Good Old Onion Shop

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

We're in chambers this week to clear the docket.

With me, as always,

is America's favorite hero dog, Judge John Hodgman.

What's a hero dog?

A hero dog is a dog who's a hero.

He's either like a, or she is either a firefighter or dialed 911 when something went wrong at the house.

Like a paw patrol?

No, no, no.

I'm talking about

a real-life hero dog.

Paw Patrol is fiction.

What?

Those aren't real dogs.

Wait a minute.

My six-year-old neighbor is pretty clear that they're real.

Yeah, I mean, you're going to have to check your sources on that.

I might be wrong.

It's possible that it's an animated series that some devious Canadians have made.

based on the real-life exploits of a group of variously skilled and color-coordinated actual dogs who can talk.

But you're talking about dogs who are true heroes in this life.

Yeah.

Not a hot dog that is as large as a submarine sandwich, which is what I thought.

Dogs who sniffed out bombs.

Yeah.

There's all kinds of hero dogs, John.

Yeah.

Service animals.

Service animals who tell if you're going to have a seizure or something.

St.

Bernard's.

Oh, yeah, that bring brandy or whatever to people who are stranded in the Alps.

I think it could be brandy, could be anything.

It's really the dog's choice.

Yeah.

Although more and more of those dogs are like wearing little visors and sleeve garters and making craft cocktails.

That's right.

The St.

Bernard mixology movement is real.

I have

an important update on past matters on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Please.

Some time ago, a month or two ago, on a docket episode, you and I discussed our favorite grocery stores, supermarkets specifically.

Yes.

You talked about one that's on the way to Max FunCon.

Jensen's in Blue Jay, California.

I talked about the town and country market in Porterville, California.

We have gotten a lot of feedback on this matter, or at least I have.

And when I say a lot, I mean an unimaginable volume.

It all concerns one specific thing.

We described, apparently, I don't remember saying this.

It might be that everyone had a collective hallucination but we described liking them apparently because they had straight aisles straight aisles and everyone in our uh everyone within the sound of our voices at at that time has at this point tweeted at me to say all grocery stores have straight aisles that's not true yeah i would say two things to this And I think it's really just going to be a matter of clarification because I really want to put this issue to bed.

Sure.

Number one, I live in Los Angeles where there are many what you would call regular supermarkets.

The kind of supermarkets you would find in any major American city or suburb.

The kind of supermarkets that could be Ralph's, they could be Kroger's, they could be Lucky's, they could be Albertsons, they could be Safeways, they could be Piggly Wiggly's, whatever your regional supermarket chains are, and the grocery business is largely regional,

that's what most of the grocery stores here are like.

I do most of my shopping at Trader Joe's, which is a little smaller and a pretty different experience, and sometimes the Farmer's Market, which is obviously a very different experience.

But I know what those grocery stores are like.

There's one called Superior Market or El Superior near my house, where I go when I, you know, that's the closest grocery store to my house.

So when I need an onion, that's where I go.

That's the good old onion shop for you.

Exactly.

And there's also a Food for Less and a Smart and Final at which I sometimes stop to pick up.

It's it's my favorite.

Smart and Final.

Yeah, Smart and Final.

It's so fatalistic.

It's actually named, I know this is an actual fact about Smart and Final.

It's named after two men, one named Smart and one named Final.

Oh, how is Final spelled?

F-I-N-A-L.

It's very strange.

It's very, very strange.

Okay.

So what about the Isles?

But you live.

You live in Brooklyn, New York.

That's right.

Where grocery stores, and I've been to the grocery stores where you buy your groceries because I stay with you when I'm visiting Brooklyn.

The grocery stores are much smaller and much more Warren-like.

Yes.

And sometimes have even serpentine aisles,

but certainly have much narrower,

taller aisles in a smaller space that makes the place feel fancy but cramped.

It's like a maze that you would put a mouse in to train it to do a thing.

But instead of there being a treat at the end of the maze, there are treats on all of the walls of the mazes.

And that's why I go into one every day.

And they're usually gluten-free.

Yeah, and I usually don't come out for hours.

So I will say, for me,

if I said straight aisles, I wasn't saying that I can't find straight-aisled grocery stores elsewhere.

It's just that...

The grocery store I love is like the platonic ideal of a grocery store that could be in a dream sequence from a Cohen brothers movie.

Yeah.

Like it is grand, long, wide aisles with no specialty areas,

no turns and twists, just every type of regular groceries that exists in America or elsewhere in the world, because there's a great Asian grocery section and great Latinx groceries

in this grocery store as well.

So for me, it's an overall aesthetic experience of 1967-ishness or 1974-ishness that makes me appreciate the bounty of American

small to mid-sized town and suburb life, which is, to me, a fun thing to visit because I've never lived in one of those places.

Yeah, Jesse.

The feeling that I have when I go into Jensen's is the feeling of like going to the Star Market in Brookline, Massachusetts, big, open, suburban grocery store.

Or picture, even better, the grocery store at the end of Fantastic Mr.

Fox the Wes Anderson film where they all dance in the middle of these broad long straight aisles it's glorious yeah and many

new and upscale grocery stores even mid and lower market grocery stores are built to simulate intimacy using

you know spotlighting and

islands and little you know specialty counters and so on and so forth.

And in these grocery stores, none of those things exist at all.

There is but aisles.

There is only aisles as far as the eye can see.

And those aisles contain every Frito-Lay product on earth.

Do you know what the name of my grocery chain is?

What's that?

Isles for Miles, then death.

We're going right up against smart and final.

Let's clear that.

I'm glad we cleared that up.

Let's clear up the docket.

Here's something from Chris.

He says, every Friday, our employer caters a lunch for our team to help bring together the disparate parts of our operations and develop a sense of camaraderie.

On occasion, that Friday meal will be pizza and salad from a local pizzeria.

A few Fridays ago, my colleague Nick said that he doesn't believe pizza to be a full meal.

He considers it more of a snack or something you eat after 2 a.m.

Judge, I ask you to declare pizza a true meal of delicious proportion and to order Nick to acknowledge pizza is, in fact, a meal.

Nick's a little bit of a pizza buzzkill.

Really minimizing pizza.

What do you think, Jesse?

I think pizza is a, of course, pizza is a meal.

It is a food that is a combination of different things intended to create a meal, not unlike a sandwich.

Right.

But it is not a sandwich, right?

It's not a sandwich.

I don't want to go down that aisle.

But like a sandwich, it is a way of combining

grain, fruit,

vegetables, and protein into one thing that can be easily consumed and potentially easily transported.

Yeah, it's a hand food, so it's definitely less formal than the catered lunch that might happen on other Fridays, say

when the office is serving con feed duck

or Mongolian hot pot.

It's not a sit-down food for sure.

It's different from fondue Fridays.

Yeah.

But here's what I would say, Jesse, and I agree with you strongly, but I do see where Nick is coming from because I would guess that Nick

and

Chris, who work together in this office, but I would guess they're both probably in their 20s, you know?

Yeah.

Because A,

they're really focused on the free food they're getting at work, which is a really exciting thing, especially when you're a young person.

And B, Nick is really interested in his own opinion.

And C,

Nick thinks that pizza is a snack.

And I think that a metabolic argument could be made that for a person, say, under 25,

pizza is a snack.

That's something you have as, you could have like three slices of pizza as an appetizer before you eat 100 mozzarella sticks or whatever.

You know what I mean?

Like pizza is something you have on the bus home before you eat 10 pounds of pasta or whatever.

So I think that there is a sliding meal scale here.

But I would say for the majority of people on this earth who are in a working profession ages, you know, 25 and up, pizza counts as a meal.

Particularly when served with a salad.

Oh, yeah, that's a classic.

What's your favorite kind of pizza, Jesse?

This is really going to blow a lot of minds.

I'm ready.

Are you ready for me to drop a bomb?

Yeah.

I like pepperoni pizza.

Yes.

It's kind of the best pizza, isn't it?

It's so good.

It's so good.

I honestly, I still am at a point where

I find vegetables on a pizza to be an inconvenience.

I like a mushroom pizza.

I like black olives from time to time.

Pepperoni pizza is the default.

I'm finally turning against anchovy pizza, I gotta say.

I love anchovies.

And I used to love anchovy pizza because it was so rare because no one would ever get it with me.

So every now and then I would get myself one.

But then recently I did that and I was just like, hmm, too salty.

I will say this.

One thing I noticed when I was visiting Venice, Italy, the famous Water Street City, that's what it's called.

We went to dinner at a little family restaurant, and there was a table of six native Italians, maybe Venetians, but they were all talking Italian.

Possibly Venusians.

Possibly so.

They were all men and women, ages 35 to 65.

Every one of them got a whole pizza

and ate it.

Now, this wasn't like an 18-inch pizza.

This is like a 12 to 14-inch pizza.

And they serve pizza in Italy, at least in Venice, Italy, the only place I've ever been in Italy.

They serve it to you whole.

They don't cut it up, and you have to slice it up yourself with a knife and fork and eat it like that.

But they really put it away.

So I would agree, Nick, if you go to Venice,

pizza's a snack there.

You're a snack, Nick.

So are you, Chris?

All our listeners are snacks.

Here's something from Randy.

My husband and I are the proud parents of two young adult children who do not live with us.

When my children call me, I drop whatever I'm doing to talk to them, and I prefer not to be the one to end the call.

My husband finds this frustrating because I will sometimes get off the phone with him or not be as helpful as I could be when we're doing chores.

I think the most important thing is that the kids know we are always available for them.

He would like me to change.

I would like him to adopt my habits.

Please help us settle this.

This is what I'm feeling keenly, you know, because we have an 18-year-old child.

Yeah.

And that person, whom we love,

I don't want to brag, but we love our children.

Mm-hmm.

Braggy, but acceptable.

Right.

She's going to leave the house.

She's an adult now.

She's going to leave the house

probably to go to college.

I've tried to sabotage all of her college applications so she wouldn't leave.

I always say, oh, I'll mail those in for you, honey.

And then I put a slice of pizza in each one.

But then maybe that'll get her into the college of pizza.

I don't know.

But I think she's going to go to college.

I think she's going to leave.

And it's going to be very sad.

It's going to be a hard adjustment.

So I feel Randy here.

I did notice something in Randy's phrasing.

Would you read the first line again?

My husband and I are the proud parents of two young adult children who do not live with you.

Yes.

They do not live with you.

They're not young adult children.

I get they're young, but I come from book publishing where young adult has a significant meaning, has a very specific age range, from Donald J.

Sobel age to Judy Bloom age.

And once you hit 18, and you're especially if you're living out of the house, you're an adult.

You're not a young adult child.

You're an adult.

It's a hard transition.

I appreciate why you don't want to do it.

But unless your teenagers are in boarding school or they have legally emancipated themselves from you, they're adults now.

And that's the problem, Randy.

You miss your adults that used to be children.

And I get it.

Your husband, on the other hand, is clearly done with them.

I mean, I'm sure he loves his adults.

And he's glad that his adults are thriving in the world, but he needs you for those chores.

Is that what she said?

Yeah, she's missing out on chores.

Oh, here it is.

I could be helpful when they're doing chores if she would just get off the phone.

My husband finds it frustrating because I will not be as helpful as I could be when we were doing chores.

Like, what a sad portrait of retirement that is.

Like, I hope that when our younger child decides to become an adult and thrive and leave the home, that my wife and I are not just taking out the garbage every hour.

Sit around and relax.

This is your chance.

Read a book.

Look, obviously, all parents deal with the emptying of their nest in different ways and

in different emotional ways, and you have to be accepting of them.

But this idea that like you can't talk to your adult kids because you've got chores to do, wife, that's a little bit of a flag for me.

Unless you're desperately trying to save your orange grove from an early frost.

And you've got to be out there with hair dryers blowing on those trees or whatever, the chores can wait.

Talk to your kids.

Agree or disagree, Jesse Thorne.

Yeah, I think that's true.

The only thing in this note that gives me pause is Randy saying that she prefers not to be the one to end the call.

I understand that sentiment.

It does place a burden on your children.

Oh, interesting.

So I think that it is, that is a reasonable point of compromise with Randy's husband,

that she she can have with her husband, which is that

I would not say, I don't think it's necessarily a good or healthy point of pride to say I never hang up the phone.

I think the odds are that that gives the children more of a feeling of responsibility and burden than it does a sense of comfort that they're always available for them.

But in general,

on the broader question, I agree.

Were I in that position, I think I would also like to think that I would prioritize talking to my kids over anything that wasn't an emergency simply because I know now as a parent of young children and as a

medium adult right now in my life, it's so difficult for me to carve out the time to talk to my family and my wife's family, both of whom I really love, that I'm really grateful when they make it a priority to take my call when I'm able to make it.

Thank you, Jesse, as always, for your other point of view.

Because I mean, I honestly didn't occur to me.

Like, I just figured she meant she doesn't want to end the call and her kids still want to talk to her.

Like, they don't want to get off the phone with her because they're asking her life advice and stuff.

But you're right.

Maybe the kids want to go and they need a little prompt from the mom.

All I'm saying is, Randy's husband, don't be standing over your wife going, hang up the phone so you can help me clean these gutters.

Like, that's not cool.

I would consider it a lot cooler if he was saying, I wish you would end this call now so we could get back to playing this game of monopoly deal that we've got going on here, or we can get back to working on this crossword puzzle or watching this movie or spending this time together now that we have this time together again.

But the chores thing, I don't like it.

Let's take a quick break.

More items on the DACA coming up in just a minute on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

On the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

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Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

We're clearing the docket docket this week.

Jay says, every time my dad makes a pun, which thankfully is not very often, he ends it by saying, bada-boom.

What?

My siblings and I...

Read on.

Read on.

My siblings and I always cringe at this, since it's supposed to be, badoom, pshh.

Please order an injunction against our dad that if he must say a pun, he should end it with badoom ch

or no ending at all.

P.S.

When our father remembers we hate bada boom, he corrects it, that's in scare quotes, to bada bing.

This is also unacceptable.

Okay.

Jesse, what are the odds in your opinion that this weird dad knows exactly what he's doing in driving his kids crazy by saying bada boom, when clearly he means badoom ch?

If I were one of those English bookmakers that takes bets on anything, I'd lay it at at least four to one

that he knows.

Four to one?

Does that mean it's likely that he knows?

I think it's very likely that he knows.

One to one would mean he definitely knows, right?

Yeah.

Okay.

I don't understand odds.

That's why.

Yeah, one to one, yeah.

Yeah, that's why I lost all my money at the Hermit Crab races in Jamaica.

I would say this.

If he does know,

if there's that 25% chance that he's doing this on purpose just to make his kids cringe, I don't necessarily congratulate him just for that, but then taking it to the second level and go, oh, you mean Bada Boom is wrong?

Well, then how about

Bada Bing?

That's a real masterstroke.

That's great.

But I would guess, Jesse,

if I were a betting person,

and I, of course, I don't bet anymore after the Hermit Crab Race fiasco.

Lost it all.

Yeah.

Lost it all betting on little Reddy.

He seems so fast.

His shell was painted red, like the flash.

Come on.

The little jerk went sideways.

You ever see a hermit crab race?

They're a real thing.

Really?

Like in a...

Is this like a street con?

Probably.

When I was a little kid, you know, like third grade, I would guess,

my parents took me to Jamaica.

And, you know, we just stayed in this sort of medium-level resort hotel.

And I remember three things.

First of all, the issue of Ghost Rider that I got.

Very meaningful to me.

It was a pretty good issue.

Second, swim up bar.

Obviously, I wasn't going to get alcohol, but I was swimming up to that bar to get a soda.

And third, hermit crab races every afternoon on the patio.

Guy draws a circle on the ground.

puts a bunch of hermit crabs with painted shells in there, takes bets as to which hermit crab is going to get out of the circle first.

I always bet on little ready.

I always lost.

Wow, that was a digression.

Listen, dad,

I'm going to bet this weird dad does not understand what he's doing.

That in fact,

he is meaning to do badum ch, the classic rim shot and snare, which is used traditionally to accentuate the punchlines in Catskill's comedy acts in the middle of the 20th century.

And there's a variation of that, of course, which is badump-bump.

But since when pressed, your dad is hyper-correcting to bada bing, we know he's not saying badump-bump, but the other half of bada bing, which is bada boom.

Bada bing, of course, is not from the Jewish-American Borschbelt comedy tradition, but from movies about Italian-American organized crime.

It is the name of the Naked Dancing Club in the Sopranas, itself taken after the Bada Bing catchphrase of Sonny from the Godfather, played by James Kahn.

Now, the Wikipedia page for Bada Bing, which exists,

suggests that maybe Bada Bing is an onomatopoeia also coming from the sound of a rim shot in a snare.

But don't psh.

But I don't buy that.

This is the one thing on Wikipedia I don't buy.

Because both in The Godfather and in general usage,

bada bing means it happened very easily.

Or it was no problem.

I did it, bada bing.

As in, hey, Michael Corleone, it is easy to shoot a police captain at close range.

Bada bing.

Just kidding, my brother Michael.

That is irony.

It is not easy.

That's a famous line from The Godfather.

Yeah.

Legendary script.

Yeah.

Merriam-Webster, which of course I have an eternal beef with because I think the hot dog is a sandwich, but still a respected dictionary,

defines Bada Bing as used especially to emphasize something regarded as surprising, sudden, effortlessly achieved, or impressive.

And just how the rim shot and snare, but doom psh, is now wholly referential, that no one ever does that in comedy unless it's to make a joke about that in comedy.

I don't think anyone would ever now say bada bing without specifically referencing the godfather.

Is that true?

Or is it still

a genuine Italian-American thing to say?

Bada bing, bada boom.

If you know, if you're from one of those communities, let us know in the Reddit.

But yeah, your dad is wrong.

By the way, Merriam-Webster doesn't offer an etymology, but does cite the first known use of bada bing in 1965, which would make Sonny's use in the godfather an anachronism, but who knows?

They think the hot dog is a sandwich, so they could be wrong.

Bada Bing.

Effortlessly proven by Judge John Hodgman.

Here's something from Diana.

I was walking with some friends after dinner and stopped at a sidewalk gelato stand that seemed to be popular.

I tried two samples, but I didn't really like either of them.

They were bland, gritty, and icy.

I asked for three more samples and equally hated them.

I felt bad, but walked away without purchasing anything to the horror of my friends and also of the scooper.

Should I have been obligated to complete a purchase?

Before we answer that question, I will say I do think you are obligated, Diana, to at least know the difference between gelato and sorbet.

Because you clearly were sampling sorbet, which is gritty and icy,

and not sampling gelato, which is smooth and creamy.

Well, now with that said, what do you think, Jesse?

Two, then three, then nothing.

Okay or not okay?

I think

that she can walk away at any time.

Can

walk away at any time.

I think it is her choice.

That said,

I think that when you

take multiple samples in that context, the implied context is that you're doing it to select a flavor, not to decide whether you are going to have any.

And that was particularly true after she had three more after the first two.

Five is a lot of samples in any context.

Five is a lot.

So I will give you an example here.

At the Pasadena City College Flea Market, where I go every Sunday, there is an Italian ice stand.

The Italian ice stand offers free samples.

Yeah.

They put them out on the counter, and they are sales inducements.

They are encouraging you to buy some Italian ice today.

I

don't feel bad tasting them and deciding not to buy Italian ice that day.

But if I went up to him and said, can I taste five different flavors of Italian ice, then decided not to, I would feel bad.

So my position is that while she was within her rights,

I don't think anyone was wrong to be horrified by her actions.

Well, I mean,

you make a good point, which is in the case you're describing, they're leaving out samples

in little cups, right?

Yeah.

For you to just grab.

And

if you were to go up there

with a big tote bag and just shove 10 or 15 samples into the tote bag and walk away, that would be gross.

But you don't need to get 15 different samples.

If you're asking the person to actually scoop a little sorbet or gelato five times, now you're taking up a good chunk of their day.

And remember, service people are people too.

You know, when we were visiting Venice, Italy, we went to a lot of gelato stands because there are a lot of them there.

And the service person there, I was very thoughtful.

I knew exactly what I wanted.

I wanted some strawberry sorbet.

I didn't need to taste it.

And I said,

in my attempt at Italian, I said, I would like some of that Fragalo.

And she looked at me,

she literally rolled her eyes

and said, Fragolo!

And I'm like, okay.

She made me feel really bad.

I took my strawberry sorbet and I went out.

And I was saying to my children, the woman in there was mean to me.

And our daughter was like, no, I think she was just, you know, politely correcting you.

I'm like, it did not feel polite.

It felt like humiliating.

And I get it.

Like, trying to speak in another language can be annoying after a while if you're a service worker.

I get it.

I guess I deserved it.

And my daughter's like, she wasn't being mean.

And then this other family came out of the same thing because we were sitting outside.

This family of three Scottish people come out and they were just like blinking and almost in tears.

And

the daughter said to the mother, she was so mean.

One of the great confirmations of my life.

But even if you were facing a service person who is mean and ridiculing you, the truth is, Diana, Jesse Thorne, oh, Bailiff, my bailiff, is right.

Five samples is really pushing it.

And, you know, it's not like you have to buy something from it to pay the service person

back.

They're not getting money out of this deal.

It's not like they get a commission on this sale.

But it's a little annoying to take five dips and say, no, thanks, and walk away.

I would say instead, Diana, I'm really sorry.

None of these are for me, but thank you for your time.

And then put a dollar or two in the tip jar.

That's a nice way to say thank you for taking the effort to put five little spoons of frozen ice into my mouth.

I don't really like gelato.

Really, no?

I mean, I would.

Look, given a choice between eating gelato and not eating anything, I'm going to eat gelato every time.

Don't get me wrong.

Yeah, you're not going to starve to death.

Yeah, I just think that gelato as an alternative to ice cream is presented as like a fancy/slash better option.

And I strongly prefer ice cream.

Yeah, it's airier.

It's not as dense as gelato.

I prefer the air and the high fat content combined.

That is my ideal ice cream, is a fatty ice cream that also has the air introduced to it through churning.

You know, everyone knows I don't have a sweet tooth, but there are two things I need in life to live.

Air is obviously one of them.

Yeah.

And high fat content.

That's about it.

For me, it's air and churning.

Okay, let's take a quick break.

When we come back, we'll hear a case about Office Potlucks.

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Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

We're clearing the docket this week.

Here's something from Alex.

He says, I work at a public agency that seems to celebrate any event or holiday with an employee potluck.

I have a restrictive diet and would like to just bring my own lunch to these events.

My coworker, Kristen, says that's fine, but that I also have to make and bring something for the office, even if I don't eat anything else.

What do you say, Judge Hodgman?

Jesse Thorin, I don't work in an office.

You are there at Max Fun HQ.

You have some staff meals, right?

Yeah, occasionally.

Do you ever have a potluck type situation?

Like the holiday party, everyone brought something.

I remember KT brought that amazing tomato soup cake.

That's true.

A lot of people brought things to the holiday party.

We usually, if we're going to do something like that, we're usually providing the main food.

But I have certainly worked in offices that had potlucks.

I mean, I think this is going to be another one where I will equivocate and say

you are by no means obliged to participate in an office potluck.

That is the nature of the potluck.

You can participate in it or not participate in it.

However, I would say that it is antisocial to not participate.

And if you have a restrictive diet, I respect that and you by no means should have to eat anything that does not fit your diet.

But I think it would be generous and pro-social of you to nonetheless contribute something to the potluck.

And if it's something where you make enough of it that you can make a full meal of that one dish because it conforms to your dietary needs, that's great, but there should be extra for others.

And I wouldn't say that it is a hard and firm obligation.

A potluck, I think, is pretty much always

an optional event,

but I would say that you're going to be a lot better off in the long term in terms of building the camaraderie and so on and so forth with your colleagues with whom you spend each day

if you are contributing to everyone even though you are benefiting disproportionately little.

Like I don't think that presenting a pie chart of how you're not going to get much out of it

is going to be the answer.

Yeah, my contribution to the potluck is this

PowerPoint deck.

about how potlucks are unfair to everyone and we should ban them.

Yeah, but again, like I wouldn't consider it a hard and fast obligation.

I think that Alex is within his rights,

but I think just Alex would be happier and have a happier life if he was

doing this nice thing for everybody that everybody does together.

Yeah, I, as always, appreciate your insight.

And you touched on something that I also felt I wanted to say here.

Kristen, your co-worker, Alex, is a nudge and is, you know, poking at you to contribute.

That's annoying, I agree.

However, Kristen's right.

Making your own food and eating it silently at your desk and ignoring the potluck, that is not in the spirit of the potluck.

Because the spirit of the potluck is not merely swapping food.

It is also, as you point out, Jesse, it's about community building.

It's about camaraderie.

It's about people in the office getting to know, like,

here's my favorite recipe for tomato tomato soup cake.

Oh, really interesting.

I add a little extra tomato soup in my tomato soup cake.

Here's mine.

Or, you know, this is my grandmother's macaroni and cheese recipe.

By the way, my name is Alex, and I can't eat macaroni or cheese.

So instead,

here is my bowl of gruel.

I've made enough for everyone.

Make enough for everyone is the simple and obvious answer of the food that you can eat, Alex, and let them share in your dietary restrictions so they get to know you better.

And the fact of the matter is, just because it's called pot luck doesn't mean it's always pot good luck.

Sometimes you have to eat bad food that other people eat.

Share of yourself, Alex.

Don't be selfish.

Don't hide your gruel under a bushel.

We also heard from a listener named Bart about the docket clearing episode called Serendipity.

We had talked about maybe opening a just dips restaurant called Serendipity.

Yeah, by the way, the CDC called me and told me to take that podcast down.

Not allowed.

All dip restaurant, not okay.

Here's what Bart had to say.

I asked the court to place an injunction from naming such a restaurant, if established, serendipity.

In the winter of 1997, I went to eat with my dear friend Tom.

Upon his decision to order a French dip sandwich, he declared he would like to open a restaurant where everything on the menu was dipped.

The restaurant would be named Dunka Shane,

pronounced as the Wayne Newton song, so Americans would understand the joke.

Tom lost his battle with cancer in 2008 at the age of 37.

And that's the reason I bring forward this complaint.

Also, this is for everybody who had a good idea but never did anything about it.

Oh, that's a sad story.

And thank you for sharing that with us, Bart.

And obviously our condolences to you and Tom's friends and family.

That's a very, very sad loss.

And a very, very fun idea and good joke.

And especially since

it would have served a French dip.

And if people don't know what a French dip is, Jesse, you're in Los Angeles, the birthplace of the French dip.

Can you tell us a little bit about it?

Yeah, a French dip is a thinly sliced meat sandwich, typically very simply dressed, often just a soft roll

and thinly sliced meat.

Roast beef

specifically.

Typically roast beef, although there are other alternatives.

Oh, there are.

Interesting.

I like a lamb dip.

Sometimes cheese is added, and it is then dipped in jus.

the juices of the meat that have been concentrated.

And it's a wonderful sandwich.

I will say this, John.

Yeah.

There are two restaurants in Los Angeles that claim to have invented the French dip.

No one has been able to establish which of them did.

One is a restaurant called Coles that is downtown.

And one is a restaurant called Philippe's the French Dip that is near Union Station, which is not far from downtown, but actually adjacent to Los Angeles' Chinatown.

And

I have no, I can claim no insight as to which of those restaurants invented the French dip.

I can, however, say that Philippe's the French dip is dramatically better than Kohl's.

Maybe a decade ago, Kohl's was turned into what I would call an exposed filament light bulb theme restaurant.

You mean they went Brooklyn style?

They went Brooklyn style.

It's subway tiles, sleeve garters, and exposed filaments.

And it's perfectly fine.

It's not a terrible restaurant.

And it's better than that the restaurant, you know, this great institution had gone out of business.

But the food is unremarkable, and it is in an unremarkable and frankly unoriginal context.

Philippe's the French dip is has concrete floors covered in sawdust,

a giant lunch counter with like 12 lines, and ladies who aren't allowed to touch the money because they're preparing food with hair nets who get your sandwich for you,

like purple pickled eggs in big jars, and it is everything that you wish a restaurant that has existed for over 100 years could be.

It is so great.

And the food is really good and very reasonably priced to boot.

It is a real kind of normal person's lunch restaurant that you could go to any time.

And I love Philippe's the French dip.

It is on my recent guide to Los Angeles.

Oh, where can I learn more of your guide to Los Angeles?

People are always asking me what they should do when they visit Los Angeles.

And I typically get as far as telling them to go to the Museum of Jurassic Technology, which is the best thing in Los Angeles.

But then I get tired and I just can't answer.

You know, when two people ask you that question a week, you just, you're like, well, here's one thing, goodbye.

And I thought it would be more helpful if I wrote up, you know, 15 or 20 things in a place that I could just point people to.

So at my personal Tumblr, yes, that's right.

I still have an extant personal Tumblr.

And you can tell by the graphics that it's from before the days when I had a beard.

So, I think those graphics were established nine years ago or something.

But at jessethorne.tumbler.com, you can find my guide to Los Angeles.

And it's like 15 or 20 great things to do in LA, some restaurant tips and activity tips and so on and so forth.

Just stuff that I really like.

It's very biased, but so am I.

well jesse thorne i look forward to checking that out i will also say i don't know when the next time i'm going to be in los angeles is but next time i'm in los angeles if your schedule permits let's the two of us go to philippe's the french dip and each of us have a french dip and presuming that you know our society is still a place where restaurants can serve open containers of beef juice for you to dip your food in let's each dunk a french dip in honor of tom Tom.

Dunk one out for Tom.

Oh, yeah.

Or maybe even better, get 21 sandwiches for a 21-dunk salute.

I like a lamb dip with blue cheese, double-dipped.

I like pickled beets and a pickled egg.

I'm not going to have all of those things, but I'll definitely dunk a dip in honor of Tom.

You're going to have to eat a little bit of the pickled beets because there's just a lot on the plate.

It's probably too many for me.

Oh, trust me, the pickled beets were not the problem.

The docket is now clear.

That's it for another episode of Judge John Hodgman.

Our producer is Jennifer Marmer.

Follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman.

We're on Instagram at JudgeJohnHodgman.

Make sure to hashtag your Judge John Hodgman tweets, hashtag JJ H.

O.

And check out the Maximum Fun subreddit at maximumfund.reddit.com to discuss this episode.

Submit your cases at maximumfund.org/slash JJHO or email Hodgman at maximumfun.org.

Hey, let me just jump in here for a second.

I've really been enjoying the Maximum Fun Sud Reddit a lot.

I'm getting in there all the time to mix it up in a friendly style in the comments for Judge Sean Hodgman, also for iPotius, which is my and Elliot Kalen's iClaudius podcast.

If at any time in this podcast, I or Jesse has said something that you disagree with or wish to bring to our attention, by all means, you may always email me at hodgman at maximumfun.org.

But you can also copy or just go there and post it because I'm going to be in there and I'll be responding to you and we'll have a little conversation about it.

Tell me your favorite French dip at Philippe's.

Tell me your favorite dippin' sandwich.

Tell me your other names for

all dip restaurants since it's pure fantasy at this point.

I really enjoy it over there.

Thanks for setting it up, Jesse.

Thanks for inventing Reddit.

Hey, I'm glad to.

It made me rich, so I'm happy.

Yeah, and now you're married to Serena Williams, the tennis star.

So overall, everything's coming up, Jesse, founder of Reddit.

I guess we'll see you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

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