Butter Pecan and Old People Flavors

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. I am Bale of Jesse Thorne. We're clearing the summer docket with me is Judge John Hodgsman. Hi John, how are you? Well, I'm very well, Jesse. How are you? I'm back in Brooklyn, New York . You are back as always at headquarters at Maximum Fun in Downtown Los Angeles . But while this is coming out after Memorial Day , so you know, I'm wearing my white pants and my seersucker underwear. A little bit before Memorial Day we went to Mexico together. Yeah, we had a that was a pretty amazing thing. So as long time listeners know or even medium time listeners know, a year or so ago we ran a fundraising campaign for our friends at an organization called Altrolado who do services for migrants on both sides of the U. S. Mexico border . And if we thought we truly thought or at least I truly thought that we might be able to match through fundraising wife and I put up thirty k and I was like, I wonder if we could match this . Like I really wanted to do something and I was like, maybe if I talk about it on Judge John Hodgman , we could match that. And I said, Jesse, good luck because if there's one thing I've learned over the years of interacting with Judge John Hodgsman listeners , they're not kind . No, they're profoundly selfish skin flints. Yeah, marked by contempt for others. Yeah, yeah, they're takers. You know what I mean? They're takers and mooches . And I guess I was proven wrong . Yeah, we ended up with just about four hundred thousand dollars in fundraising, which like even now , having said that in out loud probably twenty times at this point, every time I say it out loud I like have to self consciously start crying or something something why ? Because it was absolutely awe inspiring the generosity . And I'm talking about people who , you know, we had multiple people match my family's donation . We had thousands of people giving what they could, ten, twenty, thirty, fifty dollars . Hundreds of people signed up to give regular gifts to Al troado, like monthly gifts . And you know, it happened coincidentally with Alo Tro ado losing federal grants that it had used to teach courses on legal rights to migrants . And you know, I went to Mexico City three, four months ago and talked to Erica Pinero, who's one of the co founders . And she said to me, you know, I don't know if you know this, but Judge John Hodgeman listeners are the reason we didn't have to lay people off this year. Wow . You know, Alos Frolado not a huge organization. I mean, we're not talking about the United Way here. We're talking about we're talking about a couple dozen people and totally amazing. So anyway, that's the context for this is Judge John Hodgsman listeners were so incredible and generous . And we got an email from Alo Trollado maybe two months ago, three months ago and they were like, Hey, listen, you've never been to see our operations . Would you be willing to come down to Tijuana and visit what we're up to . So we set up a Los Angeles show to pay for our plane flights and took the Amtrak down to Tianjua to visit Alostrolado or at least the Amtrak down to San Diego and a van over the border . And it was a pretty amazing experience . Yeah, for those of you aren't experts on the geography of the southern border between the United States and Mexico, and that includes me as a Northeasterner , Tijuana is a city that sits just over the line in Bahama, California , right across the border from San Diego and Southern California to cities that are profoundly entwined and have been forever across this border . And in fact, our video editor, Daniel Spear grew up in San Diego , but his family or some of his family is from Tijuana, and he would go back and forth quite a bit to shop for special seasonal beers. Yeah, it was primarily from what Daniel told us, it was primarily so his dad could buy one particular seasonal beer that he likes. It was only made in Tijuana when Tijibuina is the name of this And of course, you know, what had once been a chain link fence between the two nations that people could visit their family without crossing the border through is now two levels of thirty foot high barred walls. And on the Mexico side in Tijuana is the headquarters of Altrolado and Alo Grado as you've gathered is an organization it was just found maybe a little bit more than a decade ago by Erica Piniero and Nicole Ramos who saw the situation at the border deteriorating, and obviously it's only gotten worse in terms of detainment of asylum seekers, in terms of deportation , massive amounts of deportation just in the past year . And what even makes it even harder, of course, is the cutting off of the federal grants to all Gelado and organizations like it that was done punitively by the current presidential administration. There's so much hard stuff that's happening that we're taking in in the news every day that it's it's sometimes difficult to remember just how disruptive and that has been to the already profoundly disrupted lives of people who are migrating across the border either as asylum seekers in one direction or deportees in the other direction, then they're not doing it for fun . And Altralado provides direct legal services to people who are experiencing migration, who have to leave their homes or move across the border , as well as humanitarian services. And it's all organized out of a small office of very dedicated people, many of whom are deportees themselves in Tijuana. And it was a real eye opener sobering and inspiring and amazing visit for me, and I think for you too, Jessie. It's important to remember the humanity because it's also important to remember that as much blame as there is to go around across many administrations the. p Oastver two years , there has been an active effort to dehumanize people who are in migration . I'm not saying this to be political. It is obviously the policy of the current administration and St ephen Miller in particular to wage an international and domestic terror campaign . Through such show of force , such violation of the fourteenth Amendment on the United States side , such viol ation of human dignity in the massive amounts of deportations to Mexico and elsewhere simply to fit a quota that Stephen Miller made up in his own dumb head , right ? That's all designed to terrorize people , to scare them from seeking asylum, trying to seek a better life, trying to get away from the place people in their home country you want to kill them. It's all designed to keep people afraid and to dehumanize them so that they won't move across the border. But guess what? That's never going to stop. These communities, our world is entwined And I don't care what you think about what immigration policy should be. Robbing people of human dignity is a sin. I don't believe in God or whatever that much, but I know it's a sin is . And robbing people on purpose of human dignity in the way current immigration policy enforces is sinful and what Altrolado is doing is the opposite of Sim. It's a blessing. We also ate some really good tacos . That's true. You ate some chapolines , some crunchy grasshoppers or yes. Yeah, grasshoppers, crickets, grasshoppers, I think they are. I was expecting them. So this is a cuisine from O axaca. We ate in a Oaxacan restaurant. It was delicious. And I was like, I'm gonna eat some of those grasshoppers. 'Cause I've just been talking about them? And they were delicious, but these were little guys. I think there were little crickets on top of the guacamole. It was good. Don't get your nose up at them. They're a little smaller than the ones I've had before. I've had like little, you know, bag of snack ones before . Yeah . And they were a little er than the ones we had before. We I mean, this is like oh and by the way, I forgot to mention that yeah on the Mexico side of Friendship Park at the beach there's there that, beautiful statue of Dolph ins . But in case you are worried, I know where you're driving . There is a and I posted a photo of this on my own social media and I'm sure one overjudged Hajman as well. There's an amazing kilomet o stand for all the joking we've been making about , I guess there must be some judge John Odman listeners in Tijuana because they love kilamato there. And if you're at the beach and you're like, what am I going to have as a refreshing beverage? How about a glass lamb juice infused tomato juice? It was delightful anyway. I mean, yeah, like at the end of the day, we also had a great time. Like I can't emphasize enough. We did some crying for sure , but we had a fantastic time. We were really, we were really lucky that Daniel and Dan came with us . I saw so many roof dogs . You know, people talk about the dogs in Tiwan a. I did not know the extraordinary proportion of those dogs who are on roofs . That's one of the greatest pleasures in my life is to think about or see roof dogs, even just photographs of roof dogs. So to get to see this many roof dogs in real life, I think I saw six roof dogs in the two and a half days that we were in Tijuana, including one that was like a decorative roof roof dog. Whatever it was . There was one roof that had a statue of a roof dog on it and then an actual roof dog. Yeah it was great . When I saw that statue of a roof dog, I'm like, someone's playing a joke on Jesse. Yeah, exactly. Somebody's trying to pull the iron roof dog over my eyes . Yeah, we had a fantastic time. We're gonna drop in. We had a conversation with Alo Troado's co founder who runs their Tiwana program s and their director of US litigation , who is defending defending folks who are in detainment in the United States States constantly all night and day and has been. And they were they were both total badasses . We were so excited to get to talk to them. And there will be video of that, but also AJ was nice enough to edit and clean up the audio that we recorded actually at Friendship Park in Tiwana. So we'll drop that we're going to drop that conversation into the Judge John Hodgman feed later this month. So you'll be able to hear that and hear from them a little bit about the stuff that they do because we were really it was a really special experience to get to be part of. And John, you had basically never been to Mexico . I didn't know that. I basically had never been. It was just one time on the Jonathan Colton cruise at a stop in a different part of Baha, California called Loretto . It was an amazing , moving , inspiring, overwhelming experience. I'm so grateful to you, Jesse, for suggesting that I come along . I'm grateful to myself for not going like, it's not convenient for me. But sometimes you need to go and do and see the hard things or the interesting things and the real things. And I hope that everyone will go check out Alo Trollado and even if you can't get down to the border , which I think is very much worth seeing and experiencing , giving them some of your support and attention , seeing what they're up to. And I also just want to say thank you so much to the listeners again for their incredible generosity . And you know, that four hundred thousand dollars is hugely meaningful amount of money. And obviously it allowed me to charter a private plane to San Diego. And then when we took the Amtrak train, we bought out the train and turned it into a party train. No, that's not true. I mean, the other beautiful thing about your contributions to Alo Troloto is that it is clearly all being going directly into the work they do. There is no massive overhead organization . It's the real deal. And I'm really grateful to be to you, Jesse, for introducing me to them and to the and to the organization. And John , I'm also really grateful that we have all these questions about ice cream because I could really use some ice cream talk right now. Yes, let's move on from ice to ice cream . One of the greatest transitions in podcast history. Yeah, I think we can all agree. Lima, this. How about this? How about this? Why doesn't everybody who is listening ? Take a take a break , go check out Alo Trolado , go think about the people in your lives who are affected by immigration policy because they're they're out there Remember that everyone is a human being and deserves human dignity, no matter what they have done in their lives, no matter where they come from . And when we come back, we're going to answer some disputes about ice cream for summertime. We'll be back in just a second on Judge John Hodgman . You're listening to Judge John Hodgman. I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne. Of course , the Judge John Hodgman podcast always brought to you by you the members of maximumfun dot org. Thanks to everybody who's gone to maximumfun. org slash join and you can join them by going to maximumfun dot org slash join . The Judge John Hartran podcast is also brought to you this week by Made In . If you're considering the pros and cons of different cookware brands, you know that made in works with a lot of pros, Tom Calicio, Brook Williamson, and many others, but they also help people who are not professional chefs, but people who take a professional interest in their home cooking like me and Jessie Thorne. Jesse, what have you made and made in lately? Well, John, I had in laws in town. Yeah . And when I say in laws in town, my wife has a substantial family. So it was probably ten people in total. And I had to cook for everybody, including some people who don't eat red meat, some people who don't eat wheat . And I decided to make an itas tacos . Nice , which I roasted in the broiler on a made in sheet pan. Well, you're making me very hungry and whether it's sheet pans, whether it is carbon steel pans, whether it is stainless steel pans, whether it is non stick pans, whether it's bakeware, glassware, tableware, or made in is now featuring American made pre season cast iron skillets . It's happening everybody. Made ins got exactly what you need to outfit your pro or pro friendly kitchen. It is the company has evolved from a one hundred year old kitchen supply business wor,king with multi gener ational craftspeople to make each piece ready to go at professional levels at online prices. Once you take your cooking to the next level, investing in made in cookware, you'll be pro made in too. For full details, visit madeincookware dot com that's ma d iencookware dot com The Judge John Hartman podcast is also brought to you this week by Aura Frames. Jessica, I cannot count the number of times of an evening routine between my wife as a whole human being in our own right and I sitting on the couch watching a YouTube video about Maine or and all creatures great and small, and all of a sudden one or the other us will say, look at that wonderful photo that the aura frame just pulled up for us. And sure enough, there's a wonderful photo of our kids or of our kids' cats , or of our family members, our beloved parents, or whatever it is. And oftentimes the RFM will pick two digital photos of like our daughter was a holy in her own right when she was little, and now when she's grown up and you get to see both, they put it right together. It's curating the stuff for you. Of course, it's all coming from our personal digital libraries, digitally, seamlessly, and wirelessly. You know, when you get a digital photo frame, maybe you're stuck thinking the way I used to think, like, when I got to put everything on a thumb drive and then move it over there and put the thumb drive in there or whatever. That's not how it works, Jesse. Tell me how it works. There is an app that works so seamlessly and easily that what I like to do is if I just if I happen to have taken a picture that I like , I will just use that little share icon on my phone and send it directly to my frames because all you have to do is tap share and then the Aura the little Aura picture comes up, I tap share it to my Aura and then it's there. I don't even know how it works. I don't need to know how it works because it just works. It was rated number one on the app store on Christmas day in twenty twenty five. You know what it takes to get to number one on the app store Christmas twenty twenty five? It's got to be good. It's a great time to shop for a dad or dad figure in your life. Why don't you go and get one from Aura Frames? Name number one by wirecutter you can save now by visiting auraframes. com for a limited time. Listeners can get thirty five dollars off their best selling carver matte frame with code hodgeman. That's AURA FRAMES. com promo code hodgeman. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout Terms and Conditions Apply . Welcome back to the docket on Judge John Hodgman. Okay, John. We're getting into some ice cream here. Ice cream. It's all, you know what ice cream for Ice ice milk. Did you ever have ice milk? Yeah, I've had ice milk. There used to be a malt cup you could buy at the ball game. Do you know a molt cup I do not know. Like a little chocolate tub , a small chocolate tub of malted chocolate ice milk . And this was something I would go to the ball game . I would go to the ball game as a teenager like by myself. I'm talking about the thirteen, fourteen year old . Take the bus to the ball game. Take the regular bus, buy a dollar seventy five bleacher ticket because there was like kids tickets that you could buy that were supposed to encourage adults to buy tickets to bring the kids, but in my family it meant I was going by myself or with my friend Adam. And a malt cup was a dollar seventy five. That was the thing, a malt cup or red rope. Those were the two concessions items I could afford to buy mhm . Big ice milk item . So a malt cup was ice milk. Yeah, it was ice milk. It was not ice. I just remember seeing that in Peter Rosenmeyers, my next door neighbor's freezer, ice milk, which was, I guess, now they call it light ice cream or low fat ice cream, but it's just, you know, it's ice cream made with skim milk, I guess. You have to have a certain amount of fat in the ice cream to legally call it ice cream. It's why like all these things instead of being called ice cream bars are called quiescently frozen confections . All right, this is from Michael in London. I don't know if this is London, England, London, Ontario, London, Connecticut. Who knows? Every time my dad makes a restaurant booking, he says it is for a birthday , regardless of the actual occasion. He does this for the free dessert. When the server brings out ice cream with a candle in it, no one at the table is willing to claim it. I no longer want to even witness this . Please stop him from making birthday bookings unless it is actually someone's birthday Wow . No one at the table wants he doesn't even the dad the weird dad doesn't even wanna eat his scam scammy ice cream. Spears' microphone is off. I wanna make it clear that his microphone is off if you are hearing Daniel Spears' contemptuous cackles . Yeah . It's because he simply cannot control himself . You're in here from fifteen feet away from me through my mic . I don't know if this is London UK or what, but I was reminded that when I took a semester off of college to go and live and work in London on a drink abroad program that I had personally devised for myself The rumor around London Town was don't eat the ice cream because it's not dairy, it's made from lard because of World War two era rationing, there was a tradition of making ice cream out of vegetable oil and lard because dairy was hard to come by . And I've since learned that that's a myth, I think. If you're a UK listener or have ever lived there or know anything about the Lardy ice cream of London Town , I hope you'll let me know hodgeman at maximumfund. org if it's real or not. Because the truth was I was like, this is not a bug, this is a feature . Like I want to have some of that Lardy ice cream. I think probably they should bring it back . So I don't know if Michael's dad was getting lard ice cream or not, but I think that it is it well, I don't know, Jesse, how do you feel about lard ice cream? I feel great about it. It sounds awesome. Sounds awesome . But I was going to say about birthday celebrations and restaurants. No, this is fraud . This is you're taking advantage of this restaurant and you're gonna ruin it for all the rest of us . Put in a special occasion if it actually is a special occasion and maybe and maybe they'll just do something nice for you like wish you happy birthday or something. Maybe they'll bring you ice cream, but only if it's your actual birthday otherwise you, are lying and tricking . Yeah, you know when you're lying and tricking even in London UK, even in London, Ontario, even in New London, wherever you are, you know what lying and tricking is . I mean, obviously Michael's dad does too because apparently he's not even eating his free ice cream that he conned the restaurant out of. I mean here's the thing most people who go into restaurants with a combatative attitude are miserable human beings. Yeah, just eat at home. Don't be a jerk. Eat at home. Like I got to get the most for my money I'm going to undertip to punish them for making me over pay and I'm not satisfied with this serving or whatever. It's like you're going in so that humans will cook for you . And if it's not your liking, fine, whatever, don't go back . But it's not a game to play. You know, what a restaurant is doing is a business obviously, but it's a fairly low margin and difficult business to be in . First of all . And second of all , at least independent restaurants, people are opening that out of out of a love for food and a spirit of generosity. Successful independent restaurants anyway. You can make an arguments like, Oh, it's a huge chain, so I'm just gonna reach over the counter at Chipotle and grab a handful of guacamole for myself. I've paid for it or whatever . But even then, you know, these are humans who are cooking for you, and I think that you have to approach it with a sense of like , you know, I'm the customer, but I'm also a guest. And if you're a guest you're not there to swindle your host . Insulting generosity is a very soul damaging thing to do . And I think if you're the dad who's lying on the reservation to say that it's a birthday to get some free ice cream out of it, you deserve the opprobrium of your of your child Michael, and everyone else around the table. No happy birthdays for you for the next ten years. That's my ruling. I hope you have bad birthdays, Michael's dad. Here's something from Sean in San Diego. When I finish an ice cream sandwich, I do what I believe most people do at home. I use my teeth to scrape off the bit of chocolate cookie quote unquote bread that has stuck to my fingers. My wife, Katherine does something I've never seen. She uses the wrapper of the ice cream sandwich to protect her fingers . She's denying herself joy by not getting the bread on her fingers. Please stop her. I guess he's saying bread because it's a sandwich . Yeah , so I'm having flashbacks to the cafeteria at Brookline High School where we would get these sort of classic good humore junky ice cream bars or excuse me, ice cream sandwiches. And it's just, you know, a thin layer of vanilla ice cream sandwich between, I guess what you would call chocolate cookies . Like this is not an ititz, Jesse. This is like a very specific when eat when you would eat these ice cream sandwiches, your fingers would look like they were covered with chocolate dirt after. Yeah, they're soft and vaguely p asty. Yeah. Yeah . And I have a nostalgic , non toxic nostalgic fondness for them, and I'll have one from time to time. And you know what else? They're also that category contains one of the best vegan alternatives that I've ever had in the world of vegan alternatives, the tofu cutie. Tofui Cuties are pretty good. That's right. I wouldn't want to eat tofuti. If you just serve me tofui, I wouldn't I wouldn't love that. I would prefer a regular ice cream, but it's tofu cutie. That kind of delivers. If it's not a cutie, it's not for youdi. That's what you've always said. That's what I've always said. About yourself in the person. I got that tattooed on my lower back. There you go. I guess I remember getting this residue of chocolate dirt on my fingers eating these old timy ice cream sandwiches . I do not remember ever scraping the chocolate off my fingers with my teeth . I guess in the classic Vafangul Sopranos thing if you're watching on the YouTube, you can see me doing this. , because it's gross enough without chocolate dirt on my fingers what I just did. Now I feel like I got to rinse my mouth out with pure L I don't know, did you ever eat chocolate? Is this a thing that Sean is correct? That what most people do at home is that they suck chocolate dirt off their fingers. I've done it. I'm not above saying that I've done it, but I don't choose to do it and I don't consider it one of the joys of consuming. Look , there's no question , John , that you and I have roles on this program. They're well earned. We share many cultural characteristics, many personality traits . We're great friends of many years , but you are neater and cleaner than I am . And no , that's revealed itself many times on the show . And you would think that I would be out of the two of us the guy who would say , Yes, I love to scrape the chocolate dirt off my fing er, just as I was once the guy to say that it's okay for dogs to lick plates before they go in the dishwasher and then I can't believe that I said it again . I know. But in this case, I generally avoid it . I generally use the paper, although I do lick it off if it does accidentally get on my fingers. You know, one things that came up when we were visiting Tijuana was I did not realize Jesse until it came up in conversation that people have been giving you guff for suggesting it's cool to let your dog lick the plate before you put it in the dishwasher for years. I didn't realize that this had for years . Like this was a case from years ago when a guy it was a man and a woman in a marriage and he would let the dog lick the plates before he put in the dishwasher and you said it was fine and I remember I said it was fine too . Yeah. And whether or not I'm a cleaner person than you are, Jessie, I will say, I stand with you on this. Let your dogs lick the plates. It's cool. That's cool. Don't worry about it. Your dishwasher will get them plenty clean. Dogs are animals that live inside our house . If you've accepted that , right , you're just gonna have to deal with the fact they've got dirty feet. They're gonna lick the ins ide of your nose sometimes. Sometimes you're gonna accidentally French kiss them because you're laughing when they lick your face . That's right, that's right. Like these things are all just going to happen. You just have to deal with it. You have to brush them a lot or else they'll be fur all over your furniture. It's just the reality of having a best friend and it's worth it. And I will say this , I do not think that it is gross for Sean to scrape the chocolate dirt off his fingers after eating an ice cream sandwich. I hope it's just chocolate dirt and not just finger dirt, you know what I mean? But it's whatever. It's his body, it's his choice. It's his ice cream sandwich. Okay, Tofu cutie question, John. Yeah . I can't eat dairy. When I find a dairy free ice cream I like, I want to savor it on my own timeline. But my kids and my husband scarf it down even after they've finished their own creamy lactose pint . Please order them to leave my fake ice cream alone. Okay, so this is the difference, right? One of these two cases , Michelle in Toronto versus Sean in San Diego . One of these cases is a true crime . Crime, crime against one's own family . If Sean likes to scrape dirt chocolate dirt off his fingers , and his wife, Katherine doesn't , no, there's no standing to bring your case to my court . You're not being hurt by Catherine's preference here . But in Michelle's case , her family , her husband and kids are stealing from her , just like that dad in London is stealing from the restaurant . And I have a question, Jesse, do you have anyone in your family who mooches your food, steals your food out of the fridge? I mean , I think when I have ice cream in the freezer because I'm the number one ice cream enthusiast in my family, I always imagine it to belong to me and then it just disappears . But the main thing is like sometimes I will have candy . Yeah . I mean it's going to be either giant chewy nerds or nerds gummy clusters and I will just come into the kitchen to eat some of it and notice that just one of my children found it and cleaned it out. Yeah. They will just straight up clean it out . And that does get to me a little bit. But the reality is Yeah, I mean, I have some experience with this with ice creams. I can't eat the chocolatey ice cream. So I have to get a special not chocolatey ice cream . But the truth of the matter is you have to get something grosser. You have to get a grosser alternative . The only solution here is you have to switch from lactose free real ice cream to some weird vegan thing that's made out of vegan lard , just a vegetable oil based monstrosity and make yourself used to it. It's carab flavored or whatever. Make yourself used to it, but it's so gross that your other family members won't won't turn to it after they eat their own good ice cream, they'll just get more good ice cream. I was going to say I was going to say if Michelle is merely like lactose intolerant, right? Just can't eat dairy but is not herself a vegan , she should consider getting chapolina ice cream , which I don't know if it exists, but I think probably it ought to. Ice cream with fried crickets or grasshoppers mixed in. Yeah, I feel like there's got to be there's got to be one of these one of these fancy ice cream places in LA's gotta serve Chapolinis ice cream. Jesse, I'm just getting this from Jennifer Marmer. You are in fact right . Salt and straw , which is upscale coast spot. Yeah, not even in the Los I mean there's some outlets here in Los Angeles, but I think they come from Portland if I'm not mistaken . They offer a Halloween themed flavor, creepy crawl critters, sweet green matcha ice cream , with Don Bugito's munchy crunchy chocolate crickets and toffee brittle mealworms. I don't know if these are real crickets and real mealworms or imitations , but they got the idea. Get some chapolinus and that ice cream and maybe maybe your teenagers and your husband will leave them alone or maybe not, because here's the thing. The grasshoppers also have a message for us over on E PLERBISMATO Little Preview coming down coming down your podcast pipe. It's going to be an episode on Nebraska where we talk about the , you know, the nickname for Nebrask ans is corn huskers , but they used to be called bug eaters because in the nineteenth century there was a massive midwestern plague of grasshoppers . Clouds of grasshoppers would blot out the sun for up to six hours as they devoured crops , personal stores. You know, they would get into your basement and eat all of your root cellar. They'd eat the ham the leather straps off of your farm tools because they were soaked through with salt from your sweat . It was just a profound a profound scourge . And the thing is, grasshoppers don't stop eating and neither do kids . I bet if even you could put a grasshoppers in that ice cream, your kids, especially if they're teenagers and your husband , probably find a way to justify like it's time for me to eat that . I don't know why teens and husbands need to steal food all the time . But and you know, you might you might you might fend them off for a brief time filling up your ice cream with bugs or whatever, but you don't deserve that, Michelle, you get to deserve you get to deserve the non dairy ice cream that you want. And you tell them right now that every time they take a bite of your ice cream , I cancel their birthdays for three years. One bite, three years, no birthday. Ice cream, ice cream cake, nothing, no birthday celebration for your family, Michelle . Toronto , let Michelle enjoy her non dairy ice cream. Here's a case from Kaitlin in Linfield, Massachusetts. And John, you're going to, I'm going to be leaning on you for translations here. Yeah . I live in Massachusetts where our regional ice cream treat the and this is called a frap, right? Not a frape. Yeah . Yeah, you may have seen me getting into it on Reddit a few months ago People were trying to deny the existence of Fraps, saying, Oh no, those are frappes. No, they're Fraps . There is a Frape that is made popular by Starbucks. And it's kind of a layered drink of Italian origin, I believe . But in New England we have what's called a frap, FRAP E. Go ahead, Jesse. For the past forty five years, John, I've been on a no frap . Okay , our regional ice cream treat, the Fra , is known elsewhere as a milkshake. It contains ice cream, milk, and flavored syrup. We also have milkshakes . Here, milkshakes contain no ice cream, only syrup and milk blended together. Whenever I order one, the employee patronizingly asks , You do know this won't have ice cream, right? I would like the employees Jordan's furniture in reading to stop shake shaming . Massachusetts milkshakes are delicious and shouldn't be overshadowed by their thick cousin the Frappe. Well, first of all, John. Yeah, first of all, Jesse, what? It is not entirely foreign to me that a milkshake is a combination of ice cream syrup and milk. But generally speaking here in California , I think a milkshake would be just ice cream and milk. And if it was flavored, it would be a flavored ice cream with milk. Just ice cream with milk. Yeah, it would be a milkshake. Yeah. Like a chocolate milkshake would be chocolate ice cream. Chocolate ice cream with milk. Yeah. Not vanilla, ice cream, milk and chocolate flavoring. Yeah, there's a lot to unpack here So let's open up this suitcase of ice cream debate and start unpacking it and putting it away in our drawers , which is what we call drawers in New England. Got it. Yeah . So a frap was something that I knew growing up in Brooklyn, Massachusetts. If you had said, however, and this goes back now to, you know , I was a child of the seventies and eighties , there I don't ever remember there it was synonymous with a milkshake frap, and milkshake. Everyone knows what a milkshake is and it's ice cream and milk and maybe there's some flavoring in it, maybe there isn't. Like and then you would also call it a frap. Now that was my experience and please don't at me and try to deny my lived experience only later as an adult when I was, you know, researching columns for my food and non wine alcohol column in men's journal magazine, the most prominent American magazine about men keeping scrap books. Did I ever learn this thing about how milkshakes in New England didn't have ice cream in them? They were just what did she say it was? Syrup and milk blended together. I believe that it's true. It was not a part of my regional Boston experience . So I'm not denying Caitlin's in Linfield's experience either. I'm just saying it never never was a huge division. And absolutely Caitlin, I agree with you . Like, you know, if you know what you're ordering, you don't have to be shamed by the server. The other thing that unpack here is that they're serving ice cream in a furniture store. This I did not understand, even I did not understand. I was about to say and in Boston do furniture stores. I mean, I've heard of a drugstore selling ice cream ? I know what she's talking about when she's talking about Jordan's furniture. Jordan's furniture is a regional furniture store that had two brothers , Barry and Elliot Tatlbaum who did all of the ads for Jordan's furniture . They had beautiful Boston accents, and they would constantly be telling you, it's time to get a new chest of drawers . You deserve a good night's sleep and they were fixtures on the television scene . But I had never been into a Jordan's before in my life. By the way, as Barry and Barry and Elliot would always say, it's Jordan 's furniture, not to be confused with Jordan Marsh , which is Boston's oldest department store. And that's my terrible Boston accent. I can't ever do it. I'm just someone who's alienated from his own authenticity. I'm sorry. So but even so, I did not know that they sold ice cream . But so I did a little research and Jordan's furniture got much bigger than I ever understood it. It started in nineteen twenty eight by Barry and Elliot's dad, Samuel Tatelbaum . Its original store was in Waltham . Then they built a store in Nashua and in Avon, Massachusetts . And when they opened that store in Avon, Massachusetts in nineteen eighty seven, according to the Internet here, it says it created the largest traffic jam ever recorded on route twenty four. Barry and Elliot had to go on the radio to beg people not to come because people were so excited to get into Jordan's . And then they got bigger and bigger. And they not only did they start including lunch counters in restaurants in the various stores. Now I believe they're licensed restaurants. So I think there's an Italian sort of pizza counter at one . And then another one, there's a full service Fud Ruckers, which is a chain of hamburger stores. I don't know if you ever had Fudruckers in your life, Jesse. We didn't have Fudruckers in the Bay Area when I was a kid, but my old co host Gene O'Neill was a big fudruckers guy from Los Angeles. They also would display in one of their locations a thing called Bean Town , which was a giant miniature reconstruction of the entire city of Boston made out of jelly beans . Okay , but then in a number of them, including one in New Haven that I used to drive by all the time, I had forgotten , the Jordan's furniture stores also would include a complete ropes course for kids. You know what I mean by a ropescourse, like rope climbing ing, swing , like zip lines . Massive row. These are super centers of bargains , basically . And so I guess, yes, Jordans did or does still, I don't know , serve fraps and milkshakes in the same store where they sell cabinets not to be confused with the Rhode Island cabinet , which is a coffee milkshake in Rhode Island called a cabinet for reasons that are disputed . I have heard many things. One they kept the coffee the coffee syrup, the famous coffee syrup, the most famous brand of Rhode Island coffee syrup is called Autocrat. They kept the coffee syrup in the drugstore. I don't know why. Rhode Island sounds great . Yeah, yeah. They like their coffee, they like their coffee milk with an authoritarian flavor. I think is that where Ted Leo lives or does he live in New Hampshire? Rhode Island? He's a Rhode Islander. Is Ted Leo out there ordering cabinets with Autocrat? Yeah, I'd like my cabinet with Autocrat p,lease. So one of the stories is that the coffee syrup would be kept in a cabinet in the drugstore or wherever you get it. And then someone else mentioned to me and it could be true. I don't know, is that that's a New England accent for carbonate . So you used to go to the drugstore to get a carbonate of soda, which was how you would order a cocoa co at the time, and that eventually became cobnet, and then that became a coffee milkshake . So there's a lot going on. You know, New England is historically one of the most ice cream hungry places on Earth. There's a lot of ice cream that is eaten in New England in a lot of different areas and there are fraps and there are milkshakes and there are cabinets and then there are cabinets. And here, by the way , our Barry and Elliot nineteen eighty six if you want to go on if you this is some non toxic nostalgia for me to listen to these guys Boston accents. It's so wonderful. I'm just gonna share it with you here. You need to buy a bedroom set, but so many of them look alike at all different prices. What do you do? That's Jordan's furniture, don't even worry. We won't carry those cheap sets that fall apart. Or those sets are overpriced, you're just paying for a nail. Here at Jordan's furniture you'll find the best bedrooms at underprices every day. You'll see a difference . You'll feel a difference. Just open a drawer. And you can tell immediately. Just open a drawer. Just open a drawer think Caitlin may need to reframe these employees are not saying Jordan's furniture does frame actually. It's just I don't think sets in living room sets and dining sets. Don't think these employees are shaming her. I think these employees are protecting themselves from people who do not know that at this particular furniture store , when you order a milkshake you don't get ice cream. I would imagine these probably minimum wage plus tips employees are have experienced many times someone ordering a milkshake because they're from there a big city guy from Boston like John Hodgsman , where a milkshake means a milkshake and a frap means a milkshake . Right. Not where a milkshake means a weird thing that it only means in furniture stores. Yeah Hey, you're going exactly where I was headed, Jesse. It's like Kaitlin, you do know the difference, but don't get mad if your server doesn't automatically presume you know the difference because they as exactly right, Jesse, they're protecting themselves and they know that people might be cranky because they've been waiting for hours to get into the furniture store, like Root twenty four or whatever . And they're protecting themselves and they're protecting the customer too. They're just trying to inform. And here's the thing that a lot of people don't understand. And I'm particularly in Metro Boston, throughout New England, but really it's the eastern Massachusetts thing , where courtesy ually sounds like aggression . Courtesy often sounds like an attack , but what it really is is courtesy and you can tell because they'll often say hun at the end of it or dia . And that's for real, so it's okay, Kaitlin. I apologize. I'm sorry that you went through that experience, but go enjoy your frap dear. Speaking of those thick fraps, and of course concrete, don't forget about concrete. I don't know what that is We've got a thick episode so we're gonna take another break and we'll come back with a couple more ice cream cases. Sounds good . Sunscreen companies calculate SPF by testing it on volunteers' butts. There is a can of spam in the Mariana Trench. A Nobel Prize winning physicist from the Manhattan Project invented modern speed bumps. Mesoamerican native people invented kidney medicine that glows in the dark. On the podcast secretly incredibly fascinating, we explore this kind of amazing stuff. Stuff about ordinary topics like sunscreen and spam and speed bumps. Topics you'd never expect to be the title of the podcast. Secretly incredibly fascinating. Find us by searching for the word secretly in your podcast app and at maximumfun dot org If you like too many podcasts, you'll love Sao Teep with John Link Roberts. It's got clips from all your favorite podcasts such as Diary of a Tiny CEO , Lennard Sprague, tell me how you make your money. I go to the beach and I steal people's towels. Remember Armor. Do remember the trend of everyone whacking themselves in the head with hammers and mallets when they wanted to lose weight and Elti John's lobbery songs. I'm here today with Kinky Dee Hello Kinky Dee Hello Elton . There's dozens of episodes to catch up on and brand new episodes going out right now. So if you want far, far, far too many podcasts then look for sound tip on maximum fun. Boop, boop . Judge Hajjman tom,orrow we are in Brookline, Massachusetts. As of the release of this episode , you can get your tickets at bit. LY slash nightcourt, Brookline. All capital letters are just go to maximum fund. org slash events. Thursday, june eleventh is that show. I'm really excited about that show. Now I've heard of Brooklyn, Massachusetts, yeah, because I've grown I grew up And we're doing the show at the Coolidge Corner with our friend Eugene Merman right there in Coolidge Corner. Eugene Merman's dropping by. It's absolutely correct. And this is the theater where I worked summers when I was in high school and then in college, it is a truly wonderful and informative place. It's a great place to see a movie and an even better place to see Jesse Thorn and I adjudicating disputes in a wild ly rollicking docket style our new show called Nightcourt with special guest Eugene Merman. It's One Night Only and then who knows when we'll be doing it again because then we'll be driving up to Maine to sail aboard the Grace Bailey for four nights with some of you very fun and game and adventurous listeners. And who knows if we'll ever come back from sea. I just don't know. We might just live out there forever . So if you haven't had a chance to see us in a while , please come and see us in Brooklyn. It's going to be a great show and you might not get to see us for another while. So please go get your tickets now bit. Lee slash nightcourt Brookl ine or maximumfund. org slash events. There are probably a few last minute tickets left and we hope to see you there because it's better when you are. Jesse, what's going on in your world? I want to throw something out there. . We've been doing some serious touring the last few years. Yeah, that's true . We visited Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington, Saint Paul, Minnesota, Madison, Wisconsin , Washington, DC , all these wonderful big cities , large towns , big cities where we towns. Where we know that there's lots of judge John Hodgman listeners and lots of venues and so on and so forth . We got this new show Judge Sean Hodgman Night Court. Yeah . We can put this thing in a backpack and bring it anywhere. That's true You got a big money gig for us. Drop us a line at hosman and maximumfund. org. We might be able to come . We're we're open now to the possibility of a of a weekend destination show . So drop us a line at hospital and maximumfun. org if you're a promoter and you're somewhere cool that we haven't been before and you're always like, how come they never come here? Well may,be it's tour routing or something like that. But you got a line on bringing us and drop us a line. Maybe we can make it happen. Yeah, we can put it in our backpack. We can come right to where you are, meet you where you are and dispense some justice with Nightcourt. I mean look, , if we can if we can, if we can go on a historic two masted schooner for four nights in Maine, you know we can come to your to your performing arts center in Walla Walla, Washington. And of course, June is all about dads and grads, so hit up the Putus on shop, get your dad or your grad or the dad or grad in your life or somebody else. Something beautiful at putthys hop dot com. Okay , let's get back to the show . Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. Okay, here is another ice cream case for you, John. From Beth in San Francisco . God's country, John. San Francisco . When we buy ice cream for the house at Mitchell's ice cream around the corner from Jesse's dad's old apartment , my husband Dan insists on getting what I consider a lesser flavor, like a plain vanilla or something fruity . He argues that since I like all desserts and he only likes some flavors , we should get what he likes because I'll end up eating it regardless. For the record, he's correct. I will , but sometimes , but sometimes I want something else. Now the obvious solution would be to get multiple flavors, but we are re nters with a very small freezer. I would like the judge to order that moving forward we take turns picking an ice cream flavor with me choosing the next ten flavors as past damages . Well , you know , Beth is wandering into hostile territory with me, your judge, John Hodgman. 'Cause I like our good friend Nick Weiger of the Doughboys not only love vanilla ice cream , but contend factually and indisputably that vanilla is a flavor. It is not plain , it is not plain vanilla. Vanilla has a beautiful rich flavor that is prized across centuries . It is the vanilla bean is actually the seed pod of the vanilla orchid. It is a it is a rare and valuable substance that brings a very specific and very beautiful flavor to everything that it is added to, including ice cream. So I will not take this vanilla shaming. And if you remember, we talked to Nick Weiger about this way back in twenty twenty one . And the other thing is that we should mention is that you know, not only is it a product of the rare vanilla orchid , but as Nick pointed out , it is to this day the flowers are hand pollinated. You would not have a vanilla trade if it were not for Edmund Albius, who as an enslaved twelve year old on the French occupied island of Rayuon in the Indian Ocean developed a method to quickly pollinate the vanilla orchid using a thin stick or blade of grass . It is still the method that is used today. Of course, Edmund Albius Sping, an enslaved person who eventually gained freedom, you know, traumatized by that for the rest of his life and died in poverty in eighteen eighty and you know, but they did knock five years off of his jail sentence for robbery because he invented hand pollination method for vanilla. So please, please don't disparage vanilla , Beth. But that said , John, John, I'm a fancy ice cream flavor enthusiast. Yeah , but you know what I think might be my number one favorite ice cream ? No . And you know, I love I love Initsid, I love Tillamook Grocery Store ice cream. Yeah . I think my number one favorite ice cream is Kirkland Signature Brand Vanilla ice cream. Wow . That's an awesome Doughboys, wow . That's some Costco stuff, right? That's some Costco stuff. That's an ultra premium ice cream. I never thought I would have this relationship with vanilla ice cream as a complicated ice cream enthusiast. I would try it, but I'm not a you're not a member . Well maybe maybe on our way from Boston to Maine , we can stop at Costco to buy ice cream. There's one Costco in Maine. That's why I'm not a member. There's only one and it's hours away and then there's one here in Brooklyn, but it's over an industry city. It's just not convenient. It's like going you get into a traffic jam, it's like going to Jordan's furniture you try to get to Costco so busy anyway , but both of your tastes are equal. And the thing that I'm hung up on is like you live in a house , you mentioned that you rent and then somehow you have a freezer that can't contain two containers of ice cream at a single time . This seems like you have some freezer organizational problems or you haven't defrosted the defreezer in thirty five years or something, and there's only like an inch of space in there. Yeah, the reality is you got to deal with this situation. There's no others there's no short cut answer to this question. Your plan, Beth, is to punish your husband that is not a workable plan The only workable plan here that accommodates your flavor needs and I respect your flavor needs. Yeah , but the only workable plan that that accommodates everyone in the house is multiple ice cream flavors . You're just gonna have to figure it out. Look , think about what your priorities are, right? Right. Sure . Do you need ice cubes? Probably. Maybe that's your number one priority. I don't know how cold you like your beverage is. Right. Number two priority for any freezer has to be ice cream . , sorry . Leftover stew is good and important , but you need to prioritize ice cream . There's something in that freezer that is just I guarantee you that has been taking up space for months if not years . Whether it's Jessie said, it's a leftover stew or a big bag of chicken bones that you're waiting to turn into a stock , or maybe it's Karen's Last Zidi. That's a Sopranos reference. I'm doing a sopranos rewatch. It sounds like a children's book. Yeah . And you don't wanna eat it 'cause it was the last one Karen made before she passed away. It's time to get over whatever it is that's holding you back and either eat that stew, eat that Zedi, make that stock or throw something away so that you can get two flavors of ice cre am in there . It's that's my order. You gotta do it or no birthday . All right, one last question, John. Yeah. Both Matt in Holliston, Massachusetts and Laura in Culver City, Californ ia sent in cases about butter pecan ice cream, or butter pecan ice cream, whatever you prefer. Yeah . Both Matt and Laura's families say that the butter pecan is an old people ice cream flavor . But Matt and Laura separately agree that butter pecan is a good flavor for any age . Judge Hodgsman is butter pecan just for old people . You know, you know what I say about butter pecan? What do you say, John about butter pecan? I pecan even . And butter pecan is not only gross to me because it's got nuts in it and that's not my thing, but it also I'm presuming has some kind of butter scotch in it. And that is not only not my thing, but that is definitely what we would call at the risk of sounding profoundly