It's always soup season and today we make you sweat before professing our love for cartoon characters and catchy jingles. With cameo appearances by Ms Piggy, Chucky and Spumoni we realize that we're sick of lessons, have no fiery rants at the ready and don't care what the tongue has to tell us before declaring that Matthew has always been a Dad.
Me Lost Me Cookie at the Disco
The Chess Master from Story Pirates
video by Chinese Cooking Demystified
Matthew's Now but Wow! - Pavements movie
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:04
I'm Matthew, and I'm Molly, and 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 hot and sour soup, because there is nothing like having really hot soup in August.
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:16
I mean, I think, I think it can be like, I don't know, like, Well, I mean, certainly
Molly 0:21
in like, more tropical climates, people definitely soup, hot and spicy things throughout the year. Yeah, and it makes you sweat.
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:30
Yes, gotta make sweat, baby. Let the music take control. Let the rhythm move you. I'm gonna make you, Keith, sweat.
Molly 0:38
Ew, okay. But anyway, yeah, so we're talking about hot and sour soup today. I know nothing about this, so this is going to be like, a lot of learning for me. Okay,
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:49
so I didn't know as much about it as I thought I did, so it was a bunch of learning for me, too. And I think the learning will continue throughout the episode. And this was suggested by us during the white pepper episode, or pepper. So, yep, the pepper, the white pepper. So with the one where he had Peppa Pig on as a guest. Oh, my God, Peppa Pig was so delightful, right? One of the best guests about muddy puddles, that's the only thing I know about. Talked
Molly 1:12
about going on holiday, and she talked about about blueberries. Oh yes, I absolutely loved that episode?
Matthew Amster-Burton 1:20
Yeah, it was the white pepper slash blueberry episode.
Molly 1:26
All right, so, Matthew, this was a favorite of yours in Chinese restaurants like growing up. Did
Matthew Amster-Burton 1:31
you get Arthur as a guest?
Molly 1:36
Are there really? I mean, I could still find Arthur cartoons when June was little, but Arthur was really from our childhood. Oh, totally Yeah. Aardvark, yeah. Have we gone over this before? I don't know if we have
Matthew Amster-Burton 1:48
on the show, but I'm glad we've established Finally, once and for all, that Arthur is an Aardvark, what like, what other, what other like cartoon characters or Muppets? Would you most like to have on as a guest? You know,
Molly 2:00
I don't really, well, let me just say I don't want to have the Berenstain Bears, because trying to pronounce their name is just too annoying. That's right,
Matthew Amster-Burton 2:08
we would get there. I'm wrong because, like, a rift in the space time continuum, plus they're always, like, learning a lesson that's so boring. But, you know, they would, they would be perfect for our segment. What have we learned? You know something about friendship or something, but you know
Molly 2:24
who I would love to have on the show. Like, no joke, Miss Piggy. Oh yes. Can you imagine a better guest?
Matthew Amster-Burton 2:31
I mean, she would probably like, like, storm off in a huff when we asked a tough question and like, have, like, a mini tantrum. But that's why you want Yes. Curry, yeah. All
Molly 2:43
right. What about you? Who would you want to have on? I'm thinking maybe
Matthew Amster-Burton 2:47
Grover. Oh, god yes. Because, like, we could, like, tease that there's gonna be a monster at the end of the episode, and then at the end of the episode, you realize that the monster was Grover all along. And Grover doesn't realize this either. Oh, spoiler alert for the book, the monster at the end of this book,
Molly 3:02
wait a minute. Hold on. What about Cookie Monster? Oh, what about Cookie Monster? Ash? Recently, while looking for some music to entertain aims on a drive, came upon Cookie Monster's hit me, lost me cookie at the disco. I
Matthew Amster-Burton 3:17
don't think I know this one. I only know C is for cookie. Everybody listen
Molly 3:21
to me. Lost me cookie at the disco, because it is so catchy. You will have it in your head for days, and you'll like it. Have
Matthew Amster-Burton 3:28
we talked about the old the Wendy's, like, corporate training video for, I don't even remember if it's hot drink. I think it's hot drinks. They got this, this kid who I don't know if he's, if he was an actual Wendy's employee or, like, an, like, an actor singer, but like, they wrote and this and this kid performs a song about making drinks at Wendy's and how to do it, right? That is such a banger. Like, we need, okay, we need to watch this after the show. This is so good, okay? But
Molly 3:56
this is also, like, okay, like the story pirates the chess master. Okay, so the story pirates is a podcast. It's been going now for many years. I've heard it once or twice. Yeah, they take kids stories and they like bring them to
Matthew Amster-Burton 4:12
life. You should have June send in their post apocalyptic. Oh, I played for Matthew story. I
Molly 4:17
played a video of June reading aloud a story they wrote at an event at their
Matthew Amster-Burton 4:23
school, which was awesome and would be totally inappropriate for story pirates. That would be the best. Yeah.
Molly 4:29
But all this to say there is a super catchy song called the chess master. And, okay,
Matthew Amster-Burton 4:35
all right. So you know what? I think either this week or or possibly I think next week we're gonna have a link to another like super catchy educational song. Oh,
Molly 4:44
good. Okay, okay, all right. Matthew, hey, tell me about your history memory lane. We might call it. We might of hot and sour soup. Okay,
Matthew Amster-Burton 4:54
so this has always been a favorite of mine. I don't eat it nearly as often as I used to, because. Because Seattle is not really a, like, Chinese American lunch special kind of town, which I think if you are, if you are, like, from New York and have never spent time in Seattle, that sounds like bizarre, like, if you said, like, you know, there aren't really hamburgers in Seattle, you'd be like, what? Because in a lot of places, especially on the East Coast, like a inexpensive, like, Chinese American restaurant will have a lunch special that comes with like, choice of like fried rice or steamed like, one entree, choice of fried rice or steamed rice and either egg drop soup or hot and sour soup. And this is something I remember eating in Portland growing up and like, I think it's become even less common in the Northwest over time.
Molly 5:38
Yeah, God, I hadn't even thought about, like, like, a Chinese American lunch special. You know, here it would be, like, chicken teriyaki, or it would be or it would be a Thai thing, or maybe an Indian buffet, right?
Matthew Amster-Burton 5:51
I do remember getting it at on the Ave when I was in, when I was at UW, like, in the late 90s, early 2000s and like, especially China. First, a restaurant that's no longer there, was like, the cheapest and greasiest Chinese American place.
Molly 6:05
I mean, unfortunately, it was killed by America first, exactly.
Matthew Amster-Burton 6:10
Yikes. Hey,
Molly 6:13
what do you remember hot and sour soup looking like? So
Matthew Amster-Burton 6:17
kind of like a brown thick soup with with a lot of different things floating in it. For some reason, like when I was a kid, I had like, the usual American kid aversion to like food with stuff in it that I couldn't identify. But this did not apply at Chinese restaurants. I just, like assumed that it was gonna be good. I feel like maybe
Molly 6:37
my memory of hot and sour soup is somehow wrong, or I'm conflating it with something else. So I remember, as I've mentioned many times here, going to Hunan, which was a Chinese American restaurant in a strip mall in Oklahoma City. What was the waiter's name, Sean. Sean. You know, with any main dish, you would be also be offered your choice of course, of egg drop soup or hot and sour soup. And I remember the hot and sour soup, which I never got, but it was like, what the dads would get.
Matthew Amster-Burton 7:05
Oh yeah, I maybe I've just always been a dad. I think you've always been a dad.
Molly 7:09
I remember it being like a garish orange. I
Matthew Amster-Burton 7:13
think that's possible. I don't know about like, garish orange, but like, depending on what kind of soy sauce you use and what ratio between dark soy sauce and light soy sauce? It could probably come out in a variety of different colors. I
Molly 7:25
think I may be confusing it with the sauce on sweet and sour
Matthew Amster-Burton 7:29
chicken well. And as we, as we will learn, like, sometimes it has tomatoes in it. Oh,
Molly 7:34
really. Okay, okay, I'm remembering it being kind of gloopy and shiny.
Matthew Amster-Burton 7:39
Yeah. So this, like, especially like in a Chinese American restaurant, this will often be like a heavily starch, thickened soup. Okay,
Molly 7:45
I of course, always ordered egg drop soup because I was scared of all the things you mentioned, scared of things in my soup, scared of soup that that might be spicy, that might be spicy, that was a color I couldn't quite name, etc.
Matthew Amster-Burton 7:59
So would you say your biggest fears as a child were unknown soups and dental emergencies and the sound of the milkshake mixer hitting the metal cup.
Molly 8:08
Well, yes, and, I mean, where should I? How
Matthew Amster-Burton 8:12
do I did a whole bonus episode about childhood fears I
Molly 8:16
was gonna say, I mean, I can't not mention Chucky, of course, oh yeah, I accidentally saw you. Actually
Matthew Amster-Burton 8:23
saw Chucky, like, in your neighborhood. Like,
Molly 8:26
Well, did you ever have the experience of being at like, a sleepover then called slumber parties, where you would have to watch a movie or a show that made you deeply uncomfortable? Oh yeah, a rite of passage. Absolutely okay. So, yeah, for me, it was child's play, and I still can't believe that, like, the grown ups at this birthday party allowed this to happen. I sat in the hallway pretty much cowering, like wouldn't even go in the room after the first couple minutes, and for years afterward, I just knew Chucky would be around every corner. Oh,
Matthew Amster-Burton 8:59
yeah. Did you have to, like, get rid of all of your dolls in case they came alive and termed evil.
Molly 9:04
I think I made the too old for dolls, which also tells some things about my psychology. I think
Matthew Amster-Burton 9:10
a similar thing happened to me as, you know, like to this day, like, often, often Molly will say, like, I watched this, like, you know, new horror series or something. And I'm like, nope, too scary for me. The thing that I remember that, like, I went with my friends to see in the theater. I was like, this is this is too scary for me. Like, I can't handle it. Was Robocop two. Like, and I've since, like, I love the original Robocop I've I saw it, like, after Robocop two. And, like, that's a great movie. I haven't re watched Robocop two because I'm still scared. But How old do you think I was when I when I saw Robocop two in the theater
Molly 9:43
1150
Speaker 1 9:48
is that right? Let's see maybe, maybe 14. Scary about Robocop two as I recall, I guess I was 14. There was like, a part where, like, a guy gets sliced open. Oh yeah. Yeah. Like, that's the thing I remember. Like, am I remembering that correctly? It might even have been a different movie that would have undone me. Yeah, literally. I mean, yeah. I mean, literally, yeah. Matthew, Have you still not seen the Lord of the Rings trilogy? I saw the first one, okay, but you haven't seen two or three? No, because they were too scary. No, because the first one was the most boring movie I've ever seen. Oh, my God, really? Yeah, I know. Go ahead, come at me. Listeners, contact at spilled milk podcast.com, I said it sometimes I don't even know why we're friends, Matthew. I mean, I like, I play a lot. I know who Frodo is and Bilbo, and,
Matthew Amster-Burton 10:38
you know the wizard guy and smog. Smogs in The Hobbit, uh, Saruman. There you go. What? Yep, okay, Spumoni is for money in there. I know there's two guys with similar days. I think It's Saruman, and Spumoni
Unknown Speaker 10:53
is that big eye, the big
Matthew Amster-Burton 10:55
the big eye. That's like, several different flavors mixed together.
Molly 11:00
Let's not clear this up. Let's keeping all of this. Okay, all right, so should we do this show about hot and sour soup? I guess? Okay,
Matthew Amster-Burton 11:08
my other memory lane is so nearby where I live, is Seattle Central College, or I think it's called Seattle Central Community College, yeah, well, it used to be Seattle Central Community College. I think it's like Seattle Central College, or Seattle anyway, wow. Okay, it's, it's a, it's an excellent Community College, and they have a culinary school, if you, if you're in the know, you can have lunch at one of their two restaurants, where the students practice like working at a restaurant. It's very inexpensive, the service is very entertaining and, and the food is usually quite good. One thing I remember having there that I really enjoyed was a hot and sour soup that was, like, a little bit unlike any that I'd had before, and I believe, had crab meat in it. Oh, and, and I asked them, like, can you tell me about the recipe? And they brought me, like, a photocopy that they'd made a recipe from Tom Douglas's Seattle kitchen, a cookbook by a local chef. Ah, delightful, really good recipe, delightful,
Molly 12:02
okay, but we're going to be talking about the Chinese origins. Yes, for
Matthew Amster-Burton 12:08
this episode, we're specifically talking about sun la Tong, which is in Chinese, means sour, spicy soup, more specifically, the version served in North American Chinese restaurants. And it's a peppery soup made usually with pork, tofu and a variety of dried ingredients, thickened with starch and finished with like a swirl of egg. Okay, eaten egg. Okay. Culinary historians tend to agree. It's a descendant of a soup from Hainan province called hula Tong, which is spicy but not sour. And so this soup tends to have heavy use of dried ingredients, and we'll get into what some of those are, but that, like marks it as, like being a relative or like a type of restorative or medicinal soup. Oh,
Molly 12:47
like the presence of the dried ingredients. Oh, that's interesting. Okay,
Matthew Amster-Burton 12:51
chilies are a common addition, but not necessary, that the hot part, like traditionally, comes from white pepper, which we mentioned on the white pepper, yes, yes. With, well, Peppa Pig taught us that, Oh, right. Like, it usually has pork in it, but it's super easy to make it vegetarian. The pork is like a minor flavoring ingredient. It's not like a meat soup,
Molly 13:11
okay, although, I have to say, when we sat down to the bowls of this, the first smell I had was of like, delicious broth, sure, like a meaty broth, yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 13:21
yeah. And I used, I used, like, Swanson box chicken broth. So that's part of what you're getting. Yeah, the version popular in Chinese American restaurants is apparently closest to the Beijing style, although the North American style tends to be more heavily thickened. Okay, you can definitely go overboard with the thickening. I tried to, like, keep it the right level of gloop.
Molly 13:39
No, it was not, I would not call it gloopy at all. Yeah. So
Matthew Amster-Burton 13:43
we're gonna link to, like, a few different videos, like the Wikipedia page on this was not very comprehensive, so I went to YouTube. I watched a great video by Chinese cooking demystified that traces the origin of this, of the soup to Wuxi in Jiangsu Province. And that original version uses beef broth, black vinegar and a bit of szechuan peppercorn, and includes, like, cut up sweet potato glass noodles and also fried seitan puffs. Okay, it looks really good. Is it
Molly 14:11
traditional, or is it? Is it common across recipes for the sourness to come from black vinegar?
Matthew Amster-Burton 14:18
So yes and no, the version that's become, like, you know, famous worldwide, and especially in North America, is made with white vinegar. Oh, and that's what I use today. Okay,
Molly 14:27
this makes sense, given that, until recently, it would be difficult to find black vinegar in a mainstream Western grocery store, right?
Matthew Amster-Burton 14:35
Yeah, the channel made with Lao, which I know you're a big fan of as well, like the grandpa who, who makes amazing traditional Chinese dishes, has also tackled this dish, and their version is the one that includes fresh tomatoes, which I thought was interesting, okay, and then hunger pangs for America's Test Kitchen. Kevin Pang, who used to be my editor when I, when I briefly wrote for the onion, he and his dad have a series of videos, and they and they did a good cookbook too. They have a really nice ride. Recipe, which they like teased. Teased the beginning by holding up a couple of cans of San Marzano canned tomatoes. And I was like, Are they really going to use those in the soup? And then they use them to, like, press the water out of some tofu. Oh, okay, it was a good joke. They really got me.
Molly 15:22
Question. It occurs to me, as we're talking about tomatoes here, I'm thinking about Thai soups.
Matthew Amster-Burton 15:27
Yeah, so that's the thing. Like, there is clearly a relationship between this soup and, like, other spicy and sour soups, like, like Thai, like gang som or can Chua in Vietnamese, like that is, like, very tamarind heavy soup. I want to say, like the Taiwan is also, they're all different enough that that I think it's hard to say that, like, you know, whether, like, they're actually descendants of an original Chinese hot and sour soup from Wu xi, or whether they had influence on each other. Because, like, there aren't really any ingredients in common between, like, the Thai one and the one we just had, but they, but, like, the concept of a spicy and sour soup is popular in a lot of
Molly 16:06
places. Sure, sure. I mean, it makes, it makes sense that the the human tongue would like a hot, sour, salty, sweet in many different let's,
Matthew Amster-Burton 16:15
let's jump into our new segment and one of our most human to human tongue. Yeah, you've the human sack. We used to do that segment a lot like, now we're,
Molly 16:25
yep, okay, let's
Matthew Amster-Burton 16:28
tell us. What does the tongue have to tell us? That's how we always open the segment.
Molly 16:33
Okay, you were saying like, so what a well balanced version of this soup always has is something sour,
Matthew Amster-Burton 16:43
vinegar and pepper, and maybe chilies, but definitely pepper, okay, can be it can be black pepper, but, but typically white pepper just lots of textural interest, so lots of like Julie and ingredients, like some of which kind of have, like a snap to them, Like the woodier mushrooms, very like silky, tender pork. There's almost always some tofu in there.
Molly 17:04
So what were the dried ingredients that went into the one we had, you had Wait, three different kinds of
Matthew Amster-Burton 17:10
mushrooms, two different kinds of mushrooms, two, two different kinds of mushrooms, and one dried flour. Oh, okay, okay, so yeah, let me grab a couple of these things.
Molly 17:19
All right, we've got some dried shiitake here. Shiitake caps, yep,
Matthew Amster-Burton 17:23
some dried lily flowers. You can, you can, like, smell these things,
Molly 17:27
yeah? What do you know? I couldn't tell what it tasted like, yeah. So
Matthew Amster-Burton 17:30
I think the mushrooms, like, particularly shiitake mushrooms, have have a strong flavor.
Molly 17:36
Oh, this has a strong smell, and
Matthew Amster-Burton 17:38
it does to it like, I don't think, I don't like this does add flavor. This is the dried lily flowers, which are kind of like a long, long, thin and kind of bendy, very
Molly 17:49
floral, yes, very floral, also a little musty, in a good way, right? Yeah.
Matthew Amster-Burton 17:55
So, so like, like high, you know, there's the smell, the smell of, like a Chinese pharmacy. My impression is that these and the wood ear mushrooms are there more for texture than for flavor. Like, obviously, these are contributing some some, like aromatics to the broth, yeah. But, you know, it's more more common, I would say, in Chinese and in East Asian cooking in general, to have ingredients that are there mostly for their texture. Like, I can think of lots of examples from from Japanese food, because that's the cuisine I know best, but, but, yeah, like, that's not something we do in western North American cooking as much. So, like, the fact, the fact that these are in there just to add textural interest, you know, is a real Chinese soup kind of thing, I
Molly 18:35
think. And the So, I think that, let's see. We could say the shiitake mushroom has a really, kind of a bit of a chewy, spongy texture, yeah. And then the dense, yes, dense. And then the wood ear mushroom. It kind of looks like a leaf floating in the soup, yeah, sort of like roughly edges and it has a crunch to it, like a cartilage type, yeah, totally Yeah, it's like, the, like, pig's ear of the, I was gonna say it's the pig's ear the plant. Do you think we're the first people to ever come up with that comparison? I think that comparison probably predates history. Yeah. Okay, so you got all of these at Bucha Maya, yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 19:17
I had a lot of fun shopping for them because, like, I was out of all of these things, I'm like, I bet if I go to the dried food aisle, they're all gonna be right there next to each other. And they were delightful.
Molly 19:26
I can also say that for somebody like me who cannot read Chinese characters, it's helpful that these are also written in English on here.
Speaker 1 19:34
Yes, no, they would be really easy to identify. Yeah. Then on the way home, I walked up to Koto jelly coffee and got a jelly coffee. I'm kind of obsessed with this place. And then you sent me a picture, and I say, a picture of my jelly coffee. Do you drink jelly coffee with a straw? Yeah, with a straw. So the jelly can, like, slurp through the straw. That's awesome. Sounds
Molly 19:52
so good. Okay, okay, all right. And then it had tofu in it, yeah? So I got two
Matthew Amster-Burton 19:56
kinds of tofu, because that's what the recipe called for. I got, like, firm. Tofu like you can find in any supermarket. And then I got pressed spiced tofu, which is kind of like a dry style of tofu that comes in little, little square cakes, again, like, it's to, it's to, like, have a just a riot of different textures,
Molly 20:13
okay, and the Spiced pressed tofu does that also come in the refrigerated section? It does, yes, all right. So, so the recipe, here you went walks of life. I
Matthew Amster-Burton 20:23
went walks of life. And like, this is a recipe. Like, when you look at it, it's, you're like, Okay, this is a hugely long ingredient list. And, like, it probably does have two dozen ingredients, but it's also incredibly easy to make. Like, once you have the ingredients on hand, you're gonna spend a little bit of time soaking and chopping things, and then you basically, really just throw everything into the pot and bring it to a simmer. It's one of these things, like, like we've talked about before that in the Japanese cuisine context, and it's true here. Also, there are so many, so many, like, Great fermented and concentrated and salty things that go here. Like, the flavor doesn't come from long cooking. The flavor comes from those ingredients. Got it so,
Molly 21:03
okay, if you were making it again, is there anything you would add to it? Anything you personally, for your tastes, would leave out anything you want to try texturally? The
Matthew Amster-Burton 21:12
only thing is, like, I didn't really soak the dried ingredients long enough. I think I had it in my head, like, these things need to soak for, like, 15 minutes. It's more, it's more, like, at least an hour and so, so, like, and I would have cut the wood ears, sliced them a little thinner, okay, but other than that, I thought it was, it was really good and, like, really nostalgic, because I was like, Yeah, this is exactly like the soup I remember from, like, Chen's China clipper when I was a kid.
Molly 21:35
You know, it's funny. I went into a PCC, which is a local Co Op, on Saturday, and I was buying some soup to have for lunch, and they had hot and sour soup, and I opened it up, and it looked a lot like yours, but I didn't buy it. I have no idea how it would be, but probably
Matthew Amster-Burton 21:50
pretty good, yeah. Like, I'm just remembering now, like, yeah, that my parents two favorite Chinese restaurants growing up in Portland were Chang's, Yangtze and Uncle Chen's.
Molly 22:01
And did you have hot and sour soup at that? Absolutely, yes, nice, excellent. Well, delightful. I feel, I feel learned. I'm
Matthew Amster-Burton 22:08
glad, I'm glad we did that. I really enjoyed the soup. I hope you did too. And, yeah, I guess I feel like I say this like every episode, but you should make this. It was, it was fun to make it. It's really tasty. It was still, it is. It does not feel like quite a main dish soup, I think so. I don't
Molly 22:25
know if this is sacrilege, but there's a part of me that thinks it would be wonderful with a scoop of white rice
Matthew Amster-Burton 22:31
in it, like stirred. I don't see why not. Yeah, that sounds great.
Molly 22:34
I think sort of that toasty rice flavor would be fabulous. Yeah, I think
Matthew Amster-Burton 22:39
that would be really good. Plus everybody, nobody's listening anymore, because they all, they all got mad when I said that Lord of the Rings was boring and turned the show off. So you could say anything at this point. Okay, go for it. Like, Hey, what's your honest take? Oh, all right. Do we have any
Molly 22:55
segments? We do. We've got some spilled mail as part of our syrup symposium. And
Matthew Amster-Burton 23:00
I think we've gotten more mail about Italian syrups than any other topic. This
Molly 23:10
fascinates me, not the syrups, but the fact that we've gotten all this mail about them. So this one comes from listener Cathy, who says, I just listened to your Italian soda episodes, which were quite amusing. Les zero are a huge part of French culture, especially in the summer, drinking Mont aloe, Mont Perrier, a on les Frese. So that would be like mint water, mint Perrier and strawberry milk. I thought Mont Perlier was in the Alps. Nice one are popular drinks in cafes and people's homes. There's even a cult Coming of Age movie called Diablo. Or how would you say this Diablo Mont, which is the name of a drink made with mint syrup and seven up popular in the 1970s that sounds good. Try that. French people love the cassis flavor, strawberry and orja as well, but the Mont is most popular. That means mint. When I used to have my students taste it diluted with water, they either hated it too much, like mouthwash, or loved it. Thanks again for the laughs. Kathy, I could
Matthew Amster-Burton 24:12
see myself going either way. I'd like to try that
Molly 24:17
too. Yeah. Wait, did I tell you that I was at cash and carry the week after we taped it and they had tons of syrup. Oh,
Matthew Amster-Burton 24:23
yeah, I think you mentioned that, but yeah, I feel like I was also somewhere where I saw, like, Oh, they've got all the syrups. It was, it was to buy all the syrups. What's the name of the super old espresso place? Like, I mean, Venerable espresso place in the U district, damn. Oh, I was, I was there, like, during their 50th Allegro. Hey, Allegro. I was, yeah, I was there, like during their 50th anniversary of celebration. They have lots and lots of syrup flavors. They'll make you an Italian soda.
Molly 24:48
Okay, great. Matthew, hey, you have a now, but, wow, I do
Matthew Amster-Burton 24:59
my now. It Wow, which I think will be like streaming on video. It'll be on home video by the time you hear this, you can rent it on VHS at your local video store. Is a movie called pavement, which I saw in the theater this week with Watson. And this is a movie directed by Alex Ross Perry and starring Joe Keery from Stranger Things as Steven Malcolm of pavement, sort of and I would say this is ostensibly a documentary or maybe a biopic about the band pavement, but I can say pretty confidently that whether you like the band pavement or not, and especially if you have not ever heard of the band pavement, I think you might like this movie even more than if you're a fan of the band. Okay? Joe Keery gives an amazing performance. It is a profoundly weird movie that Watson and I both really enjoy. If
Molly 25:48
I'm somebody who likes Lord of the Rings, how, like, is it going to be too exciting for me?
Matthew Amster-Burton 25:56
Might be too exciting, but like, when, during, during the like, Spumoni climax, like you're gonna you're gonna lose your shit. Okay, okay, you know, and Spumoni appears. Joe Carey plays both Stephen Malcolm and his alter ego, Spumoni. Okay, all right, whatever. All right, so that's pavement. It's a movie. Our producer is Abby cercatello. Molly's got a newsletter called I've got a feeling, and you should subscribe to it@mollyweisenberg.substack.com she recently wrapped up a three part series on vacationing alone that I absolutely devoured.
Molly 26:33
Oh, thanks, Matthew. Matthew makes music. You can find his music everywhere you find music. His band name is early to the airport, Matthew has written, what, probably little more than half the songs that you guys have
Matthew Amster-Burton 26:47
put out. Well, I write all the lyrics, and my collaborator writes all the music. Oh, I didn't, so you've
Molly 26:51
written exactly half, exactly half. There we go. Okay, I thought you'd written some of the music, some.
Matthew Amster-Burton 26:56
I mean, there's a, there's a Lana Del Rey song on there. We didn't write that one. Oh, we arranged it. Wow.
Molly 27:00
Way to really be thorough in your honesty. Anyway, that's early to the airport. You can find them anywhere you listen to music, Spotify, band camp, whatever it's all there.
Matthew Amster-Burton 27:10
Yeah, we're pretty good. And you can hang out with other spilled milk listeners at reddit.com/r/everything, spilled milk, which is a place where the only thing anyone's gonna talk about from here on out is, why does Matthew hate Lord of the Rings? That's right. Thanks for listening to spilled milk, the show that's akin to a pig's ear. I'm Matthew Amster Burton. I'm Molly Weisenberg. I'd say we were the show that makes a silk person from a sow's ear.
Molly 27:35
You're right. Gosh, that's inventive. Never heard that one before. Well,
Matthew Amster-Burton 27:46
hello. There we go. Hi. Hi.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai