Should you eat fast food on vacation, or should every meal be at a special local place? Is soup bar food? Does ice belong in milk? Brittany Luse and Eric Eddings join Dan to answer your questions — and to settle some long-standing food disputes of their own. Brittany and Eric co-host the podcast For Colored Nerds, a show about Black culture. They’re also old friends, which means they argue about everything — from how Eric eats wings to the merits of soup. So they’re well-qualified to help when an eighth-grader calls in about a dispute in his class, and when two best friends differ in their approach to vacation eating.
Interstitial music in this episode by Black Label Music:
- "Sun So Sunny" by Calvin Dashielle
- "New Hot Shtick" by Jack Ventimiglia
- "Star Shootin'" by Hayley Briasco
Photo courtesy of Sarah Jacobs for Stitcher.
View Transcript
Eric Eddings: I don't typically like English muffins.
Brittany Luse: What?
Eric Eddings: I don't — I don't know, I just never really —
Brittany Luse: What's wrong with you? English muffins are so — you know, you just reminded me that I want to buy some.
Eric Eddings: Yeah.
Brittany Luse: They're so good.
Eric Eddings: I guess I just I grew up on biscuits. Biscuits were a foundational piece of breakfast bread.
Brittany Luse: But how do you feel about bagels?
Eric Eddings: Uh, I — I've come around on bagels? Bagels took me a minute, but bagels are ...
Brittany Luse: But you know, there's a lot of bad bagels out there?
Dan Pashman: Yeah. This is the only place I will eat bagels. Like if I'm —
Brittany Luse: That's good. That means you have a palate.
Eric Eddings: Yeah.
Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS]
Eric Eddings: And thank you.
Brittany Luse: Hi Dan.
Eric Eddings: I appreciate that. You see what I deal with Dan, all the time?
Brittany Luse: Do you ever consider that you're sensitive?
Eric Eddings: Uh ...
Brittany Luse: And I'm just normal?
Eric Eddings: No.
Brittany Luse: Can we talk about that?
Eric Eddings: I consider that I'm right and you're wrong.
Dan Pashman: [LAUGHING]
MUSIC
Dan Pashman: This is The Sporkful. It's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people. And today on the show, we're doing one of my favorite things. We're going to take your calls and settle your food disputes.
Dan Pashman: But first, I want to introduce two very special guests who can help me out. They are Brittany Lewis and Eric Eddings, co-hosts of the podcast For Colored Nerds.
Dan Pashman: Hey, Brittany and Eric.
Eric Eddings: Hey.
Brittany Luse: Hi.
Eric Eddings: How's it going?
Dan Pashman: It's going great. Thanks so much. I'm psyched to have you both here. Now we should just set you up a little bit For Colored Nerds was the podcast that the two of you started independently a while back then you segued to co-hosting The Nod for a few years.
Eric Eddings: Yeah.
Dan Pashman: And now you have relaunched For Colored Nerds, to much enthusiasm, very exciting. For folks who haven't heard it, how would you describe the show?
Brittany Luse: It's a weekly show about Black culture, which means we talk about, you know, music, TV, movies, food, art, literature, all those things. But also it's a show about friendship. Because Eric and I have been friends for like sixteen years. We've been working together for seven years.
Eric Eddings: Right.
Brittany Luse: Which blows my mind everyday.
Eric Eddings: Impossible to imagine.
Brittany Luse: I — it's ...
Eric Eddings: That we've made it this long.
Brittany Luse: It's impossible to imagine you've made it this far. But yeah. Also like, you know, I'm sure Eric and I are going to get into a fight at some point in this episode. And if you like that, you're going to love For Colored Nerds
Eric Eddings: You're gonna love For Colored. Yeah.
Dan Pashman: I mean, that's what that's a lot of what I love about your show is that I feel like there's always a lot of thoughtful and insightful discussion about culture. But it's, you know, there's also the relationship between the two of you, which almost makes the show feel serialized from one episode to the next.
Brittany Luse: Interesting.
Dan Pashman: Topics may change, but there's always Brittney and Eric to check in on and then that that makes it feel like an ongoing story, which I really appreciate.
Eric Eddings: Oh, thank you. That's such a really awesome way —
Brittany Luse: That's a really thoughtful way to put it.
Eric Eddings: Yeah, to think about the show.
Dan Pashman: And as you said, Brittany, food is one of the aspects of culture that is a topic on For Colored Nerds.
Brittany Luse: Mm-hmm.
Dan Pashman: And I know that you both have strong opinions about food, especially you, Brittany. I'm going to classify you as the one with with the hotter hot takes.
[LAUGHING]
Eric Eddings: Yes, that's accurate. Accurate. Are they valid? Are they valid? Hmm.
Brittany Luse: They're valid. They're valid.
Eric Eddings: I don't know.
Brittany Luse: Let the people decide.
Dan Pashman: Yeah, and one of these hot takes is about the correct way to eat wings. So we should get into that and just to set it up a little. So now, Eric, you said that For Colored Nerds might not exist without Popeyes.
Eric Eddings: That's — it's a fact. We would actually meet at Popeyes to discuss what we were going to do on the show or before we had like big business meetings, for good luck, we would meet at Popeyes.
Brittany Luse: Mm-hmm.
Eric Eddings: It was always just a safe space.
Dan Pashman: But Brittany, I understand you and Eric have some disagreements about the correct way to eat the wings at Popeyes.
Brittany Luse: Well, you know what, Eric and I don't have a disagreement. Eric has disagreement [Eric Eddings: This — no.] with the rest of the human race about how to eat wings. That's the big issue. Okay, so the thing is, is that one day Eric and I were at Popeyes. Eric got wings and we were eating, we were talking, and I noticed that he had left the wing tip. The wing tip for people who are not familiar with whole chickens. Is that third little — little flap [Eric Eddings: The pointy thing.] that comes on the pointy thing that comes on chicken wings. The bones are typically pretty hollow, and when they're fried and covered in some sort of breading or flour coating.
Eric Eddings: Hmm. This is where we start to disagree.
Brittany Luse: They are delicious to eat.
Eric Eddings: I threw one away.
Brittany Luse: Yes, you threw it away.
Dan Pashman: In front of you.
Brittany Luse: He threw it away.
Dan Pashman: Wow.
Brittany Luse: And that's the thing that blew my mind. When I saw that go into the little garbage receptacle, I was just like, "Why are you wasting food?" And then I realized that he didn't eat wingtips, and —
Dan Pashman: I would picture the wingtip going into the garbage in slow motion, like flying through the air. And Brittany lunging after it like …
Dan Pashman and Brittany Luse: Nooooo ...
Eric Eddings: I threw it like a basketball. It was actually a really good shot.
Dan Pashman: Right.
Brittany Luse: Accurate. Like, Oh, oh, look at me.
Dan Pashman: So, Eric, how do you respond? You're not a wingtip guy?
Eric Eddings: I think wingtips are vestigial product of the chicken.
Dan Pashman: Gotcha.
Eric Eddings: I don't think they are essential to a happy wing experience. I think wingtips do have a purpose. It is making stock. There are like little weird bones in there and my thing is like —
Brittany Luse: They're hollow.
Eric Eddings: I know, but I don't want to have to go through all that.
Brittany Luse: You just eat the bones.
Eric Eddings: I want some good like — I want the — I want the wing meat. I'm not into just chewing on collagen. It's salty.
Brittany Luse: It's not collagen.
Eric Eddings: That's fine.
Brittany Luse: This is how I know you've never even been into one because when you just described is no even correct.
Eric Eddings: OK, whatever. I think —
Dan Pashman: Yeah. It's — I mean, I got to side with Brittany on this one, like when I make the turkey at Thanksgiving that Turkey comes out of the oven, the first thing that I do is snap off the wingtips, the charred, crunchy, fatty, salty wingtips and just chomp down on those things when they are hot and you crunch right through it. It is the crunchy bite of a bird that you can experience without eating straight bone.
Brittany Luse: Mm-hmm. Thank you.
Eric Eddings: You know, Dan, I trusted your opinions for so long and really never, ever doubted you until this exact moment because you are wrong. It's just taking up space. That's a bite of the amazing mashed potatoe. Or like anything else in your plate, in —
Dan Pashman: You're talking about stomach space?
Eric Eddings: Yes. Stomach space. I don't think — you don't need it. You don't need it.
Brittany Luse: No. Here's the thing. You don't understand. It's a vital part of the experience. It's just like, okay. Everybody knows what's the best sandwich that they sell at Wendy's. It's Junior Bacon Cheeseburger. Everybody knows that. Like the ratio of it is correct. The price point is amazing. The dependability, you know, it's never going to be off the menu. That's like going to Wendy's, getting a junior bacon cheeseburger and being like, "You know what? I want to eat two more fries, Let me peel the bacon off of this because it's going to give me more room." You're taking away an essential part of the experience.
Dan Pashman: One more quick question. Eric, I understand that you are a big fan of soup.
Eric Eddings: Yes. Oh, man.
Dan Pashman: So like if wingtips are like one of the crunchy things that you can eat, soup is like on the opposite extreme.
Eric Eddings: Yes. Yeah, no. I love soup. I love pretty much every iteration or type of soup. It doesn't matter temperature outside.
Dan Pashman: You guys were in New Orleans, and of all the things to eat there, Eric got soup. Is that right?
Eric Eddings: It was like at a bar or something, right?
Brittany Luse: Yes. Explain how we ended up at this bar.
Eric Eddings: You know, we were out like hopping around and we got to this really — what I thought was a really nice bar. We're all excited to kind of hang out the bar. The music is good and I'm there, I'm ordering a drink, and they have soup. They have Phở. And it was the most perfect combination of things. Good music, the bar atmosphere, you know, refreshing alcoholic beverage and pho at the bar, congregating, fellowship with my friends. It's perfect. All bars should serve pho.
Dan Pashman: Yeah, I mean, soup as bar food is an interesting concept because most, at least in the U.S., most bar food is like finger food.
Eric Eddings: Yeah. I mean, the thing about it for me that is important, I actually think soup is the like social lubrication we really need because you can't — you have to be who you are when you eat soup.
Brittany Luse: Oh! What?
Eric Eddings: If you are — you have to —I think you have to be your fully self when you eat soup. They're the people who, you know, they try to like, hide and try to be like, dainty with it. There are folks who like, are just kind of getting in that bowl or like even putting it to their mouths, drinking the broth. You can see the true essence of a person by how they eat soup.
Dan Pashman: So you're saying, Eric, like if a person eats soup with gusto, it's an indication that they have more of, like a general lust for life?
Eric Eddings: Absolutely.
Dan Pashman: Interesting.
Eric Eddings: They take life by the reins. You know, like what is a little splatter on your shirt.
Dan Pashman: Right.
Eric Eddings: You know?
Dan Pashman: But they don't have so much lust for life that they'll bite into a wingtip.
Brittany Luse: Ohhh.
Eric Eddings: Well, everybody has to have boundaries, you know, like, what are — you know, are we people? Are we animals?
Brittany Luse: This is flimsy for me, Eric. This is not working for me? This is feeling flimsy?
Eric Eddings: I think it holds up.
Brittany Luse: I'm just being honest with you.
Eric Eddings: I'm going to own it.
MUSIC
Dan Pashman: All right. Well, listen, I think we have established that the two of you are great friends. You have a lot of opinions about food.
Brittany Luse: Mm-hmm.
Dan Pashman: Now, as you know, we asked listeners to call in with their food related disputes, arguments, disagreements with friends or loved ones. And now, Britney and Eric, it's time for you to help mediate some of these disputes. Are you ready?
Eric Eddings: Yes, let's do it.
Brittany Luse: Born ready.
MUSIC
Dan Pashman: All right, let's go to the phones. Hi, who's this?
Jesse: Hi, this is Jesse from the Bronx in my school in Manhattan.
Dan Pashman: Jesse, I hear some church bells in the background that can confirm that you're somewhere in a noisy, cacophonous place.
Jesse: Yeah.
Dan Pashman: Jesse, how old are you?
Jesse: I am 13-years-old.
Dan Pashman: I just want to confirm, Jesse. You're in school. Are you missing class right now?
[LAUGHING]
Brittany Luse: Good question.
Eric Eddings: Yeah, I convinced my teacher to let me miss class.
[LAUGHING]
Brittany Luse: Oh!
Dan Pashman: That is fantastic. I think this call is going to take a long time.
Eric Eddings: Yeah, Jesse.
Dan Pashman: We're gonna spend a lot of time unpacking these issues,
Eric Eddings: We got to dig deep.
Jesse: And I'm currently sitting in the principal's office cause —
Eric Eddings: Oh, wow. All right, it's the most quiet place in the building.
Dan Pashman: All right. Wow. So Jesse, what can we do for you?
Jesse: So a couple of weeks ago in class, we were discussing how to have a respectful argument and discussion prompts. And my teacher asked my class if we have any ideas for like an argument that people are having. So a friend of mine, he brought up that I put ice in my milk.
Dan Pashman: Hmm.
Brittany Luse: Hmm.
Jesse: Which he finds to be outrageous. And he once saw me drinking the milk with ice, and he was like, "That's insane." And then he brought it up in class. I start to explain my reasoning and everybody in my class, I'm not in a very large class. It's only 10 people, but the other eight people go on his side.
Eric Eddings: Hmm.
Brittany Luse: Oh my gosh.
Eric Eddings: That's rough, man.
Brittany Luse: Ugh.
Dan Pashman: Can you summarize for us what was your argument and what was his argument?
Jesse: So his argument is that the milk, when you put the ice in, it becomes so watery. But my argument is that I am not drinking milk slow enough. It's not like if I take a sip then put it down and then pick it up back up again. It's going to have a completely different taste. When the milk is in the fridge, it's already cold.
Dan Pashman: Mm-hmm.
Jesse: But when when there's really a lot of ice in, it like —
Eric Eddings: It hits different.
Brittany Luse: Mm-Hmm.
Jesse: Yeah, it's different. Yeah.
Brittany Luse: I totally get it. I actually — I don't — I'm lactose intolerant now, but the first 17 years of my life, I was a big milk drinker and I often drink it with ice. What do you typically drink milk with?
Jesse: I don't drink milk, like a full glass of milk, on a daily basis. I have over the past week to prepare for today —
[LAUGHING]
Eric Eddings: It's true.
Dan Pashman: Bravo.
Brittany Luse: We appreciate it.
Dan Pashman: He's doing research. Very good. Your teachers have taught you well, Jesse.
Jesse: You can't go wrong with a glass of milk with like cookies.
Eric Eddings: Yeah.
Jesse: Spicy foods like our notoriously like hand-in-hand with milk.
Dan Pashman: Right.
Brittany Luse: Mm-hmm.
Dan Pashman: Have you ever tried taking a glass of milk, like pouring a glass of milk and putting the glass of milk in the freezer for 10 minutes, maybe? It's not going to freeze solid in that time, but it will chill the milk closer to the temperature that you want it to be without having to add ice.
Jesse: I have not tried that, but here's my issue with that.
Dan Pashman: Okay.
Eric Eddings: Is that I have a decent sized fridge that has a freezer that is much smaller, and it would be very hard to fit the glass of milk in the freezer so that it's not knocked down without completely reorganizing my freezer.
Brittany Luse: Also, it's not instant. You know what I mean? Like, you can put the ice in the glass.
Eric Eddings: Right.
Brittany Luse: And put the milk on top, and it's like done in snap.
Eric Eddings: Yeah.
Jesse: It's not like, I'm like, Oh, I really want milk in 10 minutes. It's like ...
[LAUGHING]
Brittany Luse: Fair enough. Fair enough.
Jesse: I also want to add that nobody else in my class has tried milk with ice.
Eric Eddings: Hmm.
Jesse: So I think they have a more reasonable argument. If they like, take a glass ...
Dan Pashman: Right.
Jesse: Put milk in and then put ice.
Eric Eddings: And as someone who's done their research, you know, you feel a lot more confident in that position.
Brittany Luse: Mm-hmm.
Jesse: Yeah.
Dan Pashman: In order for the ice to chill the milk, the ice has to melt at least a little. Now I understand you're saying you drink it fast enough that it doesn't melt a lot, but whatever — to whatever degree there is some watering down of the milk. You — that's a feature, not a bug as far as you're concerned.
Jesse: Yes. So if my research is correct, milk is about 90 percent water.
Eric Eddings: I didn't know that.
Brittany Luse: Thank you.
Jesse: Yeah. Even if the little bit of water gets in, actually, it's not that significant of a difference as one might think it to be.
Eric Eddings: You've got a great school.
Brittany Luse: Yeah, you really do because I mean, like the empirical evidence that you are pulling up — this is like an episode of Law and Order.
Eric Eddings: Yeah.
Brittany Luse: Really and truly, it's just like Law and Order. I grew up drinking skim milk. I did not actually drink whole milk until I was like 11, and I ordered it at a restaurant. I didn't know that that's how it could come. I still put ice in my skim milk because I always felt like milk was so watery anyway. You're a really enterprising person. Maybe you can get one or two people who can kind of be like the change agents.
Jesse: I'm not sure how willing they'll be to admit, though, if I am actually right.
Brittany Luse: Hmm. Yeah.
Dan Pashman: Well, Jesse, I think now you're learning a tough but useful life lesson, which is that —
[LAUGHING]
Brittany Luse: It's very true.
Dan Pashman: A lot of people don't like to admit when they're wrong.
Jesse: People might also go by the majority opinion.
Eric Eddings: So here is what I think. I would agree with Brittany that you're a very enterprising person. And I think that's also clear based on the fact that you were able to convince your teacher and the principal of your school to let you skip class to come on a podcast to talk about milk.
Jesse: Here's another part of the story I didn't mention. The principal of the school is my mom.
Eric Eddings: Oh my god.
[LAUGHING]
Eric Eddings: That is amazing.
Brittany Luse: Yo, plot twist.
Eric Eddings: Yes.
Brittany Luse: There is your plot twist, Jesse. You had us. You had us.
Eric Eddings: Yeah. Well, I actually — I think you're right. Here's the thing. Having the right thing at the right temperature at the right moment is excellent. And a little bit of water. I agree, it doesn't like, you know, override that. I agree that you need to do some more testing and working kind of behind the scenes.
Brittany Luse: Yeah.
Eric Eddings: I think you can really convince your class. You've convinced me. I just met you and I was on the fence about this whole thing. But the thing that also made me feel like you might have a point here is when I was in elementary school, they would give us cartons of milk, but our schools were, you know, a mess. And so I don't know what it was about refrigerator, but they were always come out as blocks of ice, so we were often just peeled — this is disgusting, but we were peel the carton off and lick the functional milk ice cubes. So like remembering that, I feel like, you know, live your truth. Put that ice in the milk. Go for it.
Jesse: My grandmother actually freezes her cartons of milk, like intentionally. So then you have this like bizarre milk slushy. My brother really likes it, but I — it's really weird in cereal. It's like, is that —
[LAUGHING]
Brittany Luse: I feel you on that?
Eric Eddings: Yeah, that sounds about right.
Dan Pashman: First of all, I agree with Eric and Brittany, like you know, here on The Sporkful, I often quote the Latin Maxim de Gustavus not as Dispute A&M, "In matters of taste, there can be no dispute." And if this is how you like your milk, then it's not wrong. You know?
Brittany Luse: No.
Dan Pashman: This is your taste? But we did a show years and years ago on The Sporkful about iced coffee, and we had an argument over how much ice do you want in your iced coffee and the issue of the ice melting too much and watering down the coffee. And one of the suggestions to deal with that is coffee ice cubes.
Eric Eddings: Hmm.
Brittany Luse: Woah.
Dan Pashman: Well, I would suggest, Jesse, you could try the same thing, fill an ice cube tray with milk and use milk ice cubes, and then you get your ice cold milk without watering it down.
Eric Eddings: That's a pro tip.
Brittany Luse: That's such a good idea.
Jesse: Yeah.
Brittany Luse: Milk ice cubes. That's genius.
Dan Pashman: There you go. What do you think of this idea?
Jesse: I like it. I don't know how willing though I'll to like, "Oh, in the future, I'm going to have one glass of milk with ice, so now I'm going to freeze ice cubes," but it's worth a try.
Dan Pashman: All right. Well, Jesse, I think that does it on our end. But if you would like to continue to stare at the screen with your headphones on and pretend like you're talking to us for another few hours to stay at a class, that's totally fine. Good luck. Take care, Jesse.
Brittany Luse: Good luck.
Jesse: Bye.
Eric Eddings: See ya.
Dan Pashman: All right, Eric and Brittany, we got another call lined up. We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk some more. You guys stick around?
Eric Eddings: I'm on it.
Brittany Luse: I'm here.
MUSIC
+++BREAK+++
MUSIC
Dan Pashman: Welcome back to The Sporkful, I'm Dan Pashman. We had a great story for you in last week's show, I hope you make sure to check it out. It's a story with my friend Mandy Naglich, as she tries to become the 20th Master Cicerone in the world. A Master Cicerone is like the beer equivalent of Master Sommelier. Now, mandy is an award winning home brewer. She's a beer writer and educator, and now she's been studying for more than two years for this test. Passing it would mean a lot to her.
CLIP (MANDY NAGLICH): It's definitely something that I feel like a lot of women go up against, is like meeting these certifications to prove that we're worthy. And I don't know that that's necessarily a good thing, but it is important to me. I think it's a nice thing to say, "Hi, I want to host your event and I am an expert and I'm one of only 20 in the world.
Dan Pashman: In this episode, I also very selflessly offer myself up as Mandy's study buddy as she walked me through how to taste and identify different beers. You know, this is just what I do for my friends. All right, that episode is up right now. Find out wherever you got this one. Thanks. Okay, now back to my guest Brittany Luse and Eric Eddings, co-host of the podcast For Colored Nerds. Welcome back, Eric and Brittany.
Eric Eddings: Ima ready for our next call? Who are we talking to now?
Brittany Luse: Shaking with anticipation.
Dan Pashman: All right. So on the line right now, we have Gautam in Nashville. Say hi to my friends, Britney and Eric.
Gautam: Hi Brittany. Hi, Eric.
Eric Eddings: Hey.
Brittany Luse: Hi Gautam.
Dan Pashman: And we also have Gautam's best friend, Aaron, on the line from L.A.
Aaron: Hi everyone.
Eric Eddings: Hey Aaron.
Dan Pashman: All right. Gautam, get us started here. What's the issue?
Gautam: I'm excited to talk about my long running dispute with my best friend, which started about 10 years ago when we took our first road trip. At that point, we had been friends for over a decade and decided that we would go from San Francisco to L.A. and I did all this research. I asked friends who lived in different areas like where should we go to eat, because eating is very important. You know, I presented Aaron with this sort of plan of how we were going to spend the week, at least in terms of food.
Brittany Luse: Hmm.
Gautam: And then at the end of the trip, I remember we had this conversation where he mentioned sort of in passing and sort of — usually I'm the snarky one — so with a little more snark than I anticipated, a comment that was basically like, "Well, you know, like we did, you did plan all this food and you know, god forbid we go to a like a chain restaurant or like a fast food place." And I was like, "Well, yeah, I mean, we're on vacation. I'm not going to L.A. to like, eat at the Olive Garden."
[LAUGHING]
Gautam: And then we took multiple trips after that for years, and I don't think we ever really worked out like what we would do about this. I basically just continued to be me and be like, let us find the best place imaginable. And as with everything else, Aaron just sort of semi-quietly went along with it.
Eric Eddings: This feels close. I have to say, this feels close.
Dan Pashman: Eric paused that thought because I do want to come back to that. But first, I want to make sure that we're understanding the issue here. So we've got two best friends who want to travel together, but they've got different ideas about how they want to eat on those trips. Right? Gautam, you're saying you like to plan. You want to find all the best food out there. Aaron, I gather you're saying you want to keep things a little more casual. Is that right?
Aaron: So part of this dispute, I think, came out of the fact that I had shortly before we took this trip, I had done a road trip with my brother, and one of the kind of highlights of the trip was a stop at an Applebee's where we happened to win a trivia contest and we got a free meal.
Eric Eddings: Amazing.
Brittany Luse: Oh, that's fun.
Aaron: And it's totally sort of serendipitous event that it turned out my brother had actually kind of planned to go to this place because he knew they were going to have a trivia contest.
Brittany Luse: Oh.
Aaron: But, you know, I don't know that we planned the trip around Applebee's in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
[LAUGHING]
Dan Pashman: And so what did you take from that experience?
Aaron: So I think for me, it was very much about the serendipity you kind of experience, especially in the setting of a road trip. I'm absolutely, you know, all for finding great food options. I do love food, but I also want to be able to sort of go with the flow of the trip. I want to be able to stop when I'm hungry. I want to be able to sort of pick a place where maybe it's about a weird experience as much as it is about like the real high quality food.
Brittany Luse: Hmm. It sounds like you guys are just oriented in two completely different places. Like even if you both really, really, really enjoy a great meal and a great dining experience, it sounds like, you know, Gautam, you might be the planner and Aaron, you might be somebody who's a little bit more open to serendipity and the randomness that traveling can bring about. Do I have that right or am I misreading?
Gautam: Oh, oh yeah. I mean, no one would ever call me flexible, like ever.
[LAUGHING]
Gautam: You know?
Aaron: True.
Gautam: I am an Indian-American lawyer, right? There's just a schedule. There's like a Stalinist five-year plan. And, you know, we're just going to stick to it.
[LAUGHING]
Dan Pashman: And it sounds like, though, that's not the case for you.
Aaron: I pride myself on my adaptability or my willingness to kind of go with an experience. I want to meet people where they're at. I want to try places I haven't necessarily been and see what I like about them or find what I like about them in the context of this trip. My priding myself on my adaptability was, I think, maybe contrasted with Gautam really wanting to present this kind of curated experience, this really refined experience.
Dan Pashman: Gautam, can I ask you, so when you two are on this road trip and you have this plan, you have specific ideas about exactly where you want to go to eat, and Aron is kind of resisting. How did that feel?
Gautam: I was a little surprised. I think in part because growing up like, you know, my parents, you know, they grew up on a farm in India. And, you know, the idea of going to a restaurant was just not really something they dealt with. And when they came to the U.S. in the early '70s, I think for a while that, you know, we had some fast food, but at the time I came around, I was the youngest. It wasn't really just part of what we did. We almost either had almost every meal at home and we would occasionally go out and it would be like to nice places, right? And I'm using air quotes there because I think there's a lot of class and race encompassed in that which I didn't realize until a lot later. And but, you know, I think also very strongly in my family and my community, like food is love right? You can get five minutes without sitting into some Auntie's house house without getting a bunch of pakoras stuck in your mouth. And so the idea of like planning food, I think, was also me being like, I will ask everyone I know. I will spend all this time procrastinating on laboring that looking for places.
Brittany Luse: It's not procrastinating if it brings result.
[LAUGHING]
Gautam: Thank you. I appreciate that. I will keep that in mind.
Dan Pashman: Eric, you were saying earlier that you felt that this issue hit close to home for you. Can you elaborate on that?
Eric Eddings: Yeah. So I am the type of person who, I, when I travel, if there's a Ruby Tuesdays or Cheesecake Factory, I'm going. It's not always the most amazing food, but there is a level of consistency that can be like important that allows me to put my focus somewhere else. But I will say, and this is actually one of the few points that I will give Brittany some praise, is that [Brittany Luse: Wow.] I think you actually was Brittany who helped me when it came to traveling. She is the gay Indian lawyer who does all the research to find a list of five-star Yelp review restaurants. And I like, I must admit, my traveling experiences have been a bit better, embracing a little bit of that tactic. Yeah, I see some parallels in the experience.
Brittany Luse: I do like to research and know where there is to eat. I'm not great with, like always scheduling things in advance. My older sister, who actually — actually is also a lawyer and gay, not that I think about it. She —
Gautam: I mean, it happens.
Brittany Luse: She always has given us a schedule for everything with every family trip. She's really good about planning in advance, making reservations, accounting, like thinking about travel time. Where is everybody coming from? I'm not great at that. I think that that's a superpower. What I'm hearing is like, kind of like a, um, not just the difference in preference, but also a difference in expression.
Eric Eddings: Hmm.
Brittany Luse: I don't know. I don't even know if I really believe in the whole love languages thing because I think that like I need all four of the love languages coming at me all the time. But it sounds like you guys might have some sort of fundamental difference in how you might express care and want to receive care.
Dan Pashman: Did you understand, Aaron, this was Gautam's way of trying to do, like, create a nice experience for you. Like, it may be imperfect —
Gautam: What?
Dan Pashman: But it's his way of expressing care.
Aaron: Yeah, absolutely. Not to bring too much of our, you know, twenty-five years of being friends into this, but Gautam's an extremely talented cook and baker. He has, in the past, you know, made cookies, made cakes, and sent them in the mail to me. I have felt some difficulty in receiving these kinds of things sometimes because I'm not a talented baker. I'm not sending him baked goods in return. Like, why are you sending me these things all the time? I don't — I feel like there is this kind of imbalance in the degree of giving or showing to one another.
Dan Pashman: So I am a planner often, especially around food. So I can certainly understand your perspective, Gautam. Like I remember a time right after college, I was hanging out with my college friends. We're all getting ready to go somewhere and I had planned like, we're gonna go —I don't know. We used to go bowling a lot and we're probably going to go bowling. And they're all just chilling on the front steps and I look at my watch and go, oh, we got to get going. I come out onto the front steps and one of them looks up, and Amelia says, "Uh-oh, here comes the plan.”
[LAUGHING]
Dan Pashman: And I was like, ouch, like don't you understand I just want us to all have a good time? I didn't say that, but that's what I was thinking. Like, yeah, like, sorry, but like, someone's going to be the grown-up here or we're going to miss bowling.
Eric Eddings: Hmm.
Dan Pashman: But at the same time, they were all having fun sitting on the front steps, and maybe we could have never gone bowling that day, and it would have been also a perfectly lovely afternoon. So, Brittany and Eric, what are your thoughts on Gautam's and Aaron's issue?
Brittany Luse: It's clear that you both care a lot about each other.
Eric Eddings: Yeah.
Brittany Luse: And you both care a lot about your friendship, and this has become a lot more than I was originally anticipating. You know, it sounds like you're at a point where it's kind of like, oh, well, how can we kind of meet each other halfway? What I have found that works for me and that has worked like when traveling with a variety of people for work is have a list and put it in a map, a Google Maps of places that we want to go. Have some places that are like non-negotiables, like everybody picks their non-negotiables. Like, We have to do this, we have to do this. And that it be food or an attraction. And then in between, there kind of keep it breezy so that if we're wandering around or if we're driving and then I see, oh, we're near these places and they're on my map, then we can go to one.
Dan Pashman: You're trying to find a balance between the plan and the spontaneity.
Brittany Luse: Yeah.
Eric Eddings: You know, to your point, what's an hour and a Zaxby's really going to do to you? You know, like, it's not — I don't think it's — I don't think it's the end of the world. I think plan probably — if you have four stops, you know, one of them you leave open and the other three you're stopping at great restaurants. Aaron like, I think you rolling with that and seeing it as an act of service, I think gets you there. But I think, you know, for you, I think a lot of times you may be preoccupied with what to do back, but often you just really need to say, like, man, I really appreciate you picking out a few of these restaurants. You know, I even have to give Brittany a words of affirmation occasionally to maintain our friendship.
Brittany Luse: Just scraps. The little pieces of them.
Gautam: Tell me about this. What is that like for you? How does that — how does that happen?
Eric Eddings: Just enough. Just enough.
Aaron: I will say on my last trip to Nashville, we did a stop at Bolton's Hot Chicken and it was completely worth it and one of the greatest benefits I have had of got planning.
Brittany Luse: Ooh.
Eric Eddings: Well, I would say as a Memphian, I prefer Gus', but I will say that is damn good.
Gautam: So here's what I'll say, as someone who doesn't eat meat, my go to is just to bring all my white boyfriends to Bolton's and watch them cry because like a serious like — there's been at least four of them. It's a gift that I think all of us, especially people of color, can really engage more with to watch how it happens.
Brittany Luse: I support this wholeheartedly.
Aaron: I'm so glad I could give you that gift.
Eric Eddings: You guys are amazing. I love it.
Brittany Luse: Yeah, this is really — you all have made me actually remember how much I, actually, I appreciate Eric.
Eric Eddings: Wow.
Brittany Luse: Your wains and waxes during the week. Well you said nice about me today on the record. I'm sitting here, I'm quaking.
Dan Pashman: Oh, I think we've all made a lot of progress.
Gautam: There's like a group hug happening on the Zoom right now.
Eric Eddings: Yeah.
Dan Pashman: Yeah, a virtual group hug. Well, Aaron and Gautam, best of luck on your next road trip or gathering in L.A. or Nashville or wherever it is. And I hope you have some delicious planned meals and some delicious, spontaneous ones.
Gautam: Thanks everyone.
Aaron: Thanks.
MUSIC
Dan Pashman: All right, Brittany Luse, Eric Eddings, the podcast is For Colored Nerds. You're both on social media, too. Eric on Twitter. You're @EEddings. Brittany, you're @BMLuse. L-U-S-E.
Brittany Luse: Mm-hmm.
Dan Pashman: And then on Instagram and Twitter, the show is @ForColoredNerds. You guys, I love your podcast and everything you do. It's been really great hanging out. Thank you so much.
Eric Eddings: Thank you.
Brittany Luse: Thank you so much. It's been so much fun.
Eric Eddings: Yeah, seriously. I had a blast.
Dan Pashman: Next week on the show, I talk with comedian Margaret Cho about her struggles with an eating disorder. While why wait for that one, make sure you check out last week's show is the story of Mandy Naglich attempt to become the 20th Master Cicerone in the world and only the fourth woman to hold the title. That one's up now.
