Food Quality and Cultural Differences

Hello Hi, welcome to Josh Thomas Em Friends. This week we're talking about America, not politics, not because I don't care about American politics. I'm absolutely obsessed with them . But I just think there is more to that country than who their leader is. For example , do Americ ans know that their chocolate tastes like vomit ? Like if you ask any tourists what Hershey's chocolate tastes like the first word they're gonna say is vomit and I wonder if Americans know this fact that it's literally because Hershey's purpose ly makes the chocolate taste like vomit because in the olden days before refrigerated shipping , the way they would keep their milk fresh to turn into chocolate is they'd take stomach bile and put it in the milk . And now they have refrigerated shipping, but Americans have grown up with this chocolate that tastes like stomach bile and they need that taste of bile because that's like nostalgic to them because the little bit of bile in their chocolate reminds them of going on vacation with their daddy and going camping and heating up a marshmallow over the fire and then putting it between some biscuits with a little bit of chocolate that tastes a little bit like bile . And her shees now can't delete the flavor of bile from the chocolate because if they delete the flavor of bile, then they've deleted the memories of your father . And to any drourist it's the most shocking it's the most shocking twist. The first harsh kiss you ever have, you never forget that moment. It literally tastes like vomit . This week we're talking to my friend Lalli Katz. She's American A anustralian split. I'm Australian. I moved to America and lived there for eight years and we're gonna talk about what it's like in America . Hey Lally Katz. Hi, Josh Th,omas . What a lovely sweater . Oh, thank you. I think you look really nice as well. I don't know. I feel like I was well , I feel like maybe richer colors are more of my color and as I've been told and then, I've been wearing these pastels for years and I wonder if it was a mistake. No, but you have to be in pastel because of spirit . Because of spirit. Yeah. Yeah, because of who you are. This week we're talking about America, but we're not talking about politics what else could anybody add? There's been enough discourse about American politics. Of course . And one of the toughest things, one of the things I feel very sorry for people in America about on a personal level, my friends and stuff there is how much they get defined by politics and how much everyone around the world is talking about their government, but there's more Americans than their government, isn't there? For sure, just like any country. America gets so defined by it . And I think Americans define themselves by it quite often too. Yeah, it's really in their lives. In Australia, we're never talking about with the Prime Minister. Not much, huh? Can Leslie do something so weird? Like they have to do something so crazy for us to bring them up at lunch . Any politician , but America , even before Trump, even like with Obama and everything, people are just like and the elections are like so dominating. They're like this giant year long , completely dominating experience. There's the warmup elections. It's like it's like yeah the primaries and then full it's like a full sports round semi final quarterfinal semi final final which goes for ever and ever and ever and ever people have to spend it's so much money to and it's so much money that they're spending to completely dominate your attention and it just it just does completely dominate the culture in this way that is exhausting. Yeah. You Australian or you American? I'm both . I'm a dark citizen. Where's your heart? Somewhere out in the Pacific Hawaii. Hawaii actually is where my heart is here Pink hole you like to go to in Hawaii. It's truly where my heart is . Well, you grew up in Australia. Well, I'll take you back. I was born in New Jersey, Trenton, New Jersey . When I was three , we moved to Miami and then when I was like about eight, three quarters years old, we moved to Canberra , and then when I was eighteen, I moved to Melbourne . And then when I was thirty six, I moved back to the U. S. My dad found a job there. He'd doing computer stuff. It was this was nineteen eighty seven . And I think a lot of it was kind of easy if you were good at something to get a job in Australia, from this is what I don't know for what my parents have said back then . And if my dad was quite good at like whatever like this sort of like computer programming thing he did. And they heard Australia was nice and like we were living in Miami in like this little suburban cul ac but there were like three drug dealers in our cul ac and there was like a gun thing. And they're like, let's get out of here . But I feel like everyone I've ever met in Canberra also lives on the same block as a drug dealer and I don't know how to explain that. Crazily, we moved to Canberra and drugs everywhere and then like teen years, drugs, drugs, drugs. So they really should have just maybe kept with us in Miami. But our drug dealers are a bit cuter. No. Like' Dan OBrien. I mean, like the drug dealers in our neighborhood were pretty glamorous. One of them had a gold convertible . Really? Yeah , yeah, they were very glamorous. They really like trying to show everyone that they're a drug dealer. Yeah, I guess I don't know. Well, this was the eighties so it was like everything was a bit glitzier. Yeah. Yeah. Not anymore. What am I asking you about? America. Yes. Should we start with our complaints? Okay. The most surprising thing and that was annoying to me about America was the paper, just so much paper everywhere. I can't believe how often you have to print a form out and drive a form somewhere or someone will give you a bit of paper. The first time I got there and I realized they were still using checks. Someone wanted me to pay them. I had to go and get my checkbook. I felt like I was like, Are we in a play? What's going on here? They sincerely still doing it. And then you have to keep one of the hardest things for me is having to keep your registration insurance printed out in the glove box and I never have it updated. And if the police pull you over, the first thing you have to do in America in front of the American police is open your glove box, which just seems like so crazy like you have the internet. Can't you just like look up and up on the internet? And then they invented the internet , but I was shocked at how analog they are. It is shocking how anal and how often things are paid for by check. And that the other thing with the insurance is it's like it's not even for a full year. It's for six months . And then you have to change it over. I remember growing up watching all these sketches about the DMV, like the sloth in that movie. Nothing can prepare you for the reality of the DMV. I cried at the DMV twice. I queued up for six hours and I got to the front of the line and then she checked what papers I was supposed to bring all these things I supposed to have printed out. And she said, Oh, you're missing this form because you're from overseas. And I'm like, where on the website does it tell me to bring that form? And she's like, you just have to know to bring this . And it's also like something you can just look at. And can't you just like, she gives me the website to type in a number to see the form. It's like, can't they just type it up? Like look at it. She's like, no, you have to go home, print it out and bring it back. And then also having to bring that social security card, which is actually so important. They want to see the physical card and it's like a tiny little scrap of cardboard and it has a number of very, very weak actually. Limsy paper like this apparently is so vital to you. It's credit card size. You get one for your whole life. It's not even on as nice a card sock as an idea catalog. It's on like the lowest quality. When I got my social security card, I wrote the number down and then I threw it in the trash. And then I told my friends and everyone was like, No, no, no, no, no, no, no, that's like so precious. How is I supposed to know that's precious? What are the indicators on this social security card that it's precious? It looks like it's not as nice as a birthday card . Now, now there's no security features and but for some reason you have to take the physical card to show them. I mean, if you're thirty's they printed that out thirty years ago. There's eighty year olds there with an eighty year old bit of paper, that's a social security card. My social security number though, it's like, I know you don't believe in this, but it's all over the dark web. Like, I'm constantly getting alerts saying your details are all like, so I'd love to actually start again and get self if those alerts are scamming you or not. No different They're from my bank. F therom Dock Web what is the Dock Web? Like this idea of it being like a Dock Web is so I don't know . Like maybe I froze all my credit so they can't open accounts or so I'm not sure. I don't know what they're doing with it. That's the other weirdest thing about America is a credit score. The credit you have to have a credit card. I moved to America. I had to get a credit card. Someone who could get a credit score to live my life. You cannot live there without a credit card. Well, do you know what? I no longer have a credit score . I close all my credit cards . So I just can't borrow. You can't borrow money. But you couldn't rent a house, right? You own a house so that's okay. But if you wanted to rent a house they would look up your credit score and unless you have a credit card then you can't have a credit score. Like there's so many things that you can't do in America unless you have a credit card you're like into a corner because I've never had a credit card in my life in Australia because I don't dress myself with it . Yeah in. A Andmerica they're like, No, you have to, you have to have one . Yeah, you have to have . But I've got one now where it's like, it's not a credit card, but it's like you can use as a credit card, but it doesn't count towards my credit score. You got rid of your credit score because of the Dark Web? No, I got rid of all my credit cards because I couldn't I thought of them as money. I just thought of them as money and so I just kept falling into like massive debt all the time. And I was just like, You know what? I don't need this in my life. I don't need these cards. That's what's so crazy about it is ironically, if you've never had debt, then you have a bad credit score because you never got in the game. Yes. You have to borrow money to get your credit score. It's insane. And everyone's like, you're just gonna be smart about it. You borrow and you pay it off like straight away. It's a lot of chores, America. It's just a lot of chores. I'm tired, I'm busy. I don't want to be cast. I don't want to go to the DMV. The thought of going , if I couldn't imagine a reason why I'd ever go to Vic Roads here. They don't want me in there. They like stay home. I had to redo my driver's test when I got there as an adult, which was such a weird experience because you don't you don't used to as an adult doing a test or getting like honest feedback or getting a score. So I had to go and do the theory test and it's shocking how much, you know, like I know how to drive. I've never been a crash. I've got no I've got no fucking idea. I have not yeah what the rules are turns out and then I fail my driving test the first time. Did you do it in Hollywood? Yeah. The thing about me is I've never looked in the mirrors in my life. I've never looked in a rearvision mirror and I actually genuinely don't understand why I need to worry about what 's happening behind me. Do you know what? I was actually the best advice in my life I was ever given was by this woman who told me don't look in the rear of your vision mirror. Don't look. It's none of your business. It's none of my fucking business. It's not a good business. And all it does is stress you because there's cars like right up behind you. It's like, don't look behind. Don't look behind. That's up to them not to hit me. Yeah. They want you to look in that rearvision mirror every three secondss. It' ridiculous. Absolutely. It's actually not safe. You lose your balance . I don't think Don't you think you get a bit like your balance gets a bit funny when you're looking in the mirrors all the time. Absolutely. I would get in a crash if I looked in the mirror vision mirror. Yeah, absolutely. What about when I 'cause the paper's so hard, you know, I'm so disorganized. I'm always just like, my whole life , I'm just fucked. I didn't know I needed something and then I told that I did need it and then I'm going to get it and then I didn't have some other thing . And then what about what I had that camping trailer, the beautiful camping trailer , right? Like a whole gorgeous off road camping trailer. And one day they towed it and then it went to the it went to the impound lot and I went to the impound lot and they needed me to bring a bit of paper that I didn't have some like owners transferance bit of paper to go overseas and you have a seven day limit to get it to pick it up. And I can't get the bit of paper in seven days. So I was like, Oh, I guess you just have my trailer now. That was it. That was one of the biggest tragedies. I spent two days on it and you said to me, You just have to give up. You're never gonna get it. And if you just give up now, then it'll be less painful. And then I just let it go. Do you know what, though? That was my advice to you and I do stand by that advice because I do believe if you'd spent three weeks on it, you wouldn't have gotten the trailer back . But well so would have run out of time. You would have run out of time. Yeah, you would have yeah. So I stand by that advice, but whatever I've mentioned that to anyone, but my husband, Christian , still feels an immense amount of pain about you and that trailer. Oh, everybody does. It's agony. Also beautifully set up. Can you imagine all the little gorgeous cutery sets and the beautiful camping plates I had like a whole separate set of Japanese knives 'cause one of the things that I always find tough about camping is you have that shit knife. So I had like a really beautiful knife in there and all this like nice lin en and good pillows. I only ever went away in the dream three times. They wouldn't even let you have the stuff back from it. No, of course not. They're not saying like, Oh, why don't you just go through and get your stuff out of it? No . Ah, absolutely not. You know, it is painful, it is painful . But can I tell you this about food? When I was in Australia a few weeks ago, I got a real shock at the quality of the food and water compared to the quality of food and water here. And I was like, Oh my gosh , fish is completely different than I was thinking it was over the past few years and like meat and milk prawns. You go to where you get you got a salad and you add prawns and they're these like completely flavorless, giantly engorged, like so injected with water or something. E'verysthing so big, like the strawberries are so big. I'm always like, gotta scrub that cantalope because who knows Uncles they always have like listeria in the cosley. Yes . Yeah , stuff like that. Yeah, Japotle is close out of America all the time 'cause somebody put lisceria in the coslatus. No, but it doesn't get put in here. No , it's it's that it is genuinely like the inks have salmonella on them. That's the weirdest thing in Americ a. You can't eat raw eggs, but in Australia you can eat raw eggs and that is just the weirdest fucking thing . Why can't you eat their eggs raw? What are you guys doing to the eggs? Why don't you just not do that to the eggs? And then you don't have to worry about getting salmona from them so much. So they're so freaked out about salmonella. And the way they cook their chicken is always so, so overcooked. It's like you probably like it. This is how you would cook it. Oh, listen, I am eating chicken that you could snap in half. You know, I had chicken cappaccio recently . What's that again? Raw chicken . Are you insane? In Tokyo . Oh, would you have in it Japan? Would you have raw chicken in Japan? No , no, no, I had. I was young. I liked it. You liked it? Yeah, I'd have some right now. Did you like it raw or cooked better? Obviously you would prefer it cooked. The truth is I don't even really like the sheepy . I don't even eat that much . Really why? Texture cooked yet. I prefer most things really well done, even vegetables . Yeah . That's disgusting . I like broccoli . Very soft . Yeah . It reminds me of my grandma. Yeah. It makes me feel nostalgic, I think. The other real food thing that creeps me out of America is how comfortable they are with with unrefrigerated milk. And they call it creamer. And they're like , they just have creama in their life. You go to a hotel instead of milk they put creama, which is like it's like a dairy product maybe. I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is. Little capsules, isn't it? Like it's like those little peel off things. Sometimes there's little capsules but then like in the offices and stuff they'll have creamer. You know, Anthony, Alfred and Anthony, he has it in the house. Sometimes I go over to their house and they have creamer in the house. And I'm like, why are you guys having this like milk flavored liquid that's unrefrigerated and sometimes it's flavored, but they sort of like it. They like that . And I just find that it's not food. Like creamer, but I do like cream . Of course . That's exactly. Of course you like cream . Yeah , that's food. Creamer is like and you pour the creamer in and the way it swirls in the coffee disconcerting. Like it doesn't blend for a while. Do you know what I mean? It looks like sindly and then you stir it and then the coffee comes sort of gray . Yes. I find that really spooky and they're fine with it. Like they love processed cheese and I'm on their side with that. Did I say processed cheese is incredible and that is a great way to live, but not the milk. Should we move on to compliments about America? I think so. What do you like better about America? Look, I love both places . And when I so was in Australia recently, I thought, I wish I could live two lives at the same time or maybe more in like in both of these countries. But what I love about America is I've just always loved the feeling of it here for some reason . Like how energetic they are. Yeah, I guess energetic. I just or just like going, here we are in America. Like I just for some reason I like that. I like the things that are really American about it. Like I like diners , I like the restaurants. I like the look of like the Uber Americanness of it . Yeah, how I really like how clearly everyone talks. Actually the example in America really did for me is because you know you can't be self deprecating there, which was like so hard for me because it was my entire personality and I would go out like I'd be at a party at like a show business party and they'd be like, Oh, what are you doing? I'm just like, I'm just making a show. It's just like a little show. I had my own TV show, right? I'm like, Oh, I'm making a show, just like a little show . And I'm just like trying to be polite in this post is just being, well, I'm sure it's big to somebody . I'm like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you learn like he's just calming self deprecating because they like literally believe what you say. Yes. So then it's like you have to be careful how you talk about yourself because you like to present like the truth or like or like it's okay to be nice to yourself and I left being so self deprecating about our minds and I think it was better. I think in my life is better for it. Do you know what? It is better not to be too self deferecating. I'd had to learn to be self deprecating when we moved to Australia, but then I learn ited so well that when I came back here I was like, you know, I'd be meeting with people. I was like, Yeah, well, you know, there was stuff I liked about that project and some stuff didn't work. And they were like, Okay, why are we meeting? You know, let's look if you're not talented, then why let's not do that let's do it let's not do it but then they do lie too far in the other direction why you do a meeting and they always make you think that you're gonna that you're going to leave the meet with a project and that's not true . And they just lie to you. And I always like back when Australians used to go to Laway to try and make it in show business because they used to have an industry. They would come and like stay at my house and you would see like the first six days this Australian do all these meetings and get up this like huge hide and these like big eyes and they're like oh my god this country loves me and you kind always of have to be like, just wait two weeks and see like if anyone follows up like the end of the conversation isn't the end of the meeting. The end of the conversation is like and they never they never mean it. it And sounds I find that that's quite toxic, I think. I do think like maybe one in every fifteen meetings something does come of it. I've never had anything come from a meeting . We've had shows made and stuff so like that came from there was a pitch though. A pitch is different to a meeting. I'm going with a structured exercise of like, I would like to do this, would you like to do it? Yes, yes or no. And you have to let me know this week. And then that's a productive conversation, but a general meeting. I remember once I went, I went for a general meeting in Melissa McCarthy's company. I was so excited. You know what I mean? It's a big meeting. And then I walk in and this lady she's like so harried and she's like, Oh , and she's like looking over her shoulder. And I guess like something was happening in the office. I don't know. I guess Melissa was in or something or they were in some crisis or something. She's like, yeah, we're just gonna meet downstairs at the coffee area and she literally walked me out of this giant beautiful office, down three flights of stairs and then we sat like with the like under the stairs like where Harry Potter lived basically there was like two chairs under these stairs and she sat there and she 's just like talking to me. This one I had a show on the air. I was like making it and I was like, oh my god, this is why are you taking these? And the reason why they're taking the meetings in Hollywood is because your agent wants to tell you that they're doing something. So they book you the meeting. The person taking the meeting, they need to tell their boss that they took a meeting. Right, at the end of the week, they're like, What did you do this week? And they say, I had a great meeting with Josh. I had a great meeting with Lalli. And then they look like they've done and that's what they get out of it. We just have like a weird day. We have to spend hours not really sure what to do, put a little outfit on, park somewhere annoying . a G littleet bit of cardboard that they give you for your parking, that you go and get stabbed. You sit there, they lie to your fucking face and then you leave. See, that's what I never took it as lies . I was like I was like they love me . Like maybe something maybe you know , maybe we'll do something, maybe we won't, but in this moment they love me . But anything positive to say about America would be nice. I actually really like just that people tell you their inner monolog ues all the time, like that you don't even have to scratch the surface and everyone's like kind of reveals their id to you, which you had your chemistry with a random American on the street and you're like you're like a person that talks to people, you know, we're always out and always talking to people. I'm obviously not doing that. And yeah, you do like have all these like characters that are telling you so much about their life. Whenever I walked through your building, when you used to live in that building and just getting from like the apartment to the pool, by the time we got down there, I would find out about a birth, a death , someone's everyone amazing someone's nephew doing something in an exam , like a talent quest you would get so much info from everybody. I used to get a lot of info in Australia too, but here it's like you get like a model and look I and I've got a whole new thing that I love now in America which is like well unfortunately my son doesn't want to play anymore , but he was playing I was sort of forcing him to play like baseball and I went in deep and I was like the team mom and I would and I would wrangle the kids in the dugout and I would organize who did snacks on what game. And I really loved that. And it was it's with deep regret. I'm very sad that he refuses to play anymore because My hand like when it would come to sign up time, like my hand would literally be shaking like I'd be like, okay, great. We'll sign up and then and now we're not signing up for full ball. But doesn't play he want to anymore? Boring . Yeah it is boring on the field . And also I think it was just like me being like too into it. And I wanted to live. As you were telling me story, I thought, did you ? Yeah . I think he liked it when we were just like outside playing with other kids and I'd be pitching to him outside, but like I do think kids sport is like a bit overly like people like me get involved and it's not fun anymore . Did you get mad at anybody during I'd be like , Maximo . Watch the ball . Watch the ball . And I'd just and then he would be on the field going , at me and like pointing at me going and I'd be like and I'd be like, hey, pay attention . But he's like , I'm five . It's five years old Well, now it's six. So I'd like get too serious and I'd be like, look, I don't care how well you do. I just want to see you doing one hundred percent effort. And he said, Oh, we could just not do it anymore. You flew too close to the sun. Too close to the sun. Your book's behind me. Oh, my girl's vagina. Looks good Yeah. I like it with I like how you have it with other yellow things . And if you look to the thank yous, you will see yourself in there. What? Yes, of course . What? Wait I have a thank you? I don't think I've ever had a thank you. Acknowledgements I mean you're going to be a little disappointed when you see how many people I have faked, but pages and pages of fake . Wow , there are still some people I've tried Josh Thomas for reading early parts and giving me feedback and also for telling me definitely to check with people before using their real names. It's good advice. Good advice . Yeah I'm quite early in the things which I'm happy about. Oh, there's that boy that you told me I had to crush from me and then I tried to kiss him and then it turns out he didn't . And I kissed him too , he's not in there the thank you. Is he not? No . Oh, it was a different one . Different with that name . God was that was dark day for me . You tricked me into believing this poetic crush on me. I thought it was like a fact and I went up and kissed it and he was like what are you doing? I've done that twice in my life. And that I'm caught you don't have a word crushed with it, and it just like kissed him. Well, I thought he did . Yeah, but you need to see it from them, don't you? You can't just take it from a third party kiss them I'm not sure I was really making that day . All right, well goodbye . Goodbye , goodbye