We're the show with the WOW! now that we do what Producer Abby tells us. We're full of surprises, reveals and betrayals as we share our meals, snacks and drinks over five days in September. Sharon Stone Fruit plays a recurring guest role in this montage of meals along with Cliff bars, peach corners, Trader Joe's and overpriced bread. After a quick Quantum Leap digression we share what we learned about each other and ourselves and how we are forever changed by this experience.
smitten kitchen's double chocolate zucchini bread
Matthew's Now but Wow! - Ekiben Hitoritabi (Train Lunch Solo Journey), by Jun Hayase and Hiroshi Sakurai.
Molly 0:04
I'm Molly, and I'm Matthew, and this is spilled milk, the show where we cook something delicious, eat it all, and you can't have any, you know.
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:11
We have to take the same slogan since episode one. Maybe we should change it to the show with the Wow, the
Molly 0:16
show with the Wow, because I, we just did a take where I, I completely bumbled my way through it and just wound up with, wow. Yeah, it was so Wow.
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:23
The show, who's the one from Jersey Shore? J, wow. I don't know. Okay, I think this is someone from Jersey Shore.
Molly 0:31
We'll get her on the show. Oh, great. Okay, perfect. Okay, Matthew, what's today's
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:35
episode? Ooh, today's episode is food diary. And what does that mean? So I don't remember how we came up with this. I mean, we invented this idea no one's ever done before us. I guess we were talking about it with Abby, and she suggested we do it for the show, yeah, like that.
Molly 0:50
Yeah, something like that. So I don't remember the specifics, but that is indeed how it happened. So thank you, producer, Abby.
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:57
Yeah. And if the name doesn't give it away, we wrote down what we ate for five days, that's right, not a whole week, because we thought that would make the episode too long.
Molly 1:05
We also, we tried to be strategic about it. We decided to start the Sunday before, you're because of God, Sunday before we're recording this, so that we would have one weekend day. And then we recorded all the way up through Thursday. And by recorded, I mean wrote down what we ate, not taped up to Thursday, because that would be a really long episode.
Matthew Amster-Burton 1:25
Are you a fan of the movie When Harry Met Sally? I wouldn't say I'm a fan, but yeah, whatever. Yeah, like, that's it's been a favorite a movie of mine for a very long time. And and Watson, I've watched it together many times. One of the funniest lines to me is when, when when she's talking about her days of the week underpants and says they don't make Sunday pause because of God, such a good joke.
Molly 1:52
How did we do this?
Matthew Amster-Burton 1:53
Okay, so I started a Google Doc, and I wrote down what I had for breakfast, snack, lunch, dinner from Sunday, August 31 through Thursday, September 4. Did you do the same dates?
Molly 2:04
I did the same date. Yeah. I did mine in the Notes app.
Matthew Amster-Burton 2:08
Okay, yeah. Definitely want to know which app we
Molly 2:11
Yeah, yeah. And I should say I've done I've done this kind of thing once before
Matthew Amster-Burton 2:16
you did it. Do you did for like Grub street or something. Oh, my God, this
Molly 2:19
was maybe the highlight of all the publicity around the fixed stars is that in the summer of 2020, I was asked to do the Grub Street diary, which is part of New York Magazine. They made a little illustration of me and everything to accompany it. I think I had to keep track of seven days, and then I, you know, I had to, like, write it up in a witty way, which, you know, I'm so bad at that. I'm not not witty at all. Actually, no, there's, there's one witty thing on mine. Okay, I don't think there's anything witty in mind, but, but we'll find out anything else we should say before we dive into this.
Matthew Amster-Burton 2:52
I mean, no, we didn't research anything. I don't, I don't have any memory lane other than reading your Grub street food diary and some other food diaries that people did. I don't know if I've ever done one of these myself. It felt new and exciting, and I learned things about myself, mostly about how much Trader Joe's food I eat.
Molly 3:12
I also want to say that if you are somebody, and I don't know Matthew, we didn't talk about this beforehand, but I think it's important to say sometimes when I read somebody else's food diary, I get into a little bit of comparison, yeah, and it's not great for me. So if you're somebody for whom that is the case, like do whatever you need to do, I think Matthew and I both can be counted on to have some really fun and resolutely non diet culture eat food diaries, absolutely. But if this episode is not for you, well, totally get it.
Matthew Amster-Burton 3:41
Yeah, stay tuned for next week's episode. I can't wait to find out what
Molly 3:45
it's gonna be. Me too. Okay, Matthew, you go ahead and start off. All right. Sunday, August, 31 2025,
Matthew Amster-Burton 3:51
all right. I took a Franz brand English muffin. I split it, I toasted it, put peanut butter on one half, Nutella on the other half. Had that with some green tea. That was breakfast. Hold on, wait, Matthew, it wasn't a Thomas's English it was not a Thomas's English muffin, because they don't, they don't sponsor us anymore. So, oh, wow. No, I do. I do like the Thomases. I like, I like the Thomases, I like the bays, but I also like the Frans, which are kind of like a little bit better than store brand. They're kind of dense. But I like that. Okay, okay, we have one peanut butter, one half peanut butter, one half Nutella. For morning snack, Watson had made a peach plum snacking cake from the book snacking cakes. She realized after baking it that she'd put the peaches in the corner and the plums everywhere else, because with more plums and peaches. So I ate one peach corner,
Molly 4:39
one peach corner. Okay, wait, hold on, what time of day were you eating these things?
Matthew Amster-Burton 4:43
Ah, good question. Okay, so breakfast, I usually have it like 645,
Molly 4:47
okay, and you get dressed fully before you do this.
Matthew Amster-Burton 4:50
Yeah, okay, okay. But sometimes, like, I fully dress a salad. Oh, before breakfast before. Wow, not really, nope,
Molly 4:57
nope. Okay. And then what about. Midday snack. Do you have elevenses?
Matthew Amster-Burton 5:01
No, because morning snack. So I tend to have mid morning snack, probably, like anywhere between nine and 10, because I'm an early luncher, like I will often have lunch at like 1110 Okay? Lunch was a homemade sausage roll that was left over from a couple of days prior, like an Ulis breakfast sausage wrapped in Pepperidge Farm puff pastry and some some Whoppers from my birthday. I always get a box of Whoppers for my birthday. It doesn't last long, okay? In the afternoon, I walked down to Koto jelly coffee and had a coffee jelly with milk for dinner, caprese salad. Interesting foreshadowing.
Molly 5:41
Oh, gosh, that's giving me ideas about our next episode. Yeah, I'm
Matthew Amster-Burton 5:44
glad I'm giving you ideas caprese salad and an escarole cabbage saute of the day, which is what we call it anytime we saute two vegetables or more together, and and a plum side of the snacking cake.
Molly 5:59
Okay, oh, so there was no green tea in the afternoon. There was no jelly coffee instead. Okay, okay, okay. This is very interesting. I feel like, I mean, I've like, I think, I think these are gonna be super different. Yeah, they're gonna be so different. Okay, so I will say that at this time of year, and this is the case for every single morning, the first thing I eat is always a piece of summer fruit, okay, yeah, I wake up really hungry. I'm not an early riser. I would say I have breakfast between eight and 830 it is usually the first thing I do before I get dressed or anything else.
Matthew Amster-Burton 6:37
I mean, that's early rising by like, teenager standards, true. That's true,
Molly 6:41
but at this time of year, oh, man, peaches and nectarines. I mean, this is August 31
Matthew Amster-Burton 6:46
I got some pizza Rama peaches sitting behind me. Yeah.
Molly 6:49
So I usually cut them into pieces that you can eat with a fork, because that is what the two year old likes. Sure, I cut up enough for both of us, but I ate mine before I got him out of his room, because it's nicer that way. So I did that every morning, first thing either a pitcher and nectarine, usually one of each. Actually nice. And then I make coffee, always in a Bialetti mocha pot. In fact, the first thing I do is put on the electric kettle so I can start with hot water, yeah, and I always drink it black. I like it really strong. And I love that with, like, good summer fruit. Once Ames was out of bed, then I had an English muffin. But I had Thomas's Okay, and I had
Matthew Amster-Burton 7:32
Thomas's come back. Sponsor the sponsor the show again.
Molly 7:36
I had a toasted English muffin, Thomas' brand, with Kerrygold salted butter. Oh, yeah. The other thing I do almost every morning is have a second cup of coffee, usually with milk in it, and sometimes I will add an ice cube. Oh, wait, like one ice cube, one ice cube, because I'm still drinking it out of the mug. And I drink out of kind of a small mug, so I'll pour some of the, you know, the stove top espresso in there, put an ice cube in and add a little milk till it's the right color. So have almost like an iced iced latte or so.
Matthew Amster-Burton 8:09
So the the coffee is cooled by this point, and you're putting like one ice cube into hot coffee.
Molly 8:15
No, no, it's cooled by this point. Then so Matthew, I gotta say, as I warned you and Abby, at the outset of this week of chronicling this was going to be a weird week for me. So here's what made it weird. Okay, I had had a colonoscopy only like 48 hours before I started, right? So I was still experiencing a little digestive weirdness. And also, the other thing that made it weird is we had old family, friends visiting from out of town, so there was a lot of restaurant food. And usually, usually, I mean, truly, I would say I maybe, maybe eat one meal per week that is not made by me.
Matthew Amster-Burton 8:58
Yeah? That's That's about the same for me, yeah?
Molly 9:01
Whereas this week, you'll see there's a ton of it. So anyway, okay, so lunch, I've got a couple. Yeah, lunch was super weird. I had leftover cooked jasmine rice with some soy sauce on it because my tummy was still feeling funny. Then I just had some slices of Tillamook white cheddar cheese straight out of the fridge. Yeah, I had another peach and that was my lunch, because I just felt really weird. That is great, kind of a not very normal lunch for me. That night, we got takeout from Delancey. We had some white pie. I had about half a pizza. I had some delicious red wine. Had a Delancey tomato salad. I think I probably ate about half of it straight out of the to go container. Oh, okay, I have ice cream almost every night. Oh, yeah, yeah, which I love. Why don't more people have ice cream like every day? I mean, I think a lot of people do do like I always feel so sad when, when I hear people being like, ooh, like. Let's get ice cream. Is such a special treat. Yeah? No, no. Anyway, okay, I had aldens brand cold brew coffee ice cream. Oh, yeah, which I really like, and I eat it out of a tea cup. Oh, I've got coffee ice cream coming up too, yeah, with Hershey's syrup on it. So that was my dessert, and that is my dessert most nights ever. I will also say, Oh, the other thing that is emblematic of my food diary this week is Matthew, this summer, I got really into ice cubes.
Matthew Amster-Burton 10:29
Okay, okay. We did do an ice cubes episode. We did, we did,
Molly 10:33
and I think in that episode, I mentioned that I had exactly one ice cube tray because I don't have a freezer that makes ice cubes, right? So I had one ice cube tray, like an old school, like, blue plastic one that was in the freezer when we bought the house. Okay, so this was, like, at least 14 years old, okay, well, earlier this summer, I went on a trip with some friends, and one of my friends in an ice hotel. I stayed in a nice hotel, yeah, no one of my friends, she doesn't drink alcohol, and she for all of us, we were staying in this Airbnb. She brought a bunch of ice cube trays with, like, ice cubes with fancy stuff in them, like lemon juice or like herbs
Matthew Amster-Burton 11:14
or whatever. How did she bring ice cubes? So she
Molly 11:19
we were staying not too far from where she lives, so she put them in a cooler.
Matthew Amster-Burton 11:23
Okay, I think, I think I was imagining, like, like a cross country girls trip, road trip.
Molly 11:29
Now, first I was kind of like, I don't need an ice cube with a raspberry in it, like, whatever. But that, it turned out you did, and it turned out I did. So anyway, at the end of it, I was like, Okay, I think I'm gonna order new ice cube trays for myself so that I can because these also had these, like, slide on and off lids so you could stack them. Yeah, okay, guess what? I didn't even have to order the ice cube trays. She gave me hers. And ever since then, I have made
Matthew Amster-Burton 11:57
sure, ever since then, she comes over to your house and says she doesn't have an ice cube No,
Molly 12:01
anyway, I've been making more ice, and I always have one tray of ice cubes that are half lemon juice and half water. So if I put them in my water bottle, like one ice cube, one lemon ice cube dilutes perfectly for very lemony water. Oh, I love, and it is the most delightful thing. So I can have, like, lemon water without having to, like, squeeze the lemon or cut it up or whatever, like, it's just in the freezer. So Wow. So my whole week, well, pretty much all summer, but you can figure every day of this food diary, I was drinking a lot of either, like, just still or sparkling water with a lemon ice cube in it.
Matthew Amster-Burton 12:41
Okay, this is great. I wanna try this. We just have, like, the regular plastic ice cube trays. I think we did replace them a few years ago, so the ones we have are fine. I love ice water. If it ever gets to the point where, like, we've just filled the ice cube trays, and so there's no ice cubes, and we've just filled the Brita pitcher, and the water isn't cold. I'm like, oh boy, civilization has broken down. Like, what am I gonna do? I can't wait one hour for cold water.
Molly 13:06
You know what? We'll link in the show notes to the type of ice cube tray I'm using, please, yeah, because it's really great. And I should say too, that if you're making ice cubes where half of it is lemon juice and half is water, and you've got, like, let's say, a tall glass at like a 12 ounce or 16 ounce glass of water. Just do one of the lemon ice cubes and the rest regular
Matthew Amster-Burton 13:28
ice. Yeah, we should do we should do ice too. Maybe this is ice too. Maybe this is ice. Maybe we could get ice cube on as a guest. Yeah. Okay, all right. Monday, September, 1 Labor Day for breakfast, an English muffin topped with leftover caprese salad, which I feel like there's a chance we might talk about this on next week. So it was weird. And green tea, yeah, that was real good. Then went for a walk to squirrel chops coffee place with Watson. We both got decaf cappuccinos. Okay for lunch, Trader Joe's lamb vindaloo, which I have for lunch probably once a week. Some Trader Joe's peanut butter caramel popcorn and tea after lunch. Then for dinner, I tried a new recipe that I think is gonna become a family favorite from it was recently my birthday. Watson gave me the current issue of Cook's Illustrated magazine for my birthday. It was like the September, October issue 2025 and it had a like, sauteed shelf stable gnocchi variations article. And there was one like Szechuan style with ground lamb and Szechuan peppercorns and chili and and celery. And it was really good. So like, next time I would make it with half as much meat, because the ratio is way off, but it was absolutely a keeper. And then has square of Trader Joe's corn flakes, milk corn flake, milk chocolate bar for dessert. So that was, that was for Trader Joe's items. No, it was just, it was three.
Molly 14:56
And would you say that? That is a standard like looking at at what. You had over the course of the day is that, like a pretty normal ratio of food you like made from scratch to convenience stuff from Trader
Matthew Amster-Burton 15:08
Joe's? Very much. So okay, okay, yeah, I have a Trader Joe's item for lunch most weekdays. Yeah, okay, okay, correct? September, let's hear it
Molly 15:17
okay. Labor Day for me again. We started with some stone fruit and some black coffee. I had another Thomas's English muffin with salted butter. I also had some plain yogurt a bellwether farms one, but not the sheep's milk. One, they make a cow's milk. Okay, yeah, and I really like the texture of it. I had some plain yogurt with honey. Then, guys, this was pretty great. I finally got around to making a recipe I'd wanted to try for about 10 days at that point, I had, like, had it printed out and waiting on the counter. Oh boy, a smitten kitchen recipe. I think she called it double chocolate zucchini bread. We can link to it. She just published it this past August. I have all these zucchinis from my CSA. And I was like, I want to turn them into a delicious, chocolatey cake. So I finally made that and had a slice of it, as I then did pretty much every day that was to come. Yes, it was good. You know, interestingly enough, she says that she likes it after it sits for a day. So I think I had made it the night before. So when I had it on Monday, it had been sitting for a day. It was fine. I really started to like it Tuesday. Oh, interesting. Okay, as the week went on, I started to eat like more and more and more of it, because it became more, I think in the beginning, I was expecting it to be like a chocolate zucchini bread, but where it still had elements of like a zucchini bread flavor, whereas what it actually tastes like is a chocolate cake. Anyway, I had ratatouille for lunch, again, using up my CSA stuff, homemade ratatouille and some hard boiled eggs. Then we were running around, guys, there are a lot of Cliff bars in my life right now because of a toddler who, I mean, you don't have to say this apologetically, no, no, but it's like really a lot of Cliff bars, because the toddler loves them, and we're always doing something like going to the park so he can ride his bike or
Matthew Amster-Burton 17:19
whatever. So what do you have, like a go to find out? This was
Molly 17:23
the chocolate brownie Clif Bar. That's pretty much the only one we keep around right now. So I had a chocolate brownie Clif Bar at this point, like lunch was sort of bleeding into like a slow trail of things eaten in the afternoon. Yeah. So Clif Bar, more of the chocolate zucchini cake. And then that night, we went to a special dinner at Delancey, the head chef and one of the longtime cooks at Delancey. These guys, Graham and Kyle, did a barbecue night on Labor Day, and it was incredible nice. They slept at the restaurant the night before, while things were smoking, while things were slow and slow. Oh, my god, so good. Pulled Pork, brisket, potato salad, pickled green beans, and I had a Negroni, okay.
Matthew Amster-Burton 18:10
Oh, that sounds like a good day, yeah, all right, Tuesday, September 2, on the on the video feed. Can we get some, like, calendar pages flipping? We don't have a video feed. But if we did,
Molly 18:21
like, you know, yeah, exactly, yeah, whatever that sound is, no,
Matthew Amster-Burton 18:25
that was it. Tuesday, September 2, breakfast. I had the leftover gnocchi and green tea for lunch. So we used like half a pound of ground lamb in this, in this gnocchi recipe, but then there was like six ounces of ground lamb left in the fridge, so I made a little three ounce lamb burger for lunch with cheddar on a on, like a Franz or maybe, like a Safeway brand sesame seed bun, and then had the last of the birthday Whoppers.
Molly 18:53
Wait, I have a question. Yeah, did you have that bun, just like, waiting in your
Matthew Amster-Burton 18:57
freezer? Oh, no, I got the buns. Okay, for this purpose, okay, especially since I knew I was gonna make more than one lamb burger, I'll see.
Molly 19:06
I always find that whenever I buy hamburger buns, of course, we don't use them, and I we don't use them all, and so I wind up throwing them in the freezer. But I feel like hamburger buns are one of those things where if I don't have them in the freezer, I will sort of like, nix the idea of making a hamburger, because going out just to get the buns always feels dumb, yeah.
Matthew Amster-Burton 19:25
I feel like, the the, like, the level of effort required for me, like, get to the store and get a much lesser is very low, yeah? So, okay, like, yeah. And, I mean, I have like, a, you know, a motivational poster on my office, while it says, get to the store, get that bun. Yeah, that's a picture of a little bunny on it. Okay, so that was lunch, lamb burger. Then dinner. We went to the Japanese breakfast concert at the Woodland Park Zoo, part of the zoo tune series, which was a lot of fun. And they have food trucks at the zoo. I thought about one of them had a lamb curry. And I thought about getting that so I could say that I had lamb three. Yeah, three meals a day, I ended up getting a Hawaiian plate lunch of spicy pork rice and slaw from the Buddha brother truck, and asked for no mac salad, but extra slaw, because I'm not a fan of mac salad, and they were happy to do it, and that made me happy. Watson, I shared a tiramisu from Tuta Bella, which also sold at the at the Tuta Bella track at the zoo, they make very good tiramisu. And were there any beverages? Just water we brought, brought water bottles and filled them at the zoo. Excellent.
Molly 20:29
All right? Tuesday, September 2, black coffee. Yeah, Sharon Stone fruit with Ames.
Matthew Amster-Burton 20:34
You know? You know what this started feel like when there's like a montage in a movie of like someone like doing the same thing. Like, like, like, a groundhog, time is passing, but, yeah, like, you know, but it's like, there's a lot of cuts, like, you know, you see you like, in the first one, they show you, like, lovingly making the coffee. And then as time goes on, it's like, you know, I don't know what sound the mocha pot makes, but like, like,
Molly 20:56
that is that it, did I nail it? It does make it kind of a burbling sound, yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 21:01
yeah. So just like, you like, you know, measuring, burbling, drinking, and then off to do your thing.
Molly 21:06
Yeah, yeah, exactly. On this particular day, we ditched the Thomas's English muffin. Oh, for bombshell, for instead a couple slices of Ben's bread. Have you had bread
Matthew Amster-Burton 21:18
from bed? Yeah,
Molly 21:22
Ben's bread. There we go. Yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 21:24
I've had Ben's bread English muffins, which are very good. I've definitely had some Ben's bread. Bad, no.
Molly 21:29
Anyway. Okay, so Ben's bread is a bakery in Northwest Seattle. It's on Northwest 70th Street, and it's delicious, and it's not too far from where I live. So the bread is really expensive, as everything is these days. It is $10.50 for what they call their table bread, which is a beautiful, like, crusty sourdough. Yeah, it lasts for a long time. And I buy, like, four of them at a time, cut them in half, put them in freezer bags and freeze them. Yeah, so because I eat it when I don't have English muffins, I eat it every morning for breakfast. So I had two slices of toasted Ben's bread with peanut butter for lunch. Again, I had ratatouille and some hard boiled eggs. Then I had two slices of the double chocolate zucchini bread, and I noted I like it better today. Yeah, okay, then this is gonna shock you. Third night in a row I had Delancey. This is not what my life is
Matthew Amster-Burton 22:30
usually like. I mean, if I had an inn at a pizza place, like we would be doing that many times a week.
Molly 22:36
I used to do it more. But you know, like, it's been 16 years of Delancey in my life now. So anyway, this was a lot of Delancey this week. On this particular night, we ate there with these family friends, so I tried to really order all the classics for them. We had a jersey salad Brooklyn. We had Brooklyn. We had the tomato salad, the heirloom tomato salad. We had burrata with pesto and flatbread, which is so delicious I don't think I've had that. I had two glasses of rose a and by the time I got home, it was kind of like hot and sticky out. And I really wanted some more fruit, and so I cut up, you know those big kit mangoes. Yeah, do you remember when we talked about that on our mango episode? Okay, I had a kit mango that I had put in the fridge, and now I cut it up and I ate ice cold kit mango, yeah, perfectly ripe. It was so good. And I drank a big glass of cold fizzy water with a lemon
Matthew Amster-Burton 23:34
ice cube. Oh, yeah, yeah. I gotta get some of these lemon ice cubes up in here.
Molly 23:39
Yeah, yeah. It's really been improving my life.
Matthew Amster-Burton 23:51
Are we ready to move on to Wednesday? We're ready September 3 for breakfast. Love crunch, brand granola, the chocolate peanut butter version for lunch, the second and final lamb burger, finishing off the ground lamb and the last of the Trader Joe's peanut butter caramel popcorn for afternoon snack, hazelnuts. There's a particular brand that that I like, and someone always, will always give me for my birthday. It's the like Oregon, we'll link to it. I remember, yeah, I really like this product. Then for dinner, huevos rancheros with homemade salsa and coffee ice cream sundaes with the spilled milk, hot fudge and chopped hazelnuts.
Molly 24:34
Oh, my God, whipped cream and whipped cream. Just gonna say, does a sundae for you include whipped cream?
Matthew Amster-Burton 24:38
Watson will put a maraschino cherry on hers. I did not, because I don't like them.
Molly 24:42
Oh, you guys really did Sunday real Sundays. Oh, I love that. That inspires
Matthew Amster-Burton 24:48
me. Yeah, it was, it was Trader Joe's coffee ice cream, which is quite good. It freezes really hard. And we were, I was impatient, so I put it in the bike rape for a little bit. So it got, like kind of unevenly heated and a little drippy, but it was still very.
Molly 25:00
Amazing. I know the one. All right. Wednesday, September 3. Hey, do you want to guess what I ate in the morning?
Matthew Amster-Burton 25:06
I'm going to say a whole Costco roast chicken and fresca.
Molly 25:12
Yes, there you go. No, once again, black coffee, Nectarine, stone fruit, peach, nectarine or peach. Can't remember, black coffee, more Ben's bread, two slices of it with peanut butter. Guess what I had for lunch?
Matthew Amster-Burton 25:30
I forgot. Okay,
Molly 25:31
so once again, I had Ratatouille, oh yeah, with a couple of hard boiled eggs. I ate the last of the mango from the night before. More of the chocolate cake, then I drank the last of the pot of coffee with milk and an ice cube. This is very much the way that I usually,
Matthew Amster-Burton 25:48
yeah, no, just this sounds, this sounds very, I was gonna say efficient isn't the right word, but like, like, You're, like, you're making good use of your resources.
Molly 25:56
No, I eat a lot of leftovers. Yeah. Like, I love leftovers.
Matthew Amster-Burton 26:01
I love some leftovers. I think we maybe did a leftovers episode.
Molly 26:06
I think we did too. Then June got home from school and we shared a peach. Always sharing, sharing the stone fruit with my kids. Oh, like Sharon Stone That's right. Okay. That's why she's gone. That's exactly right, literally, stone fruit.
Matthew Amster-Burton 26:22
Lately, I keep thinking about once a week or more, the time when Sharon Stone's husband got her got his toe bitten off by a Komodo dragon.
Molly 26:30
Oh, yes. Wait, who was that guy? Wasn't he a famous actor in his own right? Or was he just a
Matthew Amster-Burton 26:36
guy? He was like, I like a hedge fund guy or something? Okay, I didn't even bother to go back and look up the true story, because I want it. I like to imagine that he got his whole big toe bit.
Molly 26:47
I forgot about that, but now that you mention
Matthew Amster-Burton 26:50
it, it's very clear it's one of the most important news stories of our lifetime.
Molly 26:54
You know what I should mention too that. So the family friends who were in town last week and caused a lot of this eating out.
Matthew Amster-Burton 27:01
They also had an encounter with a Komodo dragon, no,
Molly 27:04
but it was a couple, a man and a woman, who have known me since I was like 12, and they're good friends of my mom's. They were staying at my mom's house. The woman of this couple, when she was younger, she looked a lot like staring like Sharon Stone. You would be staring, okay, because she looks a lot like Sharon Stone. Yeah, yeah. So wow, Sharon Stone's just been
Matthew Amster-Burton 27:25
everywhere when my dad was younger. Neither he nor my mom, nor anyone else really agrees with me on this, but I stand by it. There are a bunch of family photos for when, like, he was in, like, his 30s, in which he looked like Kevin Costner, yeah.
Molly 27:39
Okay, I get that, yeah, I get that. Okay, wait, I'm not done. Yeah, please. Then, while I was eating dinner, I had some jalapeno kettle chips, yeah? And I had one of those, like, canned, non alcoholic Cocktails by the brand parch, yeah. I really like their Margarita, like they have a, I think, a spicy Margarita and a regular, yeah, I like
Matthew Amster-Burton 27:59
one time, and it's good, yeah, it's
Molly 28:01
in, that's in an orange can. I also tried this other one that they call prickly Paloma, and it's in kind of a hot pink can. That's what I had on this particular evening, and it was, yeah, don't recommend that one. Okay. Dinner that night was leftover barbecue from Delancey on Monday, some green beans from our CSA that I just cooked till they were tender. Then green salad with stuff from our CSA with yellow cucumbers and feta. And then, oh, my God, this has been, I think, the potato preparation of our summer. Oh, okay, okay, just yellow potatoes boiled, then tossed with a lot of salted Kerry gold and then with fresh chives that I have in a pot out front, snipped over it. I have to say, I think the first time that we did this was with some like brand new first of the season potatoes from the CSA. And I thought, Oh, I mean, of course, like boiled potatoes with salted butter and chives. Like, what's not to love. But this is probably extra good because it's with these, like, beautiful local potatoes. No, no, no, no, no, as everyone listening probably knows this is delicious with any particular yellow potato you find, anywhere at any price, and that is at any stage of its
Matthew Amster-Burton 29:22
growth. There was a time when Watson and I got got kind of into yellow fin potatoes that we would buy metropolitan market, or it might even have been, still been Larry's back then in lower Queen Anne and, yeah, it's a good potato. It's a good potato. Okay, when you snipped the chives. Did you actually, like snip them with scissors? Yes, okay, because I, I never do that. I like chives, but I always, I always just use a knife. It seems so festive to snip.
Molly 29:50
Well, I have, like, dedicated kitchen scissors. I do too. You do too snip them.
Matthew Amster-Burton 29:55
Yeah, no, I wasn't gonna grab, like, the office scissors. Oh, thank God that I use. To open my missives and telegrams anyway,
Molly 30:03
I would say that this particular meal where it's like a whole bunch of vegetables that we don't do a whole lot to except cook them or whatever, is also very typical of how I make dinner in the summertime. Nice with that, I had some sort of red wine. I can't remember now and then what kind of ice we're almost to the end of the chocolate cake? Oh, not quite yet.
Matthew Amster-Burton 30:24
Yeah, wow. Okay. Yeah. I think even if there's like, a dessert that I really like, I think I would have run out of steam before you did. And I admire that.
Molly 30:32
No, God no, I see it through to the end, I guess.
Matthew Amster-Burton 30:35
Like, no, if it's a favorite, if it's like chocolate malt sandwich cookies, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna leave one of those behind.
Molly 30:41
You know, I will say this cake. I really wasn't sure if it was going to be like, worthy of being finished, but by the end of the week, I was like, Oh, this is just a really delicious chocolate cake. And I saw it through all the way to the end.
Matthew Amster-Burton 30:55
Yeah, it's like, but what, what's going in my head is, like, is there a joke where the punchline is worthy of being? Finish, like, if you're, like, applying for Finnish citizenship? But that didn't come together.
Molly 31:09
Like, finish, dishwash, washer to turn I
Matthew Amster-Burton 31:11
just bought a bag of
Molly 31:14
that quantum Powerball. I think it might be my favorite.
Matthew Amster-Burton 31:17
I it's, it's like one of the lower end ones might be like a, like a shelf below quantum Powerball.
Molly 31:23
Would it be like, double Powerball, single Powerball?
Matthew Amster-Burton 31:27
Well, quantum doesn't mean, like, four physics.
Molly 31:32
I don't really know quantum leap. Remember that
Matthew Amster-Burton 31:35
show I was just, I was just talking to Watson about that show, because, like, I only saw a few episodes, but I did enjoy and I was like, Is it a show that would be fun to go back and re watch? And we didn't, we didn't come to a conclusion. What do you think listeners? Oh, yeah, right. Contacted Spielberg podcast.com should we? Should we pivot the show and become a quantum leap re watch podcast just, just for, like, until we watch all of quantum leap and then go back to food bullshit.
Molly 32:05
Okay, Matthew, what about Thursday, the final day of our food
Matthew Amster-Burton 32:08
diet? Thursday the final day. And I'm gonna go a little off script here, because Okay, so breakfast, Safeway, brand, brand flakes and green tea for lunch, I tried something I had not gotten before, which is Trader Joe's frozen bulgogi. I would not buy this again. I thought it was kind of not very good quality meat, and it was sort of gray, and like this, the seasoning was good, but then so, so I had that with rice, and I wasn't, wasn't very thrilled with it. The next day there was, like, I didn't want to waste it, and like, half it was was left. So I put in the fridge. The next day, I threw that in a frying pan with a little dark soy sauce to give it a more appetizing color, a bunch of garlic and sesame seeds and chili flakes, okay, and, and like, like, got it nice and hot in the pan and cooked those things down. That was a lot better. Okay, so if you do happen to get this product, that's how I would recommend enjoying it. Great. Then for dinner, I went to travel with rice. With rice, yes. For dinner, I went to cribbage club at Chuck's hop shop, which is a it's a bar in Seattle. It's very family friendly, and they have a rotating food truck. And it was wood shop barbecue. So I had the wood shop barbecue chicken sandwich, which comes with pickled onions, pickled cucumbers and cabbage slaw, and I like to put all those things on the sandwich with some with some of their hot barbecue sauce. Really tasty. I had a hell bent Moon tower nitro stout, I think I got the four ounce serving. And then I had a can of sober carpenter blonde ale, which I had not tried before and didn't think was very good. Is that non alcoholic? Non alcoholic? It was, it was like it had a weird aroma. As the night starts to wind down, they start giving out free popcorn at shucks. And so I had quite a bit of real like movie theater style popcorn.
Molly 34:01
Excellent, excellent. Was there any afternoon snack on Thursday?
Matthew Amster-Burton 34:04
You know? I think there wasn't, because I think I ate a bunch of that mediocre Bulgogi and then, and then was gonna have dinner a little bit early before cribbage. I'm sure I had some tea, though.
Molly 34:14
Okay, all right, here's the last day for me again, black coffee. Yeah, looks like we must not have had any fresh fruit in the house. Where weird,
Matthew Amster-Burton 34:24
yeah, because you ate it all, because I ate it all. No, had
Molly 34:27
another two pieces of Ben's bread toasted this time. I had one with salted Kerry gold and some jam that I had made from Shiro plums, the little like yellow plums. So I had one slice with that, and then one slice with slice with peanut butter. Then I was teaching in the morning, and I got really hungry, probably because I hadn't had my my stone fruit. So you go out foraging. I went downstairs and and had a little, a little a little Trader Joe's snack. The trader. Trader Joe's slab apricots, the dried apricots that are really good. And, you know, the little can of mixed nuts from Trader Joe's, oh, yeah, those are really good. Pink can it's called, like, I don't know, is it like elevated? I was gonna say, is it like, elegant, but it's elevated. Is it elevated? It yeah, that's, those are really good. Yeah. So I had had a bunch of that. Oh, so you did actually go foraging for stone fruit. You were, like, like, staggering through the cost. Like, like, there must be some kind of stone fruit here somewhere, dried apricot.
Matthew Amster-Burton 35:28
And you just, like, like, sank to the floor, cramming them in your mouth.
Molly 35:33
And I should say too, that all of this week I was also still having some sort of residual digestive stuff, sure. So even though it didn't impact a lot of how I was eating, it seems like on Thursday it did, because I ate a bunch of saltines on Thursday. Okay, yeah, lunch was the end of the ratatouille. And then kind of a modified
Matthew Amster-Burton 35:53
I found the end of ratatouille so moving.
Molly 35:57
Oh, and I ate it cold this time. Usually I warm it up. I had some sun gold tomatoes with mozzarella, with olive oil and basil, so sort of a modified or kind of a little Caprese. Then I here's that word again. Then I last of the chocolate cake. Finally, okay, yeah, finally, I finished off the chocolate cake.
Matthew Amster-Burton 36:16
I don't know if I believe you. I think there might be, like, a slice still, like hiding somewhere that's going to appear in, like a bonus, bonus food diary entry.
Molly 36:24
Then Thursday afternoon was kind of nutty. I should say that this was the first week of school for my older kid, and a week in which we had a bunch of orientation stuff for my youngest child. So Thursday afternoon, usually I would have a snack, but I was like losing my mind, going to various orientations, picking one child up here, driving over here, and then that night, at dinner, we went out to a really delicious dinner. For the final evening of our family friend visit. We went to cafe, Lago, oh yeah, which don't get to go too often. It really adds up. But it is delicious. I had a Negroni, then we had the antipasti platter for the table. Then I had the fettuccine with meatballs. Oh yeah, so good. And we got a couple little gem Caesar salads for the table. So I had a little bit of Caesar along with my fettuccine in my life, that's right,
Matthew Amster-Burton 37:24
little bit of wheezer by my side.
Molly 37:29
And then tiramisu for dessert. Yes, I have to say that. I think I think my homemade Tiramisu is better, but Cafe Lago makes a really good tiramisu.
Matthew Amster-Burton 37:38
Do you think you just you put in more gloop. I think
Molly 37:41
I put in more gloop. I also think my the coffee flavor of mine is stronger than the coffee flavor
Matthew Amster-Burton 37:47
of theirs. When Watson and I were eating tiramisu at the zoo, we said the word gloop to each other so many times
Molly 37:53
I so I am making some tiramisu later today for a family celebration. I need to make some soup, and I'm going to say gloop so many times while I'm doing it, gloop. So what do you feel like you learned about yourself from this experience?
Matthew Amster-Burton 38:08
Okay, I learned that I eat a lot of stuff from Trader Joe's. And, like, I knew that I don't really care about fruit, and this confirmed it. Because, like, oh god, yeah, there was, like, there was zero fruit. Yeah, I think there was, I think there was zero fruit. Well, except there, like, I had some peaches and plums as part of a snacking cake. Oh, that's right, which was very corner, but, yeah, just don't care about fruit. Okay, okay, good to know. You know, I don't have to pretend anymore. No, you don't have to pretend. Oh, man, the thing I take away from, I got from yours that I found inspiring that I want to adopt is like, the idea of eating good bread at breakfast time. Because, like, I am totally fine with, like, a store brand English muffin. Like, you know, that's, that's great. But like, when I do have, like, some, some left, or like, like, I've got, I've got, like, half a good baguette here, now that's going to feature in breakfast tomorrow. That's so satisfying to have some, like, real rustic bread with breakfast. There's no reason I couldn't make that happen more often.
Molly 39:04
Yeah, I have to say, I mean, you know, as I mentioned, this bread is not inexpensive, and I have to, like, go to a bakery to go get it, et cetera. And it's a bakery where there's almost always a line, but, yeah, I just buy a ton of it and then keep it in the freezer. And it totally makes my morning. I had it today. Too delicious.
Matthew Amster-Burton 39:23
What did you notice about yourself or me? Like did you find anything about my food diary so inspiring that it's gonna change your life dramatically?
Molly 39:31
Oh, big time. Big time. No, I think that well, because we've never really done this before, I've never thought about how many delicious I know this is so obvious to everybody, but like, how well you could eat just eating Trader Joe's stuff all the time, like, I think most of the world hopefully knows this already. Yeah, it's true. Yeah, I feel like I tend to rely on Trader Joe's for inexpensive. Massive ingredients that I would spend more on elsewhere. Yeah, and I don't make as much use of like prepared foods there, or like the frozen foods as I could. And when I do like, when I get the Kim bop or when I get their Indian food, like, it's always so delicious, I don't know why I don't do it. I guess what I learned from my food food diary is, well, no, what I was gonna say is like, I truly love leftovers, and I feel like adrift at lunchtime. If I have to actually cook something, I've got a title
Matthew Amster-Burton 40:33
for your next book, leftovers. It's like, l, o, V, apostrophe, T, over, or maybe l, u, v, a positive, this is gonna be your biggest hit yet. Oh, man, I can't wait.
Molly 40:51
Hey, Michael, so Matthew and I share an agent. His name is Michael, Michael. Call me, call us.
Matthew Amster-Burton 40:59
Yeah, no. Like, we share an agent. Like, like, our agent is just is so annoyed with me because I'm always calling him up and pitching him great book ideas, like leftovers, like he just can't stop me from writing more books anyway.
Molly 41:16
Yeah, I am, like, totally adrift without leftovers because I don't want to cook something like I would never cook myself a lamb burger at lunch that's amazing.
Matthew Amster-Burton 41:25
Love make myself a lunch burger. That's so, so fun. Sometimes I make one for Watson. This time I didn't,
Molly 41:31
wow, okay, yeah, no, I was so glad to come to your house today for lunch, because there are no leftovers in my fridge. And I was okay, oh, what am I gonna do?
Matthew Amster-Burton 41:40
And now there are leftovers in my fridge from today's lunch. Wow, wow. That's like deep Do we have any spilled mail? We do. This
Molly 41:56
one comes from listener Talia, who says, When Australians mention a root. It does not refer to the penis.
Matthew Amster-Burton 42:05
Did we say it? I think, I think I said it did. Oh, okay, and I was wrong.
Molly 42:09
It refers to the act so someone of any gender can have a root or get a root. A guy who does this a lot may be derisively referred to as a root rat. Cheers.
Matthew Amster-Burton 42:21
Talia, yeah. I don't know what episode we this came up on, but I do remember talking about it.
Molly 42:26
I mean, I guess is this like the Beastie Boys song, root down. Yeah, that's always been about sex.
Matthew Amster-Burton 42:32
Yeah, no, that's probably, and we probably knew that, and they're from Australia, famously, but yeah, they made that album to the five boroughs, which referred to Victoria Queensland, New South Wales, and a couple other ones, Tasmania.
Molly 42:54
Okay, well, Matthew, do you have an elbow?
Matthew Amster-Burton 42:57
Wow, I do. Is it that new Beastie Boys album? It's a new Beastie Boys album, like it's, they moved to Australia.
Molly 43:06
No, it's the Beastie Boys live at Sydney Opera live
Matthew Amster-Burton 43:10
album, yes, it's, yeah, they probably did play Sydney Opera House, probably, for all we know, you Yeah, so this is not new, but it's new to me. It's a manga series from the 2000s called ekiben hitori tabi, which means train lunch, solo journey by Jun Hayase and Hiroshi Sakurai. We're gonna put a link in the show notes, because there is a fan translation of it available, or at least, like several volumes of it available free, online. It is one of those Japanese food comics with, like, the thinnest premise that they just go all the way with. And the premise on this one is that there's a guy who likes buying bento boxes at train stations and riding trains, and he takes a train trip, like, all over Japan, like, makes a friend on the first ride, and they and they, like, ride together and eat bentos. And there's like, a big two page, like, center fold of each bento showing, like, exactly what's in it, and, like, where you buy it and how much it cost in 2004 and it's really delightful.
Molly 44:19
Okay, wait, hold on, I may have missed this, but is there a translation of it?
Matthew Amster-Burton 44:22
Yes, yeah, so I've been reading it in Japanese, but we'll put a link in the show notes, because there's an English fan translation that is free online.
Molly 44:29
Wonderful. Okay, our producer is Abby circatella, and again, thank you, producer, Abby, for suggesting this food diet.
Matthew Amster-Burton 44:37
Aren't you glad we didn't do all seven days, because this episode's almost an hour long already. Oh no. And rate and reveals wherever you get your podcasts. And why don't you share your your own food diary on reddit.com/r/everything? Spilled Milk. Or what did you learn about us? What did you learn about diary? What? How are you going to be more like us?
Molly 44:58
No, no. Or did you learn. Anything that was surprising or that you feel we should perhaps keep under wraps. Oh, something
Matthew Amster-Burton 45:05
embarrassing, if your leftovers under wraps, but then unwrap them before you, before you reheat them. That's that's a good idea. All right, so until next time, wait you can. Oh, but yes, we already said Reddit. We already said it Reddit, until next time. Thank you for listening to spilled milk next week, caprese salad, bam. It's not under wraps anymore. I'm Matthew Amster-Burton
Molly 45:27
and I'm Molly Weisen.
Molly 45:34
I'm Molly And I'm Matthew, and this is spilled milk with the wow.
Matthew Amster-Burton 45:42
You take one week
Molly 45:44
off and you wow them now, okay?
Transcribed by https://otter.ai