Whether its key lime pie season or not, we're coming to you live from the subduction zone with crocks of dessert as we debate bucket sizes and meet a new eccentric. After cameo appearances by The Pie King, The Rug Doctor and The Stinky Car Detective we learn the worst thing that could possibly happen to a car has happened and pitch like, five new segments.
Strause serving orange chiffon pie to Mary Pickford!
Graham Cracker Spilled Milk episode
Molly's Now but Wow! - Jia Tolentino on The Ezra Klein Show
Molly 0:00
Hi, I'm Matthew, and I'm Molly, and
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:06
this is spilled milk, the show where we cook something delicious, eat it all, and you can't have any
Molly 0:10
today, we are talking about graham cracker
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:14
crust. Yes, not graham crackers. We already did that
Molly 0:17
graham cracker crust. Welcome to spring, everybody. This episode is going to be airing early April. I mean, you know, tis the season for, I don't know, key lime pie,
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:29
sure. Yeah, yeah, whatever. Key Lime Pie season. When, like, do you whenever you talk about crust, think about the Earth's crust? No, I do. I don't know. Like, I, you know, I, I'm not. I'm a person who, like, has a science degree, like, could I explain what the Earth's crust is? I don't think so. I know it's like, down there, like,
Molly 0:52
under some stuff. Yeah, it's down there. And it's like, you know, kind of moving. It's moving, okay, shifting, yeah, I don't it has plates, yeah? But,
Matthew Amster-Burton 1:00
like, is it more of like a pie crust texture or more of like a graham cracker crust texture?
Molly 1:05
You know, I think it depends on what part of the plate you're on, important, yeah, you know, if you're like a subduction zone, I mean, things could go graham cracker crusty anytime we
Matthew Amster-Burton 1:17
are in a subduction zone, right? Sure are okay, yeah, cool.
Molly 1:21
Do you remember why we're doing this episode, or where I think it's because,
Matthew Amster-Burton 1:24
well, first of all, like, do I remember anything because, like, I'm still I'm I recently got back from Japan. I'm jet lagged and getting over COVID, and so if I sound dumber than usual, that's why. But I think what happened is we did a graham cracker episode, and then we're like, let's not talk about graham cracker. Graham graham cracker. Let's talk about graham cracker crust on this episode, let's talk making its own episode, which, it turns out this probably gonna be a pretty short episode, because there's not a lot to say about graham cracker crust.
Molly 1:53
But this episode, what we can tell you is that you're gonna learn about a new historical American eccentric.
Matthew Amster-Burton 2:00
Yes, I was so surprised, like, when I started, when I started looking into this, I was like, Maybe we shouldn't do this episode. Maybe, like, all there is to say about graham cracker crust is, it's tasty. It's easy to make, like, it's got three ingredients the end. Then it turns out there's another American eccentric associated with it, maybe not as interesting as the guy who thought that masturbation would melt all your organs, but, but pretty good.
Molly 2:24
So we'll get to him in just a minute. But Matthew, so I don't know, what do you think of when you when you think graham cracker crust
Matthew Amster-Burton 2:32
is this? Is this memory lane, or is this our new segment? What do you think of when you think of
Molly 2:39
it's kind of like our, kind of like our old what did we learn? What did we learn? I
Matthew Amster-Burton 2:45
totally forgot about that. I haven't thought about that in probably a year and a half.
Molly 2:51
We'll see if we can bring it back, 25 the year of learning. 2025
Matthew Amster-Burton 2:57
the year of learning. And it starts April 3. That's when the year starts for me. Okay? But anyway, that's when I start writing 2025 on my checks. Let's, oh
Molly 3:07
my God. You know, the other day we should say we're recording this episode in January, yeah. But the other day, when I wrote 2025 for the first time, I was like, Oh my god. The first time I used to do this, used to be on checks, right? I just didn't, I mean, I, actually, I do still write checks. I don't I write them for my kids school and for the people who mow my lawn. Okay, fair, okay. Matthew, Memory Lane, graham cracker crust. Memory Lane. Okay,
Matthew Amster-Burton 3:34
so like, for me, it's just the classics, key lime pie and especially New York cheesecake, as made by mats J mom of the show, Judy. I don't think I've ever particularly run into graham cracker crust in like, a novel or avant garde context, but maybe we'll think of one as we go. One, one, like very specific key lime pie. Memory I had, which definitely had a graham cracker crust, was, I don't remember exactly what they called it was something like key lime pie in a bucket. At this place, barbacoa in Upper Queen Anne, I don't think it was bucket. Maybe it was like in a bowl, but I think it was something more interesting than bowl, but less interesting than bucket, but it was like, it was like a little crock. Maybe it was key lime pie in a crock, because it was a little crock of pie, like an individual serving, although a very hearty individual serving at this, like, long defunct barbecue place in Upper Queen Anne, and it was really tasty, and had lots of graham cracker crust. And, like, did the thing that, like, I really love about graham cracker crust is that it crumbles as you go, and you get to, like, you know, pick up shards of it. Yes,
Molly 4:36
I know the tricky thing with graham cracker crust, and maybe we'll talk more about this when we talk about how you make it. But, yeah, you want it to be crumbly, but not, like, turning to sand. Yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 4:47
right. But at the same time, you don't want it to be tough, like a brittle like that. You have to, like, carve it out with a chisel. So
Molly 4:55
you mentioned key lime pie. I won't, I won't mention it again. But. I will instead mention that. So one of the recipes that is in a homemade life, my first book is a rum cream pie that has a graham cracker crust. And the idea of rum cream pie is something I would have just never, ever feel like I get the idea. No, I get the idea as well. But, you know, I mean, like, think, like, chocolate cream pie sounds pretty obvious. Banana cream pie pretty obvious. Oh, I can't believe I didn't, didn't mention, well, chocolate cream pie and banana cream pie, the ones that I've had had, like, a regular pie crust,
Matthew Amster-Burton 5:33
okay? And like, the chocolate cream pie that I've had typically has a chocolate crumb crust, okay.
Molly 5:37
Well, anyway, so when my dad was sick, and we were being showered with delicious food by my parents friends. I remember David and Pam fly shaker, who surely I've mentioned on this show before, fly shake the fly shakers, you don't forget that name. Nope. They brought over a rum cream pie. Wow. I remember being really skeptical of it. I was, like, 24 years old. I would not have liked rum at the time. I don't think I liked boozy
Matthew Amster-Burton 6:07
things despite your summer job on a pirate ship. That's right, that's right. Some people work on an Alaskan fishing boat. You worked on a Caribbean pirate ship.
Molly 6:17
It was so, so good. And so I got the recipe for a homemade life, and I want to try this. Strangely, I don't think I've made it since I was testing recipes, sure book, which seems like a real mistake. I remember it's a little tricky because it uses gelatin as part of you know what sets it. And I feel like that's tricky somehow, but it's not really,
Matthew Amster-Burton 6:40
no, I even have some, some NOx unflavored gelatin, yeah, covered, yeah, yeah. Okay, this sounds very appealing. Like, I haven't been drinking much lately, but I still have, like, a bunch of bottles of liquor sitting around on my shelf and like that are getting used extremely slowly. So, like, I could use some rum and make a pie, you
Molly 6:59
know, we should have, like, a movie night or something we should have, and we could potluck it. I could even make the pie. But, like, how are
Matthew Amster-Burton 7:07
we gonna decide on the movie? Because, like, I always want to watch an action movie that you're gonna hate. Like, what kind of movie? Like, what movie can we comprehend? I'm
Molly 7:14
gonna watch some. I want to watch something that is, like, kind of dark and depressing. Or I'd like to watch horror.
Matthew Amster-Burton 7:20
I mean, like you picked a couple of horror movies last time, and I enjoyed one of them a lot, or maybe, maybe Abby picked seven. You picked the shining, and the shining is great. Oh, right,
Molly 7:29
right. Okay, anyway, okay, but so rum cream pie to be continued, Yes, okay, so let's talk about what this stuff is, and then maybe we could, I don't know if we can definitively say what it is that makes one better than another, but maybe we can hypothesize. So
Matthew Amster-Burton 7:46
graham cracker crust is a type of crumb crust, and most sources that I saw seem to think that it is the original crumb crust, and other crumb crusts are a variation on it,
Molly 7:56
so like an Oreo or like a chocolate wafer crust or whatever, yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 8:01
so, so crumb crust may have developed with streusel as an inspiration. So streusel is like a crumb topping made with flour. Crumb crust is a is a bottom crust made with some sort of pulverized cookie, usually. So, so it could be a graham cracker. Could be animal crackers, pretzels, digestive biscuits, uh, Oreos, chocolate wafer cookies, rip I still, I still, like, like, I was getting really bummed yesterday, just talking to Watson about how they don't make chocolate wafer cookies anymore. So how do people make ice box cakes? I don't know. That's what I was. That's how we started. Like, I asked, like, like, is ice box cake? Like as a thing? Just like, not going to exist anymore, and like people are going to forget the concept even, I know you can make an ice box cake with Nilla Wafers or whatever, or with Oreos, but it's not the same. I feel
Molly 8:49
like that's wrong. You could just buy a lot of Oreos and just use one side of the cookie or,
Matthew Amster-Burton 8:55
I mean, you can also scrape the cream off and collect it into like a jug.
Molly 9:00
You need to do a bucket into a bucket, yeah, into a bucket, yeah.
Matthew Amster-Burton 9:03
If I opened a restaurant, like, our signature dessert would be bucket of Oreo cream with with a few crumbled Oreos as a topping. Like, it would certainly, certainly have some, some buzz, some Yeah, some Riz. There
Molly 9:16
is an audience for it. There is Yeah. How big
Matthew Amster-Burton 9:20
would the bucket be? Like, they're probably do buckets come in, like, different numbered sizes, if you go to the hardware store, like,
Molly 9:26
how there's, like, a number six can, exactly, yeah, yeah, or number 10 can, okay,
Matthew Amster-Burton 9:31
well, it's gonna be a number six bucket. We've just decided.
Molly 9:37
Well, so okay, but hold on back to graham cracker crust. Yeah, yeah. Did somebody invent this stuff? Is there an inventor? It seems
Matthew Amster-Burton 9:43
that there is so. Okay, now we're gonna, we're gonna meet our guy. Our guy for this episode is named Monroe, Boston, Strauss. Wow, a triple name, yes. He was born in Los Angeles in 1900 his father was named. Boston, Monroe, Strauss, so,
Molly 10:05
okay, clearly they were working with just a small number of names and had to keep addressing them. That's why there's that right, six
Matthew Amster-Burton 10:12
possible permutations. I think so. So like his his son, presumably, was like Strauss, Strauss, Monroe, Boston. I
Molly 10:21
don't think they can. I don't think the last name can. Can be brought up into the first name or the middle name quite I don't
Matthew Amster-Burton 10:29
know. I mean, I think you can do whatever you want. It's America. That's true. Okay? Monroe. Monroe Strauss, the the younger the main character of this episode, was hired by his uncle to work in the family's wholesale pie business in 1919, Monroe Strauss took over the business just a few years later. I could not find what the name of the wholesale pie business was. Presumably, it was like Uncle Strauss' homemade pies, or maybe it was like Boston Cream Pie. Maybe it was Boston cream pies. Yeah. See, ironically, I did not invent the Boston Cream Pie and was kind of anti cake, which I think a Boston Cream Pie is more of a cake. Yeah, this, I'm sourcing this from two articles that we'll link to. Both, one's an article from the LA Times, and one is from Atlas Obscura. So at this point in American history, pie was kind of on the decline, and cakes were on the rise, but, um, and partly just because of, like, random trends, but also because of technology. So ovens had gotten way more consistent, and you need a consistent oven temperature for baking a cake. For a pie, it kind of doesn't matter as much, because you're just trying to wait, really, yeah, because you're just trying to, like, cook and, you know, you're trying to not burn the crust, but get it cooked through and get the filling heated a cake is much more of a of a scientific endeavor than a pie. Okay, okay, it doesn't mean cake is better.
Molly 11:47
I can't wait to hear from some of our listeners who are expert pie bakers. They're gonna totally like open up a can of they might
Matthew Amster-Burton 11:56
open up a number 10 can of pie filling on us, which is, which is our thing. So I don't like it seemed that seemed plausible to me. I don't know. Maybe it's not true. Whatever. Okay, go on. Okay. But anyway, Monroe Strauss loved pie. He thought that pie was a better dessert than cake, and he had his first breakthrough in 1926 when he invented the chiffon pie. Have you ever made a chiffon pie. I've never had a chiffon pie. I've had a chiffon pie. I've never made one. So it's like a very like, light, fluffy custard pie. Okay, so we're maybe like whipped egg whites and corn starch for stabilization. Okay, so lighter than a cream pie, lighter than a cream pie. And in particular, he thought, he thought cream pies were, like, too, too leaden and, like, you couldn't eat enough of them. And it wasn't like a diet thing, it was, it was just like a, you know, personal taste sort of thing. But he wanted, he wanted to come up with a innovative pie, which he did, and a chiffon, chiffon pie. He said his mother came up with the name. Yes, her name was M M O T, P S, mother of the pyman Strauss, M O T, P M S, motpums, oh, gosh,
Molly 13:12
this is getting challenging. Hold on. I'm looking for the picture that's that's going to accompany the next one. Oh, I've seen pictures here of Strauss,
Matthew Amster-Burton 13:21
yes, yeah, he looked, if you imagine, like, like a white guy chef from the early 20th century. That's what he looked like, yeah.
Molly 13:28
Well, he actually, to me, kind of looks like an insurance salesman,
Matthew Amster-Burton 13:32
sure. Well, it was, it was a very savvy business man. Okay, so
Molly 13:36
wait, hold on. You're tell us about this occasion when he served an orange chiffon pie to Mary Pickford, who's, oh,
Matthew Amster-Burton 13:43
I don't know what the occasion was, but there's a picture of him serving a an orange chiffon pie to silent movie actress Mary Pickford. This is delightful. Did she make it over to the talkies? I don't know.
Molly 13:54
This pie also looks really large. It looks like, it's maybe like, 12 inches in diameter. I hope Mary Pickford,
Matthew Amster-Burton 14:00
the filling is so light and fluffy that that even Mary Pickford can eat a whole pie. Good. And that's how he advertised it when, when he was for his delivery business, which is real and like he sold, he sold, like, 1000s and 1000s of these pies to homes and businesses in the LA area. He needed a crust to go with the filling. He tried it with, like a traditional pie crust, and didn't like the contrast, and so he invented graham cracker crust to go with the chiffon pie filling. Wow. Okay, unfortunately, I wanted it to be like him telling, like, an apocryphal origin story about how, like, you know, he dropped a box of graham crackers and they pulverized. But no, just kitchen experimentation. Okay,
Molly 14:43
so wait, I'm just, yeah, I'm fascinated by the, like, delivery service with chiffon pies. It seems like this would have been a real refrigeration challenge.
Matthew Amster-Burton 14:54
Oh, that's a good question. So I'm
Molly 14:58
really interested in the. Fact that this took off. And I'm also, I mean, am I understanding correctly that this guy became something of like, Oh, I see here that he became known as the pie King. Yes. So wait a minute. So like, do people, do people talk about this guy like they talk about other famous food? No,
Matthew Amster-Burton 15:17
absolutely not. So at the time they did so he's considered one of the first celebrity chefs, and like, apparently, was, was like widely known first in LA and then, and then nationally as, like the Pie Guy.
Molly 15:29
Did he go by Monroe Boston Strauss. He went
Matthew Amster-Burton 15:32
by Monroe Boston Strauss. He sometimes referred to himself as a pie engineer. He rejected the term pie King, although that's what the press dubbed him okay. In 1930 he sold the pie business and became a pie consultant, and got very rich on his pie empire. He had one more massive hit. He invented black bottom pie. What? In the 30s, what? Yes, wow. And in 1939 published, apparently, a very cranky and, like, you know, serious pie cookbook called pie marches on, and it called for measuring ingredients by weight, and claimed that you cannot make a good pie with cup measurements, which I feel like was very ahead of what's this guy? Yeah,
Molly 16:14
pie marches on was, Did this have, like, military connotations? 1939,
Matthew Amster-Burton 16:20
I don't know. I tried. I looked it up to see if I could find could find it online. No. And then I was like, Could I order a used copy? I found used copies starting at $5,000 so this is, this is, what do you know? What's his name?
Molly 16:34
You know, if I were gonna publish a cookbook in 1939 I would call it like pie annexes, Poland or something like that?
Speaker 1 16:43
Wow. Yes, that I that was not what I was expecting, but, but, sure,
Molly 16:49
I don't know. I was just trying to make it relevant. No, no,
Unknown Speaker 16:53
you made it all too relevant.
Molly 16:56
Really. Sorry. Was it 1939 or 1938
Speaker 1 16:59
I don't know, but like, but it's terrifying. Either way, I know it's awful. I take it back.
Matthew Amster-Burton 17:05
Yeah, no, no, yeah, it was. It was a bad it was a bad time that that was unique in history, and definitely isn't coming around again. Are
you familiar with the writer, Paul Collins? He, he wrote a bunch of books. Like, he's probably still writing books, and I've just lost track of him, but he was like a McSweeney's guy, like, maybe a friend of Dave Eggers. And he wrote a book about, like, people who were once famous and have been completely forgotten by history, like, like a guy who was, like, a famous sort of dog role poet who, like everybody loved his poetry, and then as soon as he died, like everyone moved on to something else. Or, like, like a guy who painted really long murals that, like, none of them survive, and so no one remembers him. This guy, Monroe Strauss, like, would have fit into that book, because by like, the mid 50s, he had been pretty much forgot, wow. And he died in 1981 and, like, as far as I could, like, several sources were said, like, we don't really even know much about, like, what he was doing for, like, the last 30 years of his life.
Molly 18:13
I wonder what it is that makes certain people. I mean, I'm sure some of it is, like, a cult of personality that makes it so that we remember James Beard or Craig Claiborne, but not Monroe. That's a
Matthew Amster-Burton 18:25
good question, because I was going to say maybe it has something to do with TV, but like, James Beard and Craig Claiborne weren't TV personalities, really. Were they? No, no, I don't know. And like, I don't know, do people unlike other than us, remember Craig Claiborne? Like, I think so. Does anybody in their 30s know who Craig Claiborne is? Hard to say. I feel like James Beard is like, maybe bigger but, but I feel like Craig Claiborne might be like obscurity.
Molly 18:55
Oh, gosh, it's interesting. It's hard for me to conceptualize that because, yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 18:59
no, no, I know. I know what you mean, like, and I'm glad we'll never fade into obscurity. Absolutely, like, our legacy is pretty much guaranteed at this point. Once you hit 15 years of podcasting like you're good to go, they're gonna, like, put you on when they send, like a space probe with, with, like a golden record of, like the best of Earth stuff, that's what the you know, when they say they called a record that, you know, the paper, the paper sticker in the middle of the record, he just said the best of Earth.
Molly 19:29
Carl Sagan was, he was like, let's keep this broad, yeah, yeah, you know, like, we're including many genres here. It's just Earth stuff. And
Matthew Amster-Burton 19:38
they probably included some cookies, probably to go with with the record and submit some milk, which was not a great idea.
Molly 19:44
No. Oh, my God, Matthew, wait a minute. I forgot to tell you this. Oh, please. Okay, so five or six days ago, a terrible smell manifested in my car. I say manifested because I can't think of another word for like, the perfect word. It just came, and then was there in my car. And I had just the day before gone and bought a bunch of compost, like bulk compost, and I had, like, put a tarp down in the back of the car. It was, like one of my most Butch moments ever. I'd put a tarp down in the back of the car, and I shoveled in like, half a cubic yard of compost, but the compost didn't even smell. I came home, removed the compost right away. I even vacuumed the car. There was no compost in it, but suddenly my car had this horrendous stink, and it took until yesterday to figure out what it was.
Matthew Amster-Burton 20:38
I'm assuming it was milk related, since that's what reminds me that we've talked about this. That's the worst thing that could possibly happen to a car. I
Molly 20:45
know I felt. I said to ash. I was like that. That's it. Have to get a new car. Now, that's what Matthew. What are
Matthew Amster-Burton 20:51
you gonna do? Wait, okay, so first of all, I interrupted, like, how did the milk Get into the car? Okay, so
Molly 20:56
we were, we had been on, like, a little family getaway to Lummi Island. And when we left there, I packed, like a an empty box that had had Cliff bars in it. I packed it full of like snacks for aims, including, like a four ounce bottle of milk, and the milk was upright and the box was upright. However, my mother was in the back seat with Ames, and, you know, no doubt, things got really hairy back there. And by the time she took the milk out of the box to feed it to him, like most of it had had spilled. And so when I was cleaning or when I was unpacking the car later, I was like, Wow, where did all this milk go? Like the backpack that was back there isn't wet, and the box is wet, but whatever. Well, all of it was absorbed readily by the the the carpet, yeah, of of my car. So anyway, my mother has a one of those Rug Doctor machines, sure, and we've borrowed it. And after work today, Ash is gonna run the Rug Doctor for me, because I hope
Matthew Amster-Burton 22:00
that's enough. I hope it's gonna be, but I hope so.
Molly 22:07
My car today, when I got in and drove it now, knowing that the smell is is milk, I was like, Oh, this truly smells like cheese. It really smells like stinky cheese. But my car is not where I want to smell that. Wow. I think I'm doomed.
Matthew Amster-Burton 22:26
I think you might be doomed. Yeah, yeah, you're gonna have to, like, sell, sell your car for like, 50 bucks.
Molly 22:35
No, seriously, Ash and I were like, We lifted the hood. I thought there might be something
Speaker 1 22:39
dead. Yeah, dead. Dead muskrat. Yeah. Now we
Molly 22:43
found a dead mouse under the hood of my car before
Matthew Amster-Burton 22:48
you got it this time. But it turned out that wasn't the source. You ruled out the compost. You're like, you're like, it was Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes of sticky cars that, anyway, if our What was our previous visit? This was before we started recording that our business is we're window movers. Like, if you have a window that you need to move from one part of your house to another, you call us.
Molly 23:08
It was an inside joke. It does anyway, but yes, we're window movers. So that didn't
Matthew Amster-Burton 23:14
work out. But now we've got the true billion dollar idea. This one is going, like, straight to the top. It's stinky car detective, there
Molly 23:23
we go. I mean, unfortunately, Matthew doesn't really know anything about cars. Well,
Matthew Amster-Burton 23:28
I know you're not supposed to spill milk in them anyway. I'll be, you'll be the like the brains of the operation, and I'll be the brawn. You
Molly 23:37
know, when we tape next week, how about we How about we check back in about my car, and we'll let everybody know
Matthew Amster-Burton 23:45
a new segment, because I think it's going to be an ongoing issue. No,
Molly 23:48
somehow we made it so Ames is too. Somehow we made it to age two without him completely ruining my car. I mean, okay, that's, you know, that's pretty good, right? But, yeah, tonight we're gonna Rug Doctor it, and I get you to pray for me. We'll talk about it next week. All right,
Speaker 1 24:05
all right. I'm excited to check it, check back in on this next week. Especially excited because it's not my problem.
Molly 24:11
No, I know. Yeah, okay, wait so,
Matthew Amster-Burton 24:15
so I have, like, this, I don't know if there's actually, like, a similar story, but like, I like, spilled, what was it? Peanut butter, I think, on my favorite sweatshirt. And then like, like, washed it and dried it. Once you smear it, I smeared it, like it was, like a little dribble of, like, you know, you spread the peanut butter on the hot English muffin, and it gets sort of melty, and then you take a bite and sort of like, sploops off your lip, Yep, yeah, so. And then, like, I didn't notice it. I got, so, I got, like, a grease stain on my favorite sweatshirt. I was gonna, like, recycle it. And then I was like, wait a minute, there's a stain removing genius in my family. It's psylots. W, so, so, like, I texted silos W, and say, Could you get this out that's been through the dryer? And she's like, I don't think. So, but I'll try absolutely no trace of the state. Hold
Molly 25:04
on, what did she do? Do we need to have a new segment? Like,
Matthew Amster-Burton 25:08
I take it as your stain. I don't remember the answer anyway, so, so then I got the sweatshirt back, and I celebrated by immediately getting a new stain, which which, I kind of was able to get out. Like, if you know it's there, you can, you can still see it, but I'm okay with it. Do you ever
Molly 25:26
feel like plain, like un unpatterned, unprinted sweatshirts are like magnets
Matthew Amster-Burton 25:33
for stains, absolutely. And they're like, my favorite thing to wear, too, I
Molly 25:37
know. But what is the deal like every single plain sweatshirt I have ever it
Matthew Amster-Burton 25:41
must be something about, okay, here's my theory. So, so something about the, like, puffy fabric, like, soaks up stains, but also it's the thing you're most likely to be wearing when you are, like, eating sloppily. Okay, right? Okay. Because, like, if I'm at like, a fancy restaurant, as I so often am, like, I'm gonna be on my best behavior. I'm gonna be like, trying to eat neatly, because I'm probably, like, out with, you know, like, who would I be out with at a fancy restaurant? Like, your wife? People from Shark Tank, my wife? Yeah, you know, fancy people, fancy people and so and so. A I'm gonna be like, trying to eat neatly. And I'm probably not wearing, like, my favorite old sweatshirt at this, you know, this three star restaurant. But if I'm like, at home, like on the couch eating like a peanut butter English muffin, I'm not gonna bring the same level of care to each bite, that's right. And I'm probably wearing a sweatshirt.
Molly 26:36
I get it. Okay. Well, anyway, hey, you know, I would love to know more about how psylots W works her magic. And I don't know, maybe this could be a new segment. Maybe someday we could, we could have her on or, yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 26:49
like the stain, the stain stopper, the stain, stain stripper, we could figure, yeah, okay, so, I mean, yeah, you're the stinky car detective and like she's the stain removing equivalent. Okay, all right, so back to graham cracker crust.
Molly 27:06
So let's talk about how we make this thing. So, all right, go for it. How do you make it? So you gotta take your graham crackers and you gotta make them into crumbs. And I'm sure you could do this by hand. I've done it in a food processor. What about you? Food Processor. Yeah, great way to go. Then after you you turn your graham cracker into crumbs, then you add sugar, and then you add melted butter, and it turns the whole thing into, like, a really nice wet sand texture. And then you can just press it into a pie pan.
Matthew Amster-Burton 27:37
Yep, you know, you have to, like, be sure, like, press it in, like, you know, firmly, so that it will hold its shape, but, like, not so firmly that it will, no, like, I don't know, yeah, I think you can press it as firmly as you want. Like, that's not what makes it tough. I think overcooking is what makes it tough. Oh, okay, this makes sense. Yeah. Okay, so, so, yeah. So, like, the thing about graham cracker crust, and, like, I realize this is obvious, is making a good traditional pie crust takes a lot of practice. Making a good graham cracker crust does not that
Molly 28:05
is very correct. So easy. It is so easy. And I feel like, if it doesn't work well, it's probably because you've used the wrong amount of assert of an ingredient or something,
Matthew Amster-Burton 28:18
right? Do you make a graham cracker crust? And if so, what do you use it for? Rum cream pie? Obviously, that's
Molly 28:24
right, I have made I'm sure I've made them for other things, but I'm just not thinking of anything right now. How about you?
Matthew Amster-Burton 28:31
I think the most common in in our house is key lime pie, or key lime bars, both, both family favorites, but especially like a classic key lime pie. Other Other things that are great with graham cracker crust. I've never made a chiffon pie, but I have, I have eaten one. You know
Molly 28:47
what I'm remembering? Yeah, there's a recipe that, gosh, when I was writing that column for Bon Appetit, a long time ago, I remember submitting, I can't remember if it ran or not, a recipe for these, like caramel bars that I got from some chef in Brooklyn. Okay? And you
Matthew Amster-Burton 29:03
just, you just, like, ran into, so like, when you're in Brooklyn, look for, look for someone wearing a big tall hat. Well,
Molly 29:09
this was so long ago. I mean, this was more than 15 years ago. Sure, I don't even remember if the, if the place is still there, but anyway, she had, you make a graham cracker crust, press it out, but not up the sides of like a square baking pan, right? Then you make a caramel that is cooked so that it stays caramelly, like it almost maintains what's like you want it to be the texture of the caramel in a Snickers bar or Twix, yes. And then you pour ganache on top, and then salt, and then you chill it. That sounds awesome. Imagine how good this was. I gotta dig up this recipe or not. I can't remember.
Unknown Speaker 29:47
That sounds great. What
Molly 29:48
about, uh, like, what is it that unites things that wind up pies that wind up going in a care in a graham cracker? That's
Matthew Amster-Burton 29:56
such a good question. So I feel like, like. It goes most naturally with, with, like, like, a custardy texture filling. Like, it's not that like, like, you can make a classic fruit pie with a graham cracker crust, and it'll be tasty. But like you, you're not going to make like a graham cracker top crust, because that's, that's more like a, you know, like a crumb topping, which is also good. But like, a classic fruit pie is probably going to be a traditional crust. But like, you know, something that's that's creamy, like a cream pie or a New York cheesecake, or has, like, sort of a gel texture, like a lemon meringue pie or a key lime pie is going to be especially good with a graham cracker crust. Lemon meringue pie can definitely go either way. Yeah,
Molly 30:38
I think, I think in general, you want something that has a creamy texture. And there's something too about the fact that a graham cracker crust is not as tough as even a quite tender like Pat bris a crust, right?
Matthew Amster-Burton 30:53
It doesn't, it doesn't have the capacity to, like, really, like, like, contain in the same way as a traditional pie crust, crust, and so it so it's best with things that don't need to be contained in that way. But
Molly 31:06
also, I think of, you know, a cream pie, right? You you can just eat the whole thing, sort of without very much resistance, right? I have
Matthew Amster-Burton 31:18
no resistance when it comes to cream pies. No,
Molly 31:20
no, but, but sometimes, yes, I noticed the with a traditional pie crust that is on the flaky side. It's not that it's tough, but, like it's got some real structural integrity, right? Cream Pie, oh, man, ah, the graham cracker crust is so perfect with the texture. Okay,
Matthew Amster-Burton 31:38
are you familiar with something that Watson especially wanted to make sure I mentioned cheerio cream cheese pie. Nope. Okay, never heard this was a like, back of the box creation from Borden in the 60s, I think probably on like a condensed milk. Yeah, condensed milk can and it is made with, it's made with condensed milk and cream cheese topped with cherry pie filling. And it's a no bake pie, so you blind bake a graham cracker crust and then just add this, like, condensed milk cream cheese filling, and top it with with canned cherry pie filling. And it was a real favorite of Watson as a kid, I have had it also, like, I definitely remembered the name and like, it brought up the flavor memory for me. I don't think either of us has had it as an adult I've
Molly 32:21
never heard of it. I've never had it. I have a really hard time with cooked cherries, sure. Like, I almost never like them. I
Matthew Amster-Burton 32:31
don't mind. I do like a cherry pie, like, made with, with sour cherries. Like, I understand, like, why it's that it's a weird texture, but I'm down with it. Okay, okay, I don't like a cooked sweet cherry as much.
Molly 32:45
Yeah, well, Matthew, is there anything else that you want to say about graham cracker crust? I don't
Matthew Amster-Burton 32:49
think so. I'm hoping we run into more of these, like, old timey American weirdos. Yeah, me too, or I don't have to be American, like, you know, old timey weirdos of any, any nationality,
Molly 33:02
yeah, yeah. No, we don't discriminate, and the world is full of weirdos. I have a feeling they will just present themselves to us
Matthew Amster-Burton 33:09
all right, yeah. If you know, if you know of any, like, contact at sportload podcast.com, don't, don't like, try and get it book your weird uncle on the show, like the if he didn't invent any food. But I don't know if he, if he's if he's funny, maybe, maybe
Molly 33:23
we'll think about it. Matthew, I'm really happy to say that we have some spilled mail today. It is a delightful letter from someone who I have met in person. Oh, listen, sir, Casey,
Matthew Amster-Burton 33:41
I didn't know that, yes. So this is, this is part of our ongoing people listening to the show in a tree segment that I hope will go on forever, because it's my favorite thing. Okay,
Molly 33:50
I also love that in the first sentence where Casey meant to write carob, she wrote carbo.
Matthew Amster-Burton 33:57
Yeah, I think it's possible that was my fault, but I don't think so, but, but great typo
Molly 34:02
like it is. It's a perfect okay, all right, so here is our letter from listener Casey, Hi, m and m, I was just listening to your Carib episode. I can also very distinctly taste it from my childhood days visiting the original PCC in Seattle. You read the listener mail from Andres about almonds, which somehow led to you requesting someone to write in if they'd ever listened to spilled milk in a tree. That sounds like us, doesn't it? Well, I am your gal. From 2016 to 2019 my family lived in Berkshire, England. Our home away from home was the walled garden at chot house, just up the road from the Jane Austin house in nearby Hampshire. What are you laughing about the
Matthew Amster-Burton 34:45
our walled garden our home way for her was the walled garden at chotton house.
Molly 34:49
Oh, that's, does that sound great? Yes. Okay. Anyway, okay, the garden had had an orchard built by Jane's brother who lived at chotton house, while his mom and sisters. At the cottage down the road, very Sense and Sensibility. Right in the center was a beautiful, big Bramley apple tree. My kids and I spent countless hours in the garden, and in this tree, we would climb up the limbs, careful to avoid the nettles at its base with peanut butter and jam sandwiches, books, paper to write letters, etc. Sometimes while my toddler son napped and my big girls played or climbed in the branches below me, I would settle in under the leafy, Blossomy, fruit laden branches and listen to my queue of spilled milk. This tree was such an essential part of our family that we even gave our third daughter born back in the US the middle name of Bramley, wow. Highly, highly recommend climbing a tree and listening to your favorite podcast among other restorative activities with love Casey, oh,
Matthew Amster-Burton 35:49
wow, that's amazing. Okay, I wanna hear from more people who've listened in a tree. We heard from someone who listens on a boat. Remember, I think, you know,
Molly 35:57
I wait a minute. I also wanna hear from any listeners who've named their children after fruit varieties,
Matthew Amster-Burton 36:03
or any listeners who've named their children after something from our show? Yes, contact at spill milk podcast.com I want to hear from other listeners who have listened to the show in unusual places. But like, can we think of any like, specific examples? I want a castle. How about a castle? A castle? Okay, okay, sure. I was gonna say a tower, but I think I mean a castle, a
Molly 36:23
castle, okay, yeah, cuz a tower could be, you know, like a skyscraper, yeah?
Matthew Amster-Burton 36:28
Or an air traffic control tower, yeah? Or maybe,
Molly 36:30
like, the, like the Nordstrom tower, like, maybe you've been having some sort of perceived medical procedure done, and you were listening to our show, yeah?
Matthew Amster-Burton 36:37
I mean, I listened to podcasts during a medical procedure, not our show. We mean castles. Okay, so now the shower like for now. Now we've got three, three locations that are eligible for we will automatically read your letter, tree, boat, Castle. Okay, we'll think of more.
Molly 36:56
All right, Matthew, hey, it's my turn to do a now. But, wow, yes,
this one is so hard to sum up, but it's so okay. So I've mentioned the Ezra Klein show on the show before, because he often interviews really interesting people. I think I mentioned years ago an interview he did with Tressie McMillan. Cottom, yeah, that was really fascinating. Ada Limon, well, he did an episode in September of this past year, September of 2024 where he interviewed GIA Tolentino, who's a staff writer for The New Yorker, the author of trick mirror. He interviewed her, and the title they gave to the show is on children, meaning media and psychedelics. Okay, as that title implies, this interview goes all over the place. It covers everything from why we have the opinions we do about certain like children's television shows. It also covers like both Ezra and Gia talk about their experience with psychedelics and the like studies that have shown that children's brains look a lot like adult brains on psychedelics. But they also get at like, bigger questions about the kind of meaning, or the kind of experience we are seeking often in parenthood, where there is or might be pleasure to be found in parenthood, how we help kids recognize, like, what fun is for them. It's a great interview. It goes all over the place, and Gia Tolentino is just God, she's brilliant. So we'll link to it in the show notes. It's an episode from September 3, 2024 and check it out. All
Matthew Amster-Burton 38:48
right. I'm excited to listen to that. All right. Our producer is Abby cercatella, and
Molly 38:52
you can rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts, and
Matthew Amster-Burton 38:56
you can check in with with other listeners at everything. Spilled milk.reddit.com. I hope maybe someone will start a thread about, like, what's the most unusual place where you've listened to spilled milk, and then we can, like, comb through that and, like, see and maybe read some of them on the show. Oh, that sounds great. Isn't that a great idea? Yeah. So, I mean, I'm too lazy to start it, but someone will. Thanks for listening to spilled milk. The show that's that's giving birth to a child podcast called Milk spilled. What? Because? Because, like Boston, Monroe. Monroe, Boston. Strauss, his father was named Boston. I don't remember. That's not a good joke.
Molly 39:35
You know Matthew, I hear you're having a baby whose name is Amster Matthew Burton,
Speaker 1 39:44
so, so I said I thought, I thought it was not a good joke. And you're like, let's, let's double down on this and do the sage. I guess. Now, wait, I'm Molly and I'm. With you, Amster Burton and I'm Molly Weisenberg. I'm those three names in some random order,
Matthew Amster-Burton 40:10
six black crown night herons like, like, three of them standing like above each other in a tree, and then another one like foraging for bugs on the ground, which is delightful.
Molly 40:21
Oh, that's so fun. That's so fun.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai