a breakdown of the, of what the points would be when you make like a really good meal.

But We haven't been able to play with creativity points because Juliana wants to count taste in them.

And obviously we can't taste them from afar.

And the point was supposed to be like that you are having the other person judge for you.

Right.

So like, how can I know how creative it is if I don't taste it too?

I think that like knowing, like evaluating the full dish, it's part of what's like difficult about watching people make food on TV.

Like you can judge it to some extent, but like taste is such an important part of a meal.

Juliana, at the beginning, we established that the steaks were bragging rights, but that there was a creamy richness to these bragging rights

that are more than just bragging.

What is the deeper meaning of the bragging rights?

I think

the points would make me feel valued by my sister, valued and

yeah.

You feel undervalued by Natalie?

I felt as though

my contributions were being undervalued in that meal.

I know that like I got lots of points other places.

Let me just point out, now I'm a well-known world-class jock, but I'm also an only child.

So I may be out of my league here when I make this.

You're the older sister, right, Juliana?

I am the older sister.

So what do you care what she thinks?

She's a baby.

Oh,

I care a lot what my sister thinks.

She's just a baby.

I care a lot.

She truly, I mean, we...

We are very similar.

We do very similar things.

I have her read things that I've written before.

I have her tell me if an outfit looks good.

I trust her judgment.

And so what she says means a lot to me.

So when she docks you five points on creativity, it stings.

I feel it.

Yeah.

I got you.

Natalie, what do you think when you, what do you feel when you hear that?

I appreciate her saying that she values my opinion.

And

I believe she does.

But I also think that

she knows she's a really good cook.

I think I tell her that all the time.

And I think I show her that more importantly by asking her.

I'm hired for it.

Yeah.

No, but really by like asking her for advice on cooking, by, you know, she's saying that she values my opinion.

I like she, I defer to her.

She is my cooking guru.

When something's not working, I text her and say, like, why do my bagels kind of taste like pretzels?

And she tells me it's because I probably put too much baking soda in the water.

And she's constantly teaching me.

So I feel like I think I show her all the time that she's valued.

And it shouldn't be about like silly little points.

Okay, I think that I've heard everything that I need to in order to make my decision.

I'm going to go get into my vast tub of sourdough starter where

I do my sensory deprivation meditation.

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

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Natalie, how do you feel about your chances?

Hmm,

honestly, I'm not sure.

I really, I really don't know.

I think I perhaps come off as, hmm, what's a nice way of saying it?

Difficult.

So I think maybe it's hard to rule against like, reward people, give them points, have fun.

So I'm not sure.

Do you feel like it might be hard for John to see that what's important is that you should punish your sister for her talent?

I don't want to punish her for her talent.

And in fact, I think I'm praising her.

I'm giving her lots of praise.

I'm showing the world how amazing a cook she is.

And I might argue she gets lots of praise for her food all the time.

Does she need it from me?

Well, I would say I'm, I would think I'm my harshest critic, but I actually think Natalie is my harshest critic.

That is probably true.

I will say that.

Juliana, how do you feel?

Oh, I don't feel

great.

I feel like Nats,

perhaps she's difficult, but the idea that,

I don't know, I feel like the judge wasn't convinced by some of my arguments, just the like basis, but we'll see.

Well, Juliana, Natalie, we'll see what Judge Hodgman has to say when we come back in just a second.

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

So, as I mentioned earlier on, I'm an incredible athlete and also an only child.

And when I was growing up, I had an incredible need for affirmation.

I don't know why I felt anxious that the stuff that I was doing, whether it was schoolwork or my world-class pole vaulting and my fencing and my

biathloning and all the other sports that I do as a sports person,

had to be not only good, but excellent.

Excellent was the term that I fixated on when I was, you know, 10, 11, 12, 13 years old.

And when I would ask my parents if I had done something well, they would say, yeah, you did it very well.

And I would say, not excellent.

And this eventually caused my mother to turn to me and say, not everything's going to be excellent.

You have to stop asking that.

It doesn't matter.

And I was shocked.

I mean, I spent the rest of that car ride in that red Subaru in silence because it spoke to a home truth that for some reason, perhaps because I spent a lot of time alone and perhaps because I didn't have a lot of like actual sports in my life, I'll be honest,

or conflicts or conflict resolution, I felt like I just had to be perfect or else

who was I?

You know, I didn't know that it was okay to just be okay.

And it's taken me a long time to realize, like, sometimes you're just okay.

Sometimes you just do a good job.

Sometimes you don't do such a good job, but it's not always excellent.

And the wanting of that, that appetite, is distracting to me.

Juliana, you are the older sister, but you have the heart of an only child, is what I'm saying.

All I'm saying is that,

and again,

commenting on dynamics,

I am out of my league, but you know, it's rare that I have encountered on this program older siblings who care as much as you do about the opinion and put as much stock in the opinion of your younger sibling.

I think that's wonderful.

I recognize in you an element in myself, which is that feeling of like, why didn't I get the extra five points?

And I'll tell you why you didn't get the extra five points.

Because taste doesn't matter in this competition, in this challenge.

And it doesn't matter not because

Natalie is trying to sandbag you and take taste off the table because she knows you'll always win, which, by the way, is a compliment,

but because you can't have this challenge with taste on the table.

You can't have this challenge, honestly, with any subjectivity on the table

because you're awarding each other the points.

The game doesn't work.

The game doesn't work.

The points have to be accrued based on an objective measure.

The The whole creativity middle of this document that you wrote is, you know, it's problematic because it's so open to interpretation.

So I think that there does need to be a redefinition of what the creativity points symbolize or signify.

And I don't think it can be taste.

And honestly, I don't even know that it has to be, I don't think creativity is the right word for it in the sense that we commonly understand it, which is, you know, like inspiration.

But creativity in the use of leftovers and being able to improvise and to look at an avocado and an onion and to visualize ground turkey, open the freezer and just put your hand on that ground turkey without even looking for it, that is a moment of true inspiration.

And for that, I award you one back point for creativity.

It in no way is the five creativity point

bonanza that was the curry with the leftover carrot soup.

I think by any objective measure, such as you can come up with one,

that is a five-point creativity score.

Following a recipe because you remembered it, inspired by an avocado, that is creativity.

But

I give you one on that one.

I'll take it.

Yeah.

You deserve it.

I do think that it was fundamentally unfair.

for Natalie to not award you a single creativity point.

Look, Look, it was the second night of the of the thing.

No one really knew how it was going to work yet.

It was, that was a little harsh.

You know what?

I can't give you three because that's what you asked for.

I'll give you two, two back points.

Two back points.

I think that that's fair because you can't, you saw a thing and then you and then you remembered a recipe and then you followed the recipe.

Five-point creativity, I think, has to be there was no recipe involved.

I'll take that.

Yeah, that's fair.

There was just stuff around and I made it up.

That's fair.

That's what nachos was.

That's what started the game.

You invented nachos.

I invented nachos.

I didn't realize what I was talking about.

I did.

Have you met my sister, the inventor of nachos?

I did.

I invented nachos.

Yeah.

Hang on.

Hang on.

I haven't ruled yet.

Okay.

I haven't ruled yet.

So guest producer Valerie Moffat awarding two back points to Juliana, but knocking off her top score of 19 for the super, for the super creative Curry.

Where does it stand now?

How many points does Natalie have?

Natalie, with a score of 15, 17, and 6, brings her to a total of 38.

And Juliana, before the back points?

Before the back points, the highest is a total of 63.

Dropping the highest is a total of 44.

With the back points, dropping the highest would be 46.

So it was 44 before you even got the back points.

You already ran away with it, Juliana.

Now it's 46.

I hope that you feel appreciated because I appreciate you both very much.

Oh, thank you.

And you deserved those back points.

But the game was flawed on that second night.

And going forward, I agree with Natalie and rule in her favor.

Taste is not on the table, especially if you can't even taste the thing.

And I would put creativity, I would put it at a one, two, three measure, not a five.

It swings the score too far.

And ultimately, creativity has to be one of the smaller elements because it's about as subjective as it gets.

Whereas using a cooked thing and two points and using it up for an extra point, that's all completely objective.

And the bulk of the points should be coming from those categories.

So I would say creativity is like plus one, plus two, and only in the case of a curry with the carrot, ginger soup, or whatever it was, then it pops up to three.

Because your contest has no judge.

So until I come to Martha's Vineyard and we can all cook together, and then I can judge and tell you who's the winner and who's not, You got to do it this way.

And by the way, when I come to Martha's, can I come by?

Oh, please.

Please.

I've never been.

Oh, come on.

It'd be so fun.

Yeah, it's the best.

I'll tell you what else.

If I make it down there, I'm going to bring my friend, the novelist, Meg Wolitzer.

Oh.

Put your mom across the scrabble table from her.

Watch her get shut down.

Wait, are you

watching it shut down?

We can, here's what we'll do.

We'll have a cooking challenge going in the kitchen.

And then in the living room and outside, we'll have a whole Scrabble tournament going on.

Yeah, exactly.

Just no, just head to head.

I just want to watch.

I want to watch that too.

I'll come down in Barthes and hang out with you both and eat all that food, and then I'll tell you for sure who wins.

This is the sound of a gavel.

Please pack your knives and go.

Judge John Hodgman rules.

That is all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Natalie, how do you feel?

I'm actually surprised, but I think it was a fair ruling.

I also think

we were very aware of the subjectivity, and maybe that's actually like part of the fun.

Like we like drove into that chaos to be like, let's make it like a very subjective, ambiguous thing in which we'll decide ourselves and

generate lots of room for argument while we're like in isolation together.

I wonder if subconsciously that was a little bit happening now that you said it back to us.

You were trying to juice the narrative for yourself.

I guess so.

Yeah.

Create some friction.

You were producing your own two-person reality show in a house on Martha's Vineyard.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

It would have been a really, really dramatic reality show.

We probably were watching too much reality TV, actually.

Juliana, how do you feel?

I feel,

I feel it was a very fair ruling.

I'm happy.

It's fine to take taste off the table, and I appreciate uh the judge's words of wisdom for my seeking affirmation and validation i'll be uh talking to my therapist about that later this week

juliana natalie thanks for joining us on the judge john hodgman podcast thanks for having us

another judge john hodgman case is in the books in a moment we will dispense swift justice but first, our thanks to at SashaEZ

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Now, Swift Justice, where we answer small disputes with quick judgment, Andrew says, when texting my wife, I try hard to use haikus.

She objects to this.

Which is, of course, a haiku.

And to Andrew's wife, I say, be grateful.

It could be Limericks.

That's not a haiku.

I should have written one, but you get the point.

I think Andrew's adorable.

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