Feast and Desist

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm summertime fun-time guest bailiff Monty Belmonte from WRSI in Northampton, Massachusetts.

This week, feast and desist, Candace brings the case against her fiancé, Weston.

Since college, the two of them have hosted their friends for an annual Thanksgiving-themed dinner party.

This year, Weston would like to duck out, or even tur-duck out, of their responsibilities and let someone else take charge.

But Candace loves to buckle her hat, pull up her socks to her knees, and take charge of those classic Candace Diams.

Will they hold on to their tradition like cranberry sauce holds on to the shape of the can?

Or will it be torn from them like giblets from a turkey carcass?

Who gets the long piece of the wishbone?

Only one man can decide.

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

The value of any experience isn't in its positive or negative effect on his life, but in the sheer luminous power of it, the vividness, the ferocity, the amount and degree of pure sensation that it provides.

Intensity.

Fun time, summertime, guest bailiff Monty Belmonte, please swear them in with intensity.

Please

rise and raise your right hands.

Do you swear to talk turkey?

The whole turkey, both light and dark meat turkey, so help you, Puritan god or Santa, at the end of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade or whatever?

I do.

I do.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that Judge John Hodgman surreptitiously dresses up as a pilgrim and infiltrates Plymouth Plantation and points out all the historical anachronisms exhibited by all the other actors, much to the dismay of the tourists?

Absolutely.

Yes.

Judge Hodgman, you may proceed.

Candice and Weston, you may be seated.

And hello again, fun time, summertime guest Bailiff Monty Belmonte.

It is almost the end of summertime.

It's a sad time.

Long shadows here in Midcoast, Maine, where I am broadcasting to you for the last time this calendar year would be my guest at WERU 889.9 in Blue Hill, broadcasting from Orland, Maine, with

guest engineer Joel Mann.

Hello, Joel.

Hello, John.

That is too intense.

Too intense, Joel.

Joel gets very intense.

How much longer are you playing jazz and castine, Joel?

The end of September.

The end of September?

We are actually at the Blue Hill Fair Monday.

You are.

That's right.

This is Blue Hill Fair time.

We're recording on the second day of the Blue Hill Fair, made famous

by E.B.

White, the novelist, in his novel,

The Spider That Could Talk and Write.

I just go to see the tractor pole.

Yeah, right.

What's your favorite thing at the fair?

The dogs.

The herding dogs.

Oh, okay.

Those are amazing.

Sheep watches.

Sheepdogs.

Sheepdog trials.

That's what I was looking for.

All right, good.

And what's your favorite food to eat at the fair?

Because I'm going to go there tonight, and I need to know.

I try and stay away from it, honestly.

I know that's not really

politically correct.

For health concerns or because you don't think it's any good?

Kind of, they go together.

Yeah, but if I was going to really indulge.

Well, they say the fries are really out of this world.

You know,

so much for that.

You know what?

I've eaten that food before.

I don't need to eat that.

Monty, you got any end-of-summer rituals going on down there in WRSI, the River, 93.9, Northampton, Massachusetts?

It's fair season around here, too.

We're at the Three County Fair right now.

The Franklin County Fair is next weekend.

So, yeah, that's what happens around here, too.

What about the Cummington Fair?

Did that already happen?

Already happened.

That's like the first one.

That's a great one.

We went to the Heath Fair one time together.

That was fun.

The Heath Fair.

The Heath Fair is my absolute no offense to my part-time home state of of Maine, but the Heath Fair in my part-time home Commonwealth of Massachusetts is the best of all fairs.

Sorry, Joel.

Joel doesn't, Joel's not making a fight of it.

All the fights out of us.

It's the end of the summer.

We're starting to begin fall time again.

It's getting chilly.

You know, the autumn begins here in Maine on August 1st.

That's when you see the first leaves start to fall and suddenly the light changes and the Grim Reaper is knocking at your door.

Candace and Weston, sorry for this digression, but it's basically

a time of real contemplation for me.

Welcome to the program.

For an immediate summary judgment in one of your favors, can either of you name the piece of culture that I referenced as I entered the courtroom?

Candace, you have been brought to this court by initially it was your boyfriend, now fiancé.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

So you have the option to either guess first or make Weston guess first.

I will give it a guess.

I'm going to guess the culinary imagination.

The culinary imagination?

Is that I'm not familiar with that one, which isn't to say it's necessarily wrong.

Who is it by?

What is it?

It's by Sandra Gilbert.

It's a collection of essays about food and what we think about food.

Oh, all right.

Yeah, I could see how that might fit in there.

That's a valid guess, and I will put it into the guess book.

Weston, you have heard Candace's guess that may or may not have given you information.

Do you want to guess something else or the same thing?

I will guess Julia Child.

Julia Child, any particular work of Julia Childs?

What are the big ones?

The something, something French cooking?

How to bone a duck.

How to bone a duck?

The spider that could talk and write in webs?

Or just all the works of Julia Child?

All the works of Julia Child.

I'll allow it because all guesses are wrong.

I'm sorry for you all.

That is, it's, you know, you were not wrong.

I guess a culinary-related reference is this is a Thanksgiving-themed episode in the Judge John Hodgman courtroom, but you

were still wrong, even though you were not wrong.

I was searching through movies that take place during Thanksgiving,

and to my surprise, one of my favorite movies takes place at Thanksgiving, and I had forgotten this.

It is a made-for-television movie from 1996 or 7

based on a novel.

The movie is called Dean Kuntz's Intensity.

The quote that I'm giving you is not regarding

the intensity of one's palate and appetite appetite for life, but rather

one's appetite for death and murder, because it describes the philosophy of Edgler Vess, a murderer who torments the hero of the book.

I won't tell you who wins.

Usually the hero does.

The movie was fantastic, and

the bad guy was played by the great actor John C.

McGinley long before he was on Scrubs.

And boy, oh boy, this was, I'd never seen it, it was a two-part television movie on Fox, I think.

And I'd never seen anything like it on television.

I don't know if it's available on DVD.

Maybe that's why I've never seen it since then.

Maybe it's terrible and I remember it poorly, but it was truly terrifying.

John C.

McGinley was so scary in this thing.

And the best part of it is when you realize,

when he has the heroine trapped,

imprisoned in his house, and it looks like he's going to win.

And he realizes he has to take the day to figure out what he's going to do with her.

So he calls in sick to work, and you just hear his side of the conversation.

And he's talking to some coworker of his.

Let's say his name is Joel Mann.

And he goes, Thanks, Joel.

I'm really glad you understand me.

And he hangs up the phone and just into the air, he just goes, Great guy.

It's my favorite and scariest thing I've ever seen in the movies because he's such a cheery dude to his coworker.

And now he's going to do something mean.

I was looking for, there are quotes from the movie available online, but they were all much, much too horrifying to read on a family-friendly podcast.

And let me make sure that you know, children out there who are listening, driving cars as we speak, that this is not a movie for you.

Your parents should watch it.

When you drive your parents home tonight, wake them up and tell them to watch Intensity if it's available online.

I ended up quoting from the book.

I don't know if the thing

that I quoted is actually from the movie.

So there you go.

That's the Judge Sean Hodgman recommendation for this week, a probably out-of-print TV movie from 1996 starring John C.

McGinley.

Probably just by context, I've spoiled the whole plot for you.

But in any case, go look at it if you can or read the book if you can.

The book's pretty good too.

So we have to proceed with this case that revolves not around

a murderous Thanksgiving, but a friendly Thanksgiving, Friendsgiving.

Candace,

you host and have hosted for a period of time an annual fall-time harvest celebration,

an alternate Thanksgiving that you call Friendsgiving for your friends.

Is that correct?

That's correct.

And to be clear, this falls around American Thanksgiving or Canadian Thanksgiving?

That would be American Thanksgiving.

Or I should say United Statesian Thanksgiving.

Yes.

Do you know when Canadian Thanksgiving is?

Never.

What?

Joel, do you know?

Do they have one?

Joel doesn't know.

I'm going to give the case to Weston right now if he can tell me what day Canadian Thanksgiving falls on in 2016 without using your cell phone or anything.

Weston, what do you guess?

Is it Boxing Day and it falls on the same day, November 25th?

No.

It's October 10th, you guys.

Canadian Thanksgiving is right around the corner.

You should be, I'm surprised you haven't seen your Canadian Thanksgiving decorations in your local drugstores.

But there you go.

So this is actually, this is a,

for our many Canadian listeners, you may consider this to be my Thanksgiving to you because this will be coming out closer, much closer to Canadian Thanksgiving than American.

And what's the difference between Canadian Thanksgiving and United States in Thanksgiving?

Monty, do you know?

They have Canadian bacon on their turkey as opposed to American bacon.

Maybe so, but basically the only difference is different day, different day in the fall, different date.

Still pilgrims and things like like that?

No, it's more general, you know, it's a general harvest.

I think that the original Canadian Thanksgiving was honoring a similar feast after the exploration of the St.

Lawrence River.

But, you know,

my Wikipedia research on that subject was very haphazard this morning.

The Canadians do something, though, based on all of the internet resources I've found that I find to be quite admirable.

First of all, the long weekend is, it's a shorter long weekend because it's always held the second Monday in October, is the Canadian Thanksgiving.

But they will eat their turkey dinner any one of those days, Monday, Sunday, Saturday, whatever they like.

They're not tied the way we are to the worst possible day to eat Thanksgiving dinner, which is the Thursday.

Because that's the day you just, it's your first day off.

You've barely had two seconds to rub together before you're already making sausage stuffing or you're traveling to that.

Forget it, you guys.

Everyone, i order everyone and within the sound of my voice who celebrates the united states in thanksgiving to have your thanksgiving dinner on friday and if your family don't like it good

because

you just tell them i'm not coming to thanksgiving i'm gonna have thanksgiving with my friends candace style candace how long has this tradition been going on So we've done it four times over the past five years.

I hosted the first year, Weston Hope hosted the second year, and then we hosted two years as a couple.

Now, were you a couple when this began?

No.

And now you're engaged, but you were obviously friends.

And then

like friends giving one or friends giving two, maybe you had a little extra brandy at the end of the night and ended up falling down together on the bed where everyone had thrown their coats.

Something like that.

Of all the meat cutes that I've heard on the Judge John Odgman podcast, this is shaping up to be the cutest.

And if it doesn't end up being the cutest, I'm going to be mightily disappointed.

And it involves actual meat.

That's right.

Wow.

You almost got me to go along with that omin pun.

No, Monty.

No.

Weston, where do you guys live?

I live in San Jose, California.

Candace lives in San Francisco, California.

Oh, so you do not cohabitate?

No, we do not.

So first Friendsgiving was at Candace's in San Francisco?

No, we started it as a tradition when we were students at UC Davis.

So it was in college that this started.

So for those sad souls in the audience who have only ever eaten Thanksgiving with their extended family, which is a bore.

No offense, by the way, to my extended family.

I love all.

Tell the people what friendsgiving is and how it got started in your life, Candace.

Well, so it started my, it was at my junior year of college.

We had, you know, everybody had kind of set up a life away from their families and we wanted to get together and do some sort of a fall celebration that just, yeah, celebrated who we were as a group.

So I suggested that I host a friendsgiving where I cook a turkey and usually provide one to two sides.

And then everybody else brings

drinks, side dishes, cups, plate, et cetera.

Yeah.

This is a situation where a bunch of young people, for whatever reason, get together and host an alternate feast.

These are young people who typically have

no experience hosting large dinner parties or cooking a turkey, which is one of the most notoriously difficult things to cook correctly.

And they all sit around together and have a good time, uh, not having to listen to their racist, drunken uncle talk, but instead uh talking about things that matter to them, like uh, I don't know what kids are into these days, jalapis.

And they eat a bunch of raw turkey and get salmonella and die.

It's fantastic.

Uh, when they don't get salmonella, it's even better.

But let me understand this: are you saying that friendsgiving came up out of necessity because you guys couldn't

get back to your homes for Thanksgiving?

Or was it a repudiation of your families?

I don't know if it was to get away from our families.

I think it was just to kind of celebrate who we were as a group and to, I don't know, maybe start getting used to hosting these kind of things in a way.

It was always held on a day not Thanksgiving.

So it was either before or after so that we could all get together and celebrate.

Some of us went home to families, some of us didn't.

So it kind of helped everyone.

So it was not a repudiation of your families?

No.

No.

But this is what the thing is about.

Weston, you don't want, even though Friendsgiving has been going on for four years, you guys were friends when it started.

Now you're engaged.

It's a big part of your life, but you want it to end.

For this year, I don't want it to end.

I just don't think that Candace and I should be the ones to host it.

Why?

Because we have hosted it for the past four out of five years, and I think it's time for one of our friends to take up the mantle and to host it, and so kind of have a new experience with it.

And Candace and I would not be on the hook for hosting it every year from now until

the end.

Do you feel that your friends are deadbeats who've been taking advantage of Candace and you?

A couple, but

for the most part, no, I don't think they're deadbeats.

Quick follow-up question.

The Deadbeats, what are their names?

I'd rather not say their names.

Well, I'm afraid you're going to have to.

I'm compelling you, or I'm going to hold you in contempt of fake court.

Just their first names, please.

You think they don't know who they are?

You think they're going to listen to this podcast and suddenly realize they're deadbeats?

They know.

They know.

It's time for the public shaming to begin.

Candace.

Yes.

What are the names of your deadbeat friends?

First names only.

Now, see, here is what's interesting about that.

I don't think any of our friends are deadbeats.

I think Weston was lying and using that to further his argument.

I don't think there are any deadbeat friends.

Everybody has always shown up with a side dish, ready to clean up afterwards.

I don't know what he's talking about.

Candace, Weston feels that you guys have been, quote, and this is an accurate quote, on the hook, end quote, for hosting Friendsgiving for four years running.

Do you feel quote on the hook end quote?

So,

well, hosting Friendsgiving brings me joy and I feel like I've been getting better at it year after year.

And I entertain a lot, just a lot during the year.

So

I feel comfortable doing it.

And that doesn't make me feel on the hook for it.

And I would also like to add that

because we could be moving away next fall, this would be the last opportunity that we would get to host Friendsgiving for a while.

Aha.

Joel and Monty.

Yes.

Yes, Judge.

You know what?

This is called an internet court?

No.

It's called a plot twist.

New information.

This may be the last friends giving for the foreseeable future.

Weston, where are you moving?

Well, we don't know exactly where.

I'm applying for grad schools, as is Candace

or looking at PhD programs.

So we're expected to move in the fall, next fall.

Okay.

Let me understand where you are in your life and studies.

Candace, you are currently a graduate student.

Where and in what field?

I'm getting my master's in English literature at SF State,

San Francisco State.

Right.

And

what area of English literature are you most interested in?

Is it English romantic landscape poetry?

No, I'm actually currently studying the depiction of madness in early modern drama.

Oh, fantastic.

Like,

what drama are we talking about?

Right now I'm working mostly with Shakespeare,

but I'm trying.

Yes.

Not Hamilton.

No.

I'm starting with Shakespeare, but I'm also looking at the Duchess of Malfi, and I might end up using the Arden of Faversham, but I'm not sure.

Is Shakespeare early modern drama?

Yes.

Don't chuckle when the litigant is answering guests.

Funtime, summertime.

By the way, way, a maniacal chuckle.

I'm studying madness over WRSI next.

I apologize for my guest bailiff.

Well, that's okay.

Does Shakespeare qualify as

early modern drama?

It does.

It certainly does.

Well, I learned something.

Weston, you're also learning things.

You're applying to graduate school.

In what field?

I'm looking at a master's in public policy or administration.

With an eye towards doing what with that in the future?

Work for the government or some level of government, local state.

Okay, you're going to become a government assassin, apparently.

Secretive.

I like it.

You won't give up your friends' names.

You're going to work for an unspecified government agency doing secret things.

By the way,

do you like me grilling you and questioning your life choices in this way?

Because that's what Thanksgiving with family is like.

What are you going to do with that exactly?

How's that going to be helpful?

Is Shakespeare really early modern drama?

I'm not so sure.

Pass the wine.

So the idea, Weston, is

you're applying for this master's in public policy.

You will move.

And then will Candace move with you?

Will you be done your studies by the time you move, Candace?

Yes, I will.

I'll be completing my thesis in the spring and I'll graduate.

Oh, well done.

So if I understand correctly, you're going to ideally be applying for your PhD

somewhere in the same vicinity as, or maybe even the same university as Weston's master's program?

I'm not 100% sure.

It's kind of up in the air right now whether or not I choose to do that.

It's really difficult to get into a PhD program before completing a thesis.

So

that's just kind of up in the air too.

So the plan is that where Weston goes, you will follow for now?

That is the plan.

So at Weston,

you guys are going to be moving to some other college town.

By the way, my favorite college town?

Collegetown, Pennsylvania.

Did you know it existed?

Yeah, it's a good one.

There's no school there.

That's the weird part.

But it is a lot of used record stores and hemp clothing.

Weston, you're going to move anyway.

This is probably the last Friendsgiving you're going to have because you're going to move to some other part of the country.

And within 35 seconds, you're going to forget about all these so-called friends while you make a new life for yourself in college town, Pennsylvania, or whatever.

Why not just let one more come and go?

You know,

number one, I think I wouldn't assume that's going to be the last Friendsgiving.

And whether it's friends giving hosted by us or hosted by someone else, I think that

it's going to happen one way or another, but not by us.

So I don't think it'll be the last one.

No way, Weskin.

Nope.

Nope.

Wrong.

The minute you move, these friends are going to be received.

They're going to be so far in the rearview mirror, you won't even remember their names.

You don't remember their names now.

Tell me one of their names.

I bet you can't.

Stephen is one of their names.

Steven!

That's the deadbeat, Joel.

Mark it down.

Stephen's one of the deadbeats.

I'll get you to name the other two deadbeats before it's over.

And Stephen, you know what you did.

Stephen.

Candace, what is your argument for hosting Friendsgiving at least one more time?

Okay, so I have enough space in my current home.

I have a great kitchen.

As I said earlier, I've gotten much better at hosting.

I am really good at cooking a turkey.

And a lot of the stress-related incidents that have happened in the past, I have figured out a way how to fix all of them.

Pause there.

I have two follow-up questions.

One of them is for Weston.

And I have a feeling you were about to go into it.

Tell me about a stress-related incident.

or a stressful incident.

There was a stressful incident at the last one, so it's not a completely comfortable situation to host one of these.

I can't remember the exact details, but we were cooking, we did four chickens and a duck that year.

I'm going to hope that they were all stuffed inside of each other.

No.

It was a chicka, chicka, chicka, chicka, duckin.

I wish.

All right, four chickens and a duck and what happened?

So we have different, very different cooking styles.

I am more, I like to improvise more.

Candace likes to follow a recipe very closely.

And at one point, I wanted to improvise.

I believe it is on the chickens.

It's gravy.

It was on the gravy, right?

The gravy.

Yeah.

Oh, sure.

There's nothing easier to freestyle than gravy.

That in no way relies on

very specific proportions of ingredients.

That's just something you just throw together.

Jazz style.

How did you jazz up the gravy?

So I like to add flour and milk to it in order to change the consistency as it's stirring.

Whereas Candice wants it finally measured out and mixed together.

And there was an incident.

Tell me more about the incident.

I mean,

I don't even know what to say to your

adding milk to your gravy, but.

Okay, well, I, you know, I had prepared four of the chickens and I was just like trying to stay calm and in my groove.

And then Weston and I started arguing about the gravy, and then I yelled at him and I left.

Not the house, but I left the room.

Weston, if you were to do a role play,

imitate Candice yelling at you about the gravy.

Oh, I don't think I'd be able to do it.

I want to hear what it sounded like to you.

All right.

Weston.

And then that was pretty much it.

That was it.

And then walked away.

So really, I just don't want to be yelled at again.

She didn't yell, what the duck, Dizzy Gillespie?

This is gravy, gravy, not bebop.

That was a great pun.

I know you like that, Monty.

You got to be hearing Joel Mann jazz bassist chuckling at that one.

That was good.

What is it, Joe Bird and the Field Tippies?

Yeah, but that's not jazz.

No, no, I know, but I'm just really happy I finally remembered it.

Have you heard it?

No.

Okay.

No, I don't believe it exists.

So, how did the gravy, how did Milky Gravy turn out?

I think it was fine.

Milk and gravy.

Whole milk?

I think we used cream.

There's no we.

We didn't grow grease.

I used

heavy cream, I believe, if I'm remembering correctly.

I've never heard of such a thing.

Where did you learn this technique?

I'm not saying I'm a gravy wizard.

I remember from watching my grandfather make gravy

when I was younger.

Granddad gravy.

Candace, do you agree that creamy gravy turned out pretty good?

Creamy jazz gravy?

Yeah, it was good.

It was good.

There was no reason for me to totally freak out, but people were piling in and there were too many chickens.

But I have a solution for that that I would like to get to at some point.

No, this is the point.

Okay, all right.

So this is my, this is how I envision the Friends Giving this year to go.

And I like, I've taken into account everything that made last year so difficult.

And And okay, so I'm hoping to keep it between 10 and 15 people.

Wait a minute.

What happened?

What happened last year?

Was last year the worst Friendsgiving ever?

No, no, it was

fun, but we had too many, we had too many people.

And,

well, okay, basically, we had to hold Friendsgiving after Thanksgiving last year, which was the first time we had held it in December.

And so I had a dip, I had difficulty finding a turkey.

And I called a

certain supermarket that's known for being quite pricey.

And I asked them if they had any turkeys that weren't frozen.

And they told me yes.

So I went to go pick up the turkey the day of.

And then they told me that, oh, our turkeys are never frozen.

They're flash.

chilled or something weird like that.

So I couldn't get the turkey at the time I meant to.

So then we had to get four chickens and a duck to feed, I don't know how many people we had, Weston.

20, 25.

20, 25.

Yeah, I don't know.

So

prepping the four chickens was way too much work, and it's way less work if I just have one turkey.

So I'm going to buy the turkey ahead of time.

keep it frozen, thaw it, you know, when I need to.

And if I only do the turkey, it's like I have one roasting pan, two cutting boards and knives to clean.

And so that's nothing.

And then I'm thinking about hosting it earlier in the day so that people can come over and it can be just relaxed, and people will get out at a reasonable hour and I'll have time to clean.

What time did you serve your chicka chicka chicka duckin last year?

Probably like 6 p.m.

Which is a little too late because then people eat and they hang out to drink and then, yeah, we can't get the cleaning done before we go to bed.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know the best time of day to serve

Thanksgiving dinner?

In the morning?

Tomorrow.

Whatever day it is, tomorrow.

Let's not do it.

But

it sounds like you want to do it.

Weston,

you are convinced that you're going to remain friends with these people.

What are your ages?

We're both 25.

Right.

You're convinced you're going to remain friends with these people and this tradition is going to survive your move.

Maybe that's true.

Maybe it's not.

I don't know.

But at the very least, it's likely that Friendsgiving will be compromised

next year.

So what possible reason can you offer me to order

your fiancée, your betrothed, your beloved

to not have one more shot at cooking a turkey this time properly?

Because clearly, she's into it and she's taking pleasure from it.

Number one, it always ends up being more stressful than we think it's going to be every year.

There are always X factors that we don't foresee that occur.

There's also scheduling with all of our friends.

There is finding space for them to crash at one of our places.

There is figuring out the seating, the tables.

moving those things probably from San Jose up to San Francisco if we did it at her house.

So there's a lot more that goes into hosting than just cooking the turkey.

Well, wait a minute.

Yeah, I mean, it's a huge, huge, huge puzzle to put together any dinner party of that size.

And it's not only that, it's an optional puzzle.

You don't have to do it.

But clearly, some people take pleasure in solving that puzzle.

And sometimes it takes years and years and years to solve the puzzle.

Why?

Is there anything that you like about it?

Yes, I like seeing all of our friends together.

Okay.

Okay.

But I don't think that we need to host in order to do that.

Did you see any of the evidence?

I did.

You sent in some photographs.

I just want you to notice the pure joy on Weston's face in most of those photographs.

So you have sent in photos, Friendsgiving 2011, 2014,

1 and two.

2011 was the first one?

Yes, it was the first one.

And in this photo of

all of you gathered around this table with candles and pies and

things being served out of giant Pyrex measuring cups, really great early 20s dinner party style.

Which one is you and which one is Weston?

It's kind of hard to tell in that one, but I'm the one at the like center of the table.

There's three, like there are three girls in the back, and I'm the one in the center.

Yeah, that's right.

Place of prominent pride.

And obviously all these photos we posted on the website, but is that Weston sitting down there?

You got your hand draped over him?

It's not.

No, it's not.

Who's that?

Ex-boyfriend?

No, no, it's not.

That's our friend John.

So where's Weston?

Because at this point, you guys weren't even dating, right?

No, we weren't.

Weston is on the far left in the front.

He has kind of a shadow on his face.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

He's half shadow, half light, just like his soul.

He's enjoying himself and thinking about how terrible it is at the same time.

And who's this dude in the scarf who's doing a, who's doing a John Hodgman impression?

I thought the same thing.

Yeah, yeah, that's our friend John.

Yeah.

He's doing

a 2008 John Hodgman impression.

Let me ask you a question.

Did he ever go for Halloween as PC from those Mac ads?

I don't know, but I have a feeling he will this year.

I bet you.

I bet you he did.

So you also send in pictures from a few years later, 2014.

This is not the worst Friendsgiving ever, right?

Because 2015 was the last one.

I see a turkey here, so this is obviously not the one you messed up with your duck, duck, goose game or whatever.

It was not.

What am I supposed to be taking from this one?

That, look how much fun Weston's having.

He's wearing a pilgrim hat and carving a turkey.

Oh, yeah.

That's you in the pilgrim hat, Weston.

Yes, it is.

Boy, for a stick in the mud, you do seem to have a good sense of humor.

I do like to have fun.

See, what I notice here is there are more decorations.

There's some orange and yellow cray paper

decorations on the wall.

And now you've got a whole second table.

Clearly, the crowd has grown.

You've made new friends.

or hired some rent of friends to flesh out your friends giving.

These are all your friends, and you're still serving directly out of pots.

That's fine.

You're still in your 20s.

But it does seem to be a much more ambitious dinner, 2014.

Did it get bigger or smaller by 2015?

Bigger.

Bigger.

But I want to go back.

I want to go back.

How are you going to

what's your criteria for cutting off friends?

and disinviting them because obviously Stephen's out because he's a deadpeat.

He is not a dead peat.

Sure he is.

What did he bring to the last one?

Toothpicks?

No, no, he brought, what did he bring?

Did he bring yams?

Yams?

He does candied yams.

Yeah, he brought marshmallows.

Stephen, I knew I didn't like this guy.

Candied yams with marshmallows.

Apologies to all my friends in the Midwest who eat candy yams and marshmallow every year.

It's not my style.

All right.

Candace, I'm going to ask you some questions,

and I need you to answer quickly and honestly before I go into my chambers, this will be a deciding factor.

Okay.

Do you stuff the turkey before cooking it or cook the stuffing separately?

Cook the stuffing separately.

What kind of stuffing?

If somebody else brings it every year, it's up to them.

Is it Stephen with with his candy yam stuffing?

No, it's not.

How do you cook your turkey?

I have butter that I mix with fresh herbs.

I stuff it with apples and carrots and or I put apples and carrots and onions and lemons around it.

And yeah, I melt the butter and I rub it all over the skin and inside the cavity, salt and pepper the cavity, tent it with aluminum foil and put it in the oven.

And then I have a thermometer that reaches outside of the oven and tells me when the internal temperature is at least 165, which I believe is the right temperature to cook a turkey without giving anybody food poisoning.

And do you cover it with tinfoil?

Yes, I cover it with tinfoil.

Yeah.

Just tent it all the way inside the roasting pan.

The whole bird?

Yeah.

I just cover it so that all the moisture stays in.

Not like the whole bird.

I just make like a tent of foil.

Uh-huh.

Uh-huh.

Okay.

And

how did it come out two years ago, the last time you carved a turkey in a pilgrim hat, Weston?

Was the turkey cooked through and good?

It was.

It was flawless.

I don't know if it's flawless.

I would say flawless.

Do you?

Wait, Weston, did you say you wouldn't say flawless?

I wouldn't say flawless.

No.

Okay.

So here's what you got to do.

If you want a chance of winning this thing,

you got to name the flaw in the turkey

or at least one more deadbeat friend name

I'm not even gonna go in chambers if you don't if you don't do one of those

the breast meat was a little dry

all right it was not perfectly moist I think I've heard everything I need to

I think I've heard everything I need to Wession

I'm saving you from yourself now

I'm going to I'm going I'm going I'm going to go into my Canadian Thanksgiving hut which is a tradition of Canadian thanksgiving and i'm going to eat some candied yams and can contemplate and i'll be back in a moment with my decision

please rise as judge john hodgman exits the courtroom for candace's sake i guess maybe pursued by a bear or a chicka chicka chicka duckin

uh weston could friendsgiving be something you would be into if you just did not include all of the traditional american thanksgiving foods

no no well no I think it really needs to be the traditional American foods.

You want to keep doing that or you would rather just scrap the whole idea of Frank's Giving?

No, I don't want to scrap it.

I would rather do that.

But you're open to doing it without traditional American Thanksgiving foods, with other types of foods?

Yeah.

Yeah, actually, I would.

I mean, we've already done chicken and duck.

which is a little different than the traditional turkey.

Or

take out Chinese or something like that.

That would be solo low maintenance, but you would still see all the same people.

True.

Well, we could do pulled pork, which we recently did for a group of about 25, and that was easy.

I don't really want to do that again.

Well, that was easy.

And you sprung that on me last minute.

Look, don't fight without the judge in the courtroom, please.

One question for you.

One question for you, Candace.

Are you still friends with the John Hodgman imposter, who I'll call non-Hodgman?

Yes, we are still friends.

We'll be right back with the judge's decision on on the Judge John Hodgman podcast after the break.

Hello, I'm your Judge John Hodgman.

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Please rise as Judge John Hodgman re-enters the courtroom.

So I've been pretty sour on the topic of Thanksgiving, specifically traditional go and see your family Thanksgiving.

And part of that has to do with the fact that I am not 25 years old.

When I was 25, Thanksgiving was great because I would come back, well, I would go back home to Commonwealth of Massachusetts and someone would make dinner for me.

And if I even brought my plate to the sink, I was considered to be a hero.

And then I would just go and take a nap.

And somewhere, someone would be watching sports.

And in my napping state, I would be judging them silently, enjoying the greatest nap of all time, the judgmental nap that I enjoyed so very much.

And even the challenge of seeing some of my family, which, you know, family relationships ebb and flow, positive to negative, people change over time, et cetera, et cetera.

was

offset by the fact that I was going to eat a whole bunch of turkey skin and mashed potatoes.

And that was great.

Things change and you get older, and suddenly you're the one hosting this thing.

And you're like, oh, wait a minute.

I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to buy all these presents for my kids and family for Christmas that's coming up or whatever holiday you might celebrate, Hail Satan.

And all of a sudden, I have to have this mandatory Christmas rehearsal, this mandatory 15-person, 20-person sit-down thing on a Thursday afternoon when I haven't even had a second to prepare for it because I was working until all of Wednesday night or whatever at my jobs.

It's no good.

I'm not a fan of Thanksgiving now.

You know, as I mentioned before, a dinner party is a puzzle that some people take pleasure in and some people do not.

And I take pleasure in it from time to time, but I don't need to be doing one jigsaw puzzle on November 27th and another huge jigsaw puzzle a month later.

I celebrate Christmas, as you can, if you can't tell, but you understand my point.

And

then again,

so I have a lot of anger at Thanksgiving.

And the one time that I really enjoyed it was the year that we just said to our beloved family members, parents and whatnot,

you're on your own.

You dead beats.

Go hang out with Stephen.

Don't come to my house and eat my food.

Stay home.

We'll see you at Christmas.

I'm going to have dinner with my friends.

And we all got together and we had a Friendsgiving.

And it was the greatest holiday of all time.

I loved it.

So you can tell that I am in favor of this tradition because

not only is it a moment of communion

with your friends, stranded as they are in their various masters and PhD programs from their own families all around the world.

And it is thus an act of generosity

for which I trust and hope that they do give thanks, even if they're deadbeats like Stephen.

But also because it gives you very, very, very important grown-up training

on how to cook a turkey, on how to host a party, on how to manage the small-scale theater that entertaining is,

while also learning how to manage it behind the scenes, backstage at that theater, not yelling at each other.

And even if you learn that you don't like throwing dinner parties, that is worth learning when you're 25 rather than when you have to invite all your family over.

And it's like, let's say it's the first Thanksgiving after maybe you got married, if you could imagine such a thing.

And your in-laws are coming to dinner and you're like, I'm going to cook a turkey.

And then the store goes, Guess what?

We flash froze it.

Tough luck.

Go get some ducks.

Yeah, you learn to prepare and think ahead.

And that's valuable.

All of that's valuable.

All of the lesson that you've been having is valuable.

And insofar as one is still getting pleasure from solving that puzzle, I see no reason

why

Weston's desire

to begin his marriage by denying his bride pleasure should stand.

I can't.

No argument has been given.

And so obviously,

I am going to find for this year

in Candace's favor.

If only

because

you're about to move and who knows what the tradition will become next year and if it'll even be upheld.

And also, because

you so thoroughly messed up last year's Friendsgiving.

No offense.

I know.

Candace needs to make good at that before she gets married to you, Weston.

She needs to make good on her failure and move on with her life.

And as well,

because I want

Weston to make that weird cream gravy again.

Old granddaddy jazz gravy.

The jazz gravy of his granddaddy.

and

limit himself to that one thing.

Because, Candace, if I'm going to find in your favor, I hope you'll be happy.

I hope I'll be invited.

I'm not going to come, but I better be invited.

Maybe I'll come.

But you have to learn now that this is not Weston's cup of cream gravy.

He doesn't like it.

And if you're going to do this, it's going to be on you.

You have to host, make, do all, everything.

He will make the cream gravy and you won't yell at him and that'll be it for him.

That will either teach you that you really love solving this puzzle or you'll never want to do it again.

I also order you.

to immediately go to your local bookstore and buy any book by friend of the court Alton Brown about the roasting of turkey

because

your breast meat will be dry

if you cook it the way you cook it.

The dark meat cooks slower than the light, the breast meat, what we call the white meat.

I don't want to be turkey racist.

And there are some tips and techniques you can do to make sure that the breast meat does not overcook.

And I don't know what you're doing with that tin foil.

I don't know where you picked that up.

Maybe you have an eccentric granddaddy in your own past who cover up the whole bird with...

How do you get the skin crisp?

I don't even know.

No, no.

No,

you said what you said, and you know what you said.

Anyway, you need to go and

bone up,

so to speak, on Alton Brown.

He's the one who taught me how to cook a turkey.

I should have remembered it to teach you, but everyone can go out.

I still have his original book, I'm Just Here for the Food, but I'm sure he's updated a million times.

I'm sure it's on his website.

Go check it out.

It involves strategic placement of tinfoil over the breast, and you can also get into all kinds of rotating things.

There are all kinds of tips and tricks you can do.

I order you to

cook one rehearsal turkey before you cook the next one,

at least.

And I order you to invite

all of your friends, not fewer, because you can't be mean at Thanksgiving.

And this may be the last one.

So this has got to be the best Friendsgiving ever.

And I order you to hold it on

October 10th, Canadian Thanksgiving Day.

And you have to serve a side of Monte Belmonte-style Canadian bacon.

This is the sound of a gavel.

Judge Sean Hodgman rules that is all.

Well, it looks like Friendsgiving 2016 is happening.

Weston, are you excited to make your cream gravy and then just freeload like Steve for the rest of the evening?

I am.

I am excited.

I'm going to make my gravy and then I can sit down and have a beer and

that'll be all.

You can buckle that pilgrim hat back on and kick back and take a nap like Hodgman on Thanksgiving.

Let me just jump in for a second.

And I should say, Candace, I'm not saying you have to do this single-handedly.

You may want to recruit one or two friends.

Maybe Stephen can finally prove his worth.

One or two friends, one or two helper friends who are willing to be helpful and accept your authority and your direction rather than a fiancé who thinks he knows how to do everything right and will just get in your way.

Okay.

Judge, I don't know if I can pay for two turkeys.

What?

You're not making a bunch of money studying madness and early modern,

ancient modern drama or whatever it is.

I'm a part-time writing, reading, and study skills tutor.

Honey, I will buy you a second turkey.

Okay.

Yeah.

Weston, you buy one turkey.

The podcast buys the other one.

Okay.

I'll buy the rehearsal turkey.

Weston, you buy the real thing.

Okay.

Well, I hope you'll invite the real John Hodgman and Non-Hodgman to this Thanksgiving.

And thank you both, both Candace and Weston for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

You know, we've been doing my brother, my brother, me for 15 years.

And

maybe you stopped listening for a while.

Maybe you never listened.

And you're probably assuming three white guys talking for 15 years.

I know where this has ended up.

But no.

No, you would be wrong.

We're as shocked as you are that we have not fallen into some sort of horrific scandal or just turned into a big crypto thing.

Yeah, you don't even really know how crypto works.

The only NFTs I'm into are naughty, funny things, which is what we talk about on my brother, my brother, and me.

We serve it up every Monday for you if you're listening.

And if not, we just leave it out back and goes rotten.

So check it out on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts.

All right, we're over 70 episodes into our show.

Let's learn everything.

So let's do a quick progress check.

Have we learned about quantum physics?

Yes, episode 59.

We haven't learned about the history of gossip yet, have we?

Yes, we have.

Same episode, actually.

Have we talked to Tom Scott about his love of roller coasters?

Episode 64.

So how close are we to learning everything?

Bad news.

We still haven't learned everything yet.

Oh, we're ruined.

No, no, no, it's good news as well.

There is still a lot to learn.

Woo!

I'm Dr.

Ella Hubber.

I'm regular Tom Lawrence.

I'm Caroline Roper, and on Let's Learn Everything, we learn about science and a bit of everything else too.

And although we haven't learned everything yet, I've got a pretty good feeling about this next episode.

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

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

If you'd like to submit a case to the Judge John Hodgman podcast, you can do so at maximumfund.org slash jjho.

If you want to email us, it's hodgman at maximumfund.org.

Thank you to Kimberly Mayhall for naming this week's episode Feast and Desist.

Our engineers this week are Joel Mann at WERU in in Blue Hill, Maine.

Thanks, Joel.

John Abrew at Red Eye Recording Studios in San Jose, California, and Christian Duenas at Maximum Fun.

Thanks, you guys.

Our producer is Jennifer Marmer.

I'm Monty Belmonte from WRSI 939 the River in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Thanks for listening to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

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