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In this engaging podcast, a dad and his two sons explore their personal interests while rating a variety of alcoholic beverages. They dive into discussions about nerd and geek culture, travel experiences, and an array of intriguing topics that pique their curiosity. Join them for a fun and lighthearted conversation filled with laughter, insights, and, of course, plenty of drink reviews!
Hello and welcome back to another three Hamster Boys podcast episode. I'm your host Alexander joined by my brother Nick. Hello. And our father Jeff.
Jeff:Jeff the dad.
Alexander:Jeff the dad.
Jeff:Starting to get into a rhythm for second season, you know.
Nick:Jose, you're gonna you you had like a very melodic intro. Like, it was more singing than I think usual.
Alexander:Oh, interesting. Maybe. I've I've been thinking a lot about how to do the intro and I think I'm a little too stiff on it. Maybe that like intention was coming out in being like, well, if I'm being too stiff, maybe I'll just sing the intro Lucy. Yeah.
Alexander:Or like gaming. Here they come. No. No. No.
Alexander:That's too intense.
Jeff:Yeah. Alright.
Alexander:Sorry. It catches me off guard sometimes when you're trying to railroad us back on track.
Nick:Yeah. And
Alexander:I'm like, woah. What's happening here?
Jeff:I'll take you off track plenty of time.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah.
Alexander:That's what I expect. Yeah. Alright. Yes. So, today, we are talking about fantastical feasts and fictional food that specifically I think would be interesting or like tasty to eat.
Alexander:Nick and I were talking a little bit about perhaps food that would have interesting effects if you ate it, and there are many. Yeah. But, maybe not necessarily like tasty or yummy things to eat.
Nick:It might not always be the like selling point like first and foremost. Yeah. But sometimes you're like, what does it taste like?
Jeff:So I mean, for my three choices, I had three distinct things I was looking for.
Alexander:Okay. Yeah.
Jeff:So so when you when you hear them you go, oh, that makes sense and then that makes sense and that makes sense.
Alexander:Okay. So It doesn't make sense yet.
Nick:It doesn't don't worry listeners. It'll make sense.
Jeff:Or not.
Alexander:Yeah. I
Nick:was I was gonna be
Alexander:And then, as for what we're drinking today, to go with our tasty treats, we have a bunch of white wine from three different vineyards that we've already talked about. So we'll be retalking about these vineyards just looking at their collection of whites.
Jeff:Yeah. The first set of wines that we did were sparkling wines from these three. It's Michael Schap's. I'm gonna get this wrong. Gabrielle Gabriela Rose.
Nick:Yep. Yep. Yep. That sounds great.
Jeff:It was good. And then from Blenheim
Nick:Yeah.
Jeff:Vineyards. And so we did the sparklings and now we're doing the whites and we'll do our reds later.
Alexander:Yep. That is great. Well, normally, I would throw it over to Nick to tell us what we're starting out with here. But, dad
Jeff:So I drink a little bit more water.
Nick:Yeah. I'm a little lost on this one to be honest.
Jeff:So this is a Gunther Wertliner from Is that right Gunther Wertliner? Gunner. Gunner. Gunner. Sorry.
Jeff:Gunner Vertliner, which is from This Gabriella Rossi.
Alexander:Yes.
Jeff:All of Gabriella's wines were dry, even their reds. Yeah. But they also were very light body. And so this is a reserve from 2023, I believe. And it should have a pretty good taste.
Jeff:We figured that this would be the appetizer kind of wine to start us off. Something light, probably a good bouquet, good, grape smell. So it should be good.
Alexander:Yes.
Jeff:I'm a big white wine drinker. This is good for me because sparkling is my favorite, white's my next. I'm not a really big red wine drinker.
Nick:Yeah. And this is a steel cask.
Jeff:Steel cask. But it's reserved, so it should age a little bit more.
Alexander:Well, with that being said, let's get into it. Not really sure what to expect. Nick and I are more fledgling in terms of wine drinkers, so our experience and our knowledge is a bit more limited and this is kind of a a portion of the podcast where one we were trying to learn more, but also we're definitely being outflanked in terms of Yeah.
Nick:I would definitely bounce off of that and agree with you because I drank it and I was like, yep. That's a that's a nice white wine.
Jeff:Well, number one, you could tell it's steel. Yes. Because it has that minerality to it.
Nick:Yeah.
Jeff:And it doesn't have the depth of like a a barrel.
Nick:But I think it has a little bit it's not as like steely Yeah. As others that I've had. It's a little bit more full bodied than It is. Than usual white wine.
Jeff:And I also think that it is really a tasty wine to go with other things.
Nick:Yeah. Well, I I mean, I think it's very refreshing to drink right now.
Jeff:Yep. I I mean, I just I think it's light, refreshing. It's a summer wine that you would drink.
Nick:I was about to say it's like 90 degrees outside. I was like, I could walk out right now and be pretty happy.
Alexander:Yeah. So that is good. I guess you could be doing that. Alright, dad. And since you gave us a bit of a Curveball.
Alexander:Well, I don't know. You you gave us like a heads up, not heads up about Yeah.
Nick:Your three choices.
Jeff:Gave a
Nick:little setup.
Jeff:Okay. So the first one I'm gonna choose, I was gonna do like appetizer, main dish and dessert, but
Alexander:I feel like that would be really hard.
Nick:Oh, yeah. I definitely did not do that.
Alexander:I I think could
Jeff:have, but I I changed my mind.
Alexander:I think I've been really struggling with this one and the more I look into like fantasy food, the more I find fantasy drinks instead.
Nick:Yeah. That that'll that'll Like be
Alexander:fictional drinks. That'll be
Nick:a different episode, I think.
Jeff:That is pretty cool. I I didn't didn't even think about it.
Alexander:Well, the thing is, when I was looking into this, I was finding a lot of things that I'm like, well, that's just real food.
Jeff:Right. Right.
Alexander:Yeah. And like, I really wanted to do something that I couldn't have in the real world. So, for instance, something that I I kept seeing was like people talking about like, oh my god, I wish I could have the ratatouille from ratatouille. And I'm like, you could. Like, ratatouille is a real thing.
Alexander:Yeah. It probably isn't gonna be made by a rat. I said probably. It's not gonna be made by
Nick:The chances.
Alexander:A rat. Yeah. The chances are low but they're never zero. And you might not have a flashback memory of your childhood in the French countryside, but you can still have ratatouille like it's a real thing. Yeah.
Jeff:Yeah. You know, I agree. I mean, there was there was things that I saw where they were like, pink donut from The Simpsons. Oh. Oh.
Alexander:Right. And you're like, that's just like a
Nick:just a donut.
Jeff:It's just a pink donut.
Alexander:Or like I saw a lot of anime lists Oh my and it's like, this is just real food. Yeah. They're like, what if people put noodles in a broth and had like pork with it? And you're like, that is just ramen. Yeah.
Jeff:So anyway, so, as we have said a couple times, I've been a vegetarian now for over forty years.
Nick:Oh, he's doing a meat dish.
Jeff:No. However If only. In Willy Wonka, they had the three course dinner bubble gum. And the reason that this came to my mind almost immediately when we thought about this was there's a lot of dishes that I see that I will never be I will never taste. Right?
Jeff:You go I I watch a lot of these dining and restaurant reviews and they say this tastes this way. And I go, I I've never had smoked brisket. Yeah. Which is Sure. A crazy thing to think about.
Jeff:I mean, I didn't become a vegetarian till I was 18, but still there there was an opportunity but it just wasn't there. But nowadays, there's a lot of like dining experiences where I'd go, man, that that would be cool to taste. So I thought if if I could have a a three course dinner bubble gum
Nick:Yeah. To skip the the whole moral vegetarian change. Yeah.
Jeff:I wouldn't be tasting I wouldn't be eating meat but I would be tasting what these dishes are because I think for me
Alexander:You're like, woah, rotisserie chicken.
Jeff:For me, the the thing that's always the thing I miss is the taste. Not so much the texture of eating it. It's the taste. These different tastes, you know, because I when I see people going to like foreign lands and tasting something, I go, I wonder what that tastes like.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. You know?
Alexander:Yeah. Of course.
Nick:Can you remind me what all was in the bubblegum?
Jeff:It was was a roast beef dinner Yeah. With
Nick:Mashed potatoes on
Jeff:the side? Mashed potatoes and Yorkshire pudding. Wow.
Alexander:You remember way more about this.
Nick:I know it ends with a blueberry pie.
Jeff:The blueberry pie
Nick:Because verruca turns into a big blueberry.
Jeff:That I do remember. To go to the fruit pressing room to squeeze the blueberries out.
Nick:Yeah.
Alexander:Which always scared me as a kid. I guess what happens?
Nick:I was gonna be honest. The treatment was a little like worry ing. You know? Yeah.
Jeff:Well, I I think spoiler alert. They they want he wanted to come off as not a nice guy. Throughout the whole thing, Gene Wilder was like, casual, but then he always did things that made him not a nice guy because they argued and everything. And at the end of it, the whole idea was to see if the kid would still give back the never ending gobstopper even though Gene Wilder was mean to him.
Nick:Mhmm. Yeah.
Jeff:So that was the whole thing is that do it all, he was the right person. Right.
Nick:So
Jeff:anyway, but that's my first choice is the three quarters dinner.
Nick:Sure. Yeah. And I I definitely think it is unobtainable within our current realm. Yes. You know?
Nick:Yes. It is it is honestly like a very somewhat simple idea. It's just like it's a bubble gum that just has a, you know, unnatural flavor or like a different flavor.
Jeff:But look, even even if you taste watermelon bubble gum
Nick:Yeah.
Jeff:It's not watermelon.
Nick:Sure. Sure. Sure.
Jeff:Banana bubble gum is not banana bubble gum. It's Well,
Alexander:isn't it Isn't that flavor based off of like an extinct species of banana that doesn't exist anymore?
Jeff:I don't know what it's based on.
Alexander:It's No. It's artificial as far as I'm concerned.
Nick:The rare Laffy Taffy banana. Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff:Exactly. So, I mean, just think that
Alexander:The rare blue raspberry
Jeff:out there. But, I mean, I I think that in general that we haven't been able to simulate taste well enough yet.
Nick:I think we're getting there because we have the Yeah.
Alexander:We're getting there.
Nick:Whatever taste Impossible burgers and Impossible burgers, but they're they're also like being able to chart accurately exactly like flavors like
Jeff:Oh, yeah.
Nick:Whatever those science y machines are where they like shoot a laser and they see the weight of each molecule in a taste and then try to Yeah. Mimic
Jeff:I mean, Anyways. Okay.
Alexander:Alright. Nick, we're heading over
Nick:to you here. What are
Alexander:we kicking off our feast here with? I like to imagine eating your dishes with this and the bubble gum not really not really going with the wine here.
Nick:Well, I'm doing something a little bit more vague, but something that more aligned with like our thoughts and feelings of of fantastical food.
Alexander:Okay.
Nick:And so, I am choosing the level six spell from Dungeons and Dragons Hero's Feast.
Alexander:Woah. Alright. Wait. I didn't even think about going this route. That this is awesome.
Nick:I was either debating that or Goodberry Oh my from D and D. But I I like the idea of Hero's Feast a little bit more.
Jeff:So what is this?
Nick:Hero's Feast. It is a spell that can only be learned by I believe clerics and druids, maybe bards. I feel like
Alexander:wizards can learn everything, no?
Nick:I don't know if they can do hero's feast.
Alexander:Okay.
Nick:Okay. But definitely, it may be warlocks. Maybe warlocks.
Alexander:They there it's a it's
Nick:a weird amalgam, but it's it's a sixth level spell that for what it takes before it happens is it takes a bowl that is worth a thousand gold at least, which is roughly what what's it? It's like a a a copper per dollar.
Alexander:Oh, is that what it I think roughly.
Nick:Oh my. It's expensive. It's expensive. It's really really expensive.
Alexander:Like a million dollar bowl?
Nick:Yeah. A million dollar bowl that gets used when you when you cast the spell. It takes an hour to prep, but once it does, it it the description is it summons a majestic array of food and drink that you can dine with up to 12 up to 12 people, and after eating for an hour, you are immune to poison and disease and are cured of such things for twenty four hours afterward.
Jeff:Wow. So you do this before you go into battle?
Alexander:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Does it also give you advantage against being like frightened or something?
Nick:Yeah. You're immune to frightened. Yeah. As well. That's crazy.
Nick:So, you can no longer be scared and I believe it increases your It gives you 12 temporary
Jeff:I was
Alexander:about to say, think it gives you some temp HP too.
Nick:Yeah. So, it it fortifies you in so many different ways. Like, your immune system is like the best it could ever be after it. Like, it would be impossible to get food poisoning from it. And you cannot be afraid as well.
Nick:Like, you eat food so good that, like, fear escapes your mind. Like
Jeff:Big Trouble in Little China when they got when they're Have you guys seen this movie?
Nick:Bro, so long ago.
Alexander:I was gonna say, it's been a very showed it to us, but
Jeff:So so they're going down to meet lo mein. That's not right. But
Alexander:Someone.
Jeff:The the the bad guy and they all drink this liquid and they're like, I'm feeling really good as they're going down the elevator. I'm feeling really good.
Nick:Some liquid courage?
Jeff:Yeah. Liquid courage. Some real liquid courage. But, yeah. So, do you have you guys used this before?
Nick:I have. I have used it before. I in a campaign that I joined very briefly with you, I was basically scrounging around looking for a bowl the whole time trying to cast it. Yeah. But it it's it's a very fun spell.
Nick:I it's like fresh in my mind because I just completed Baldur's Gate three, the honor mode version of it. Every single long long rest, the first thing we would cast was Hero's Feast to give us all these really strong conditions. And the funny thing is, like, Baldur's Gate portrays it where, you know, you use it, and then a basket appears in front of you, and it's just a huge assortment of random food. But I like to imagine that, like, you can curate it a little bit. Yeah.
Nick:Like, whoever's casting it, like, it's gonna be like their personal dishes. Right? It'll be like a huge variety of like food and drink, because you can pick up alcohol from it. And I'd always be, you know, I think it would be, like I said, it's a little amorphous of a choice, but I think I could learn a lot about who casts the spell, and I think the person who cast the spell can learn about it as well. Because it's very like woo woo on like how spells really go, and like some of it's really up to the caster's discretion, but like I feel like spells like that, like something else is like influencing it a little bit as well.
Jeff:Yeah. I would definitely think that whatever, you know, whatever your cultural background is would impact what you would think is.
Nick:Or like whatever you're craving.
Jeff:Yeah. Yeah. Or whatever you're craving. Man, I really want potato chips. Oh, yeah.
Nick:Bag of Doritos. Yeah. You know, like, craziest thing could come out of that, you know. They're like, this is the spread tonight. Yeah.
Nick:20 pounds of bread. Pounds of peanut butter.
Alexander:It's just pita chips and hummus. What do you mean?
Nick:I just The math.
Jeff:This isn't a meal.
Nick:Just like a bucket of hummus on the table.
Jeff:That is pretty cool.
Alexander:That's awesome. I I really do think I didn't even think about D and D in terms of thinking about that. A GoodBerry would have also been a really interesting one.
Nick:Yeah.
Alexander:And I bet it does taste good.
Nick:Yeah. But like, I think the aesthetic of GoodBerry unfortunately is just like, oh, I have berries in my pocket out of your pocket with something and you're like, hey, you wanna have one? It'll feed you for the whole day.
Alexander:Yeah. It feeds you for the day, heals you for one HP, like, I don't know. It it's nice. It's nice. No.
Alexander:Heroic Feast is definitely a better one. Awesome. Very very cool. I am gonna go in a more sci fi direction here. And of course, because I feel like I am non stop always talking about red lines.
Alexander:So, you haven't seen this movie, please just watch for me.
Nick:At this point.
Jeff:We talked about it.
Nick:There's a rule of three in here.
Alexander:And that's it. That's it. I'm done. I won't talk about Red Lion anymore after this. No.
Alexander:That's not
Jeff:true. Unfortunately,
Alexander:you're probably right. But there is a scene where Sweet Baby JP and Sonashi are in a restaurant as they're preparing for this big race. And Sonashi has ordered like a spread of food and it's all very like alien looking food like, I I would say one of the dishes is supposed to be like the head of a fish, but it looks not like that. Like, it looks more like more human, but not like a human head. Like, looks like an alien head almost.
Alexander:And there's like, what looks like a weird fruit that's cut up, but her main dish is basically like a space lobster with some muscles around it. And for me, the start of the show is kind of, spreading up through the cracks of it are these thick noodles that are waving and moving. Like almost sentient or like alive noodles. And that's sort of like the star of the show because this lobster, these muscles are all on top of this bed of noodles that are moving and could be sentient. It's never really explained.
Nick:Yeah. They sort of are like, what are you eating? Oh, that's kinda weird. You know, and then like, there's a little bit of like a tussle. I I Yeah.
Nick:If I remember Yeah. Like trying to eat it. And then they just go about their business.
Alexander:Yeah. And then one of the other racers like comes up and like very comically like scoops it all up with like a fork and like eats the entire thing.
Nick:Right. Yeah. Yeah.
Alexander:Yeah. But I love Redline so much and I feel like the food is such a like, it's down the list of of things to talk about. But, it is a part of that world building where you're like, that is some sci fi looking food. Yeah. Like, that does not look like that.
Alexander:It's almost uncanny valley where you're like, that looks like lobster kind of, but also kinda doesn't. Those look like mussels that looks like pasta. So this looks like some sort of like seafood pasta. But in the same way,
Nick:it doesn't. And it's like so foreign. And it Yeah.
Alexander:And it's so foreign. And I kinda love that. And I would love I I Maybe this makes me a little a little crazy, but I'd love to eat those noodles. Like, I wanna know what those noodles taste like. Back?
Alexander:Yeah. Like, are they fighting back? I don't know.
Nick:Or they're like, I'm destined to be eaten.
Alexander:Yeah. Or like, maybe they're not sentient at all. Maybe there's just like they're like anti gravity noodles and they're just kind of waving in in the the wind, the non existent wind.
Jeff:Which they don't really explain it.
Alexander:No. They they
Nick:I mean, it's not a food
Alexander:show. Yeah. Was gonna say, they literally just like gloss over it. Like, it it is just part of the world building to like let you as the viewer know they're in a sci fi restaurant.
Nick:Yeah. It's just like another like beautiful detail. Yeah. To like really like pull you into the world.
Jeff:You know, I've seen many commentators about the food and games and movies and stuff like that.
Nick:Sure.
Jeff:Sometimes it makes a difference, sometimes it doesn't. But like, how many how many people when you say Kahuna Burger knows knows what that is?
Alexander:Yeah. I don't I don't know if I know what I could do idea. Is. Pulp Fiction. Oh.
Alexander:I see. I see.
Nick:Yeah. I feel like that's hard to really track to be honest. Yeah.
Jeff:I know. But it's it's such a weird it's a weird spot in the movie Yeah. Centered around food.
Alexander:That that's fair. Sure. Yeah. No. I I do I do get what you're what you're saying here.
Alexander:I I think little details like this in particular when we're like looking at red line, just kind of show the care that has been done towards the world building. Where I don't think even the creators or the animators ever expected you to really think twice about this. It's just part of the backdrop for you to like immerse yourself into the story.
Nick:But one of those people did care about
Alexander:it. Right?
Nick:Like they were like, oh, they're in a restaurant and they're just gonna be eating and then someone else was like, yeah. I got this.
Alexander:I can
Jeff:make a 100 different dishes that are different for each person.
Nick:Because for for like the audience, you're just like, oh, yep. I believe it. I'm in a sci fi world. That makes sense. Right?
Nick:Yes. But like, you don't notice the effort that it took to come up with such a thing to create this like odd spread to make it feel so natural. Yeah.
Alexander:Yeah. I mean like, a part of it is like Studio Ghibli, right? I think we talk a lot about the food in Studio Ghibli always looks so good and delicious. But a lot of the food just looks like real
Nick:Mostly all real food. Yeah.
Alexander:And I mean, obviously, like Studio Ghibli has such like a beautiful art style that food in that art style and presented in that way oftentimes is like, oh man, that looks so good. Like that that's that would hit right now. Yeah. But you don't really have to think too hard about it or you're like, yeah, that's like Japanese tankotsu or that's like karage. And you're like, that looks yummy.
Alexander:Yeah. But it's not like fully imaginary food where you're having to come up with like fake real dishes.
Nick:Yeah. It's like that's fried pork and you're like, sounds good to me. Yeah. Or like that's not a foreign concept. Yeah.
Nick:Truly.
Jeff:But like you said, you know, oh you're putting you know, soup base with noodles and pork. Well, that's a real food.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah. It is unfortunate when when we when I was investigating, like, we both ran into that issue where we're just like, okay, I need some help on, like, finding good, like, anime food. Like, what are the weird ones?
Nick:And they're like, get a load of this.
Alexander:Omelette. Yeah. Yeah. But I was like, awful. Well, now now Eggs and bacon cooked on calcifer.
Jeff:Now, you say that, but that egg where they flip it over and then split it open
Nick:The amu rice?
Alexander:Yeah.
Jeff:That is just that looks like an alien dish right like a real But
Nick:but then you you're like, that's crazy. They can never do it. And then they're like, there's 15 people who are like, this is how to make amu rice. And they're
Alexander:like, phew,
Nick:split it and then the egg like part you know, parts Okay.
Alexander:I agree. It If you're not familiar with it, you'd be like, wow. That that's crazy. Yeah. But I also think, if you're not familiar with like curry or you're not familiar with like the different types of curry, when you're like, okay, yeah.
Alexander:Yeah. I've seen anime. I know what curry is. And then you like see like Indian style curry. Yep.
Alexander:And you're like, is that? Hold on now. That's all the time. Yeah. Like, that doesn't look right.
Jeff:Or the curry in England.
Alexander:Yeah. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Beans on toast.
Alexander:You're like, that doesn't make any sense.
Nick:Why would anyone do that? That's a
Jeff:fantastic That's an imaginary one.
Nick:As for medieval, like, you know, a medieval show. Yes.
Alexander:Alright. Well, our drinks are done just about and I think it's time for us to move on to our next wine and our next food. We're gonna take a quick break. We'll see y'all in a second. Don't go anywhere.
Alexander:And we are back. We've got more white wine in front of us. Not that it was a surprise, but I feel like at this point, we're used to having something that looks different every time and watching you pour this I'm like, well, it looks just about the
Nick:same. Maybe a little darker.
Jeff:It's a little bit darker. It's a little bit more golden. So this Can I go ahead
Alexander:and Please? So this is a Blenheim Chardonnay. Unless you want to.
Nick:Listen, I'm lost.
Jeff:This is a Blenheim Chardonnay. Chardonnay is my favorite white wine. Woah. It's a very strong dry wine. This one is is particularly different.
Jeff:We were looking it up and it's partially aged in barrels and partially aged in steel barrels.
Alexander:Yeah. I will also say the the like grapes were sourced from four different vineyards. So they're going for a mix here.
Jeff:They're going for a mix. So we shall see what this tastes like. But this is a much stronger heavier wine, more robust wine than what we initially or should be when we initially tasted.
Alexander:Should be. Because we
Jeff:As always, we've never tasted any of this. You're seeing the first reaction.
Nick:I mean, there's a lot of marketing words that is connected with this bottle.
Jeff:Cantaloupe. Yeah. Baked apples.
Alexander:Yeah. While we were looking it up, some of the notes that should come through here are notes of cantaloupe, baked apples, some lemon, and just all around round and robust chardonnay.
Nick:You know, I'm trying to keep an open mind while I'm tasting that. You're listing things off and I'm like, wow. Who could come up with that imaginative layer of words? This is the fantasy food that we're drinking.
Jeff:It's gonna become a fruit pie.
Alexander:Now, will say the last time we talked about Blenheim and the last time we visited Blenheim, we did talk about how their wines are a lot sweeter and more kind of fruit forward, especially in contrast to Gabriela's, which is a lot more dry. Yeah. And I think I'm immediately tasting that.
Jeff:Yeah. This is this is not a typically overly dry chardonnay. Yeah. This is a much more subdued. I think that they use the barrels to the oak barrels to kind of mellow out the flavor.
Alexander:I do think it's interesting to go like finding that percentage of eighty four and
Jeff:sixteen Yeah.
Alexander:Like why?
Jeff:They had 840 barrels of this and a 160 barrels of that or whatever. Right. I think it's I will say, as someone that likes chardonnay, this is a bit disappointing to me. Mhmm. I I think that it's the grape is not forward enough.
Jeff:I don't think it's dry enough.
Nick:Yeah. And I'm not really giving the barrel No. Too much.
Jeff:I think all it did was really subdue the the dryness.
Nick:Yeah.
Jeff:And I I love a good chardonnay. And this is probably not one of my favorites.
Alexander:Yeah. I do feel like this debate happens all the time especially with Chardonnay with oak versus steel. Do you as a Chardonnay consumer, as as someone who likes Chardonnay, do you have a preference?
Jeff:Yeah. I definitely love the barrel better. Steel ones to me, once we've talked about this before has a minerality to it, has a less of a flavor that a more like a thin flavor profile. It's not the right word. But basically, you get it and it's gone.
Alexander:Okay. Yeah.
Jeff:Yeah. The the steel just doesn't allow it to to kind of soak into your mouth and age Mhmm. And taste really well, which is kind of what I'm getting with this. It's a short taste but it's not dry. Usually, that dryness will get your your mouth kind of the barrel will also do that, get you salivating whenever.
Jeff:Excuse me. This is just so sweet compared to a regular chard.
Alexander:Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff:That I I I mean, this is a great dinner wine. If you're eating a diverse set of foods where you're maybe a pasta with a meat sauce and you also have fish and you also where you have just a bunch of different ones you don't know what to do. This is a great wine because it's it's got enough body that it can work with any food you have. It's just not very strong.
Nick:Yeah. I love that. I agree. I think I like it but it's fine.
Jeff:It's Yeah.
Alexander:I I think I like it because it is sweet and I I do have a bit of a sweet tooth. I will I I think my my wine palette is not very refined yet.
Jeff:Mine is not either. So to to give you an example, your mother would like this better than most chardonnays.
Alexander:Interesting. Okay.
Jeff:Because she does not like chardonnay.
Nick:That is
Alexander:Oh, okay. Yeah. She'd like it because it doesn't taste much like a chardonnay.
Jeff:I mean, when whenever I get a chardonnay, she goes that's a that's a Jeff Chardonnay. The Christine Chardonnay is definitely oak barrels, definitely not very dry, definitely more fruity.
Nick:Mhmm. Mhmm.
Alexander:Yeah. I can see that.
Jeff:But you know, but once again, she is definitely more of a red wine drinker.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff:You know, so that's a difference.
Alexander:Alright. Well, with our collection of food that we would be eating with this chardonnay, We'll kick it over to Nick here. What is your
Nick:second fantastical dish? So I did a lot of deliberating and I ended up going back to an anime I talked about a few times, maybe only once honestly, unfortunately. It's one that doesn't get a lot of recognition because it kinda slipped in in like the very early tens and that is Torico. I talked about this when we were talking about worlds we wanna live in. I said that I would love to live in the Torico world because of its cuisine, because of the unobtainable flavors that it could offer in the world to an everyday person.
Nick:Yeah. So I was like, yep, I'll find something and I'll choose it from Torico because they go through such an insane variety of foods and basically, the longer the show goes, the more absurd and insane the food gets.
Jeff:This is where the food gives you power?
Nick:Yeah. So like Yeah. Keep up upping the ante. Yeah.
Alexander:Yeah.
Nick:Yeah. So like based on like what you eat, they like All food, all beings have this sort of like energy in them and the the greater potency of flavor of food, the more energy it has. And if you eat that, then you gain some of that. Mhmm. Is the sort of rough idea of it.
Nick:And then on top of that is these cuisine hunters, I believe is what they're called. They spend their life hunting around the world to obtain their their like perfect course. Their like life's course. Mhmm. And when they decided, you know, they they fill out their menu of their life.
Nick:And I'm going to be talking about Toriko's perfect course and I'm gonna be specifically talking about his soup of choice. Yes. So, you know, in in the the the cuisine of life, there's like the appetizer, the salad, the fish dish, the meat dish, the entree, the soup, the drink and the dessert. I believe is the rough amount of them. And each of them are like perfectly curated and cultivated to the one person.
Nick:His entree is something called God. Because like it's like super late in the show and it's basically like the culmination of the entire world. He's eating the world. Yeah, basically. But the soup that he eats is called the century soup and that's the one that I wanna try the most.
Nick:It was introduced very early in the show where him and his chef, Komatsu, go to this very, very private and small restaurant where, like, a retired hunter is, like, cooking. Mhmm. And she's like, I have spent my life trying to recreate something that I tasted long long ago and that was the century soup. And she gave them a taste of her recreation and basically, it is this experience that they describe that it is something that awakens this primal satisfaction in you that is indescribable. And no matter who eats it or drinks it or smells its aroma, will just smile and start drooling from it.
Nick:Because of how, like, instinctually you are drawn to its flavors.
Jeff:And how satisfying
Nick:satisfying it is. Now, Komatsu, the the chef, tastes hers and she he goes, that's extremely good, but it's missing something. And later in the show, he eventually finds the origin of this entry soup, which is in this by this like place called the Ice Hells. Oh. And the century soup is called that because it is only obtained for when these ancient glacier glaciers begin to melt and the flavors of all of these ancient beasts are infused in this glacier runoff.
Jeff:Ah, in the ice.
Nick:In the ice. And he eventually makes it and the perfect version of it and his version is added to Toriko's. Perfect menu. Perfect course. Oh.
Nick:So it's this refined like soup that is it's like a clear soup, but it is filled with like so much flavor and you cannot help but grin and like be satisfied from drinking it. It I think it was like weirdly noted where it's like someone was mourning the death of their parents Oh, no. And they got a whiff of it and they couldn't help but smile and giggle.
Alexander:That sounds horrifying.
Nick:It's a little it's a little like, woah. That's kinda weird. It's scary.
Jeff:Oh, anime is
Nick:Well, the anime is like super like happy for the most part. Because it basically like, who are the villains? Yeah. Basically, people who are like also hunting for ingredients to eat. They're not giving me any of my passions.
Nick:You know? Yeah. They're Yeah. It's like, yeah,
Alexander:you know.
Nick:Pass the tithe. I I think like the most like heinous thing, but like he's a protagonist, is this guy named Zebra and he hunts ingredients to extinction. Oh. But he's he's a he's one of the main characters. Oh, no.
Nick:So like, I'm like, like good and bad is like very loose y in the world.
Alexander:Right. Right.
Nick:But yeah, I I would love to taste it just because I'm like I think soups are something that's like really underrated and for something that to be like on the list of like comparable to God or whatever, I'm like, I gotta have that soup.
Jeff:Well, mean, I don't know how you feel, but whenever I get ramen, there's always a sense of satisfaction whenever I eat ramen.
Nick:Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and, you know, I love broth.
Nick:I love broth. You know, I'll never, you know.
Jeff:Once again, one of those things that I've never tasted is a good pork bone
Alexander:That is that is really tough. Because I will say, there is something about bone broths that is so good.
Nick:Yeah. I mean, that's why pho Yeah. You know, is so good.
Jeff:I I I see them cleaning bones and then putting the bones in the broth and doing it.
Alexander:It just adds
Jeff:so much flavor. Richness and I'm thinking,
Alexander:oh. Yeah.
Jeff:That poor animal that died
Alexander:for that.
Nick:But they made every part of the body useful, you know?
Alexander:That that's also what I really love about soup especially bone broths is something that normally would be thrown away or discarded is also being utilized Yeah. And used.
Nick:But yeah. I want I've ever since I saw that episode, like, I want that soup. I'm like, I You know, I'd want that soup because it it's just
Alexander:a clear soup but it has
Nick:the most potent flavor you could imagine.
Alexander:Okay. Well, I'll I'll go next here and I do have a soup on my list but I I wasn't gonna talk about it right now, so I'll I'll save it for later.
Nick:You chose a soup?
Alexander:I chose a soup, of course. I love soup so much. But instead, I chose a a video game and indie kind of breakout survival game called Abiotic Factor. And it is essentially a game where you are a new hire for a like science facility and everything goes wrong on your first day. There's like contamination breaches, there's power losses, there's French mercenaries
Nick:Yeah.
Alexander:Breaking into the facility.
Jeff:I think you've talked about this before.
Alexander:I don't know if I've talked about it on the podcast You've talked us. We've talked.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. Before.
Alexander:Is a very fun survival game with level progressions in your skills and one of those skills is of course cooking. And one of the many things that you can cook is Poop soup. You could could poop soup. Yeah. Unfortunately.
Jeff:Please tell me it's not what I think it is.
Alexander:It's probably exactly
Jeff:what you're thinking it is.
Alexander:But it's not good. Like, you're You definitely have negative side effects from
Nick:You throw up.
Alexander:Yeah. Consuming it. But a big part of the game is it is you're fighting and killing these like aliens basically from like another dimension.
Jeff:Oh, mean like French mercenaries?
Alexander:Yeah. Like French mercenaries. Different dimension.
Nick:Same thing.
Alexander:And the lab you find out was basically like an SCP lab. Like these weird sort of objects that have been collected and like kept at this this facility. Like, there is a red armchair that if you sit in it, you get teleported to a different dimension. Or there's a bathtub filled with blood that every time they scoop out the blood, it fills up again.
Nick:Wait. That is an SCP. Oh, well, yeah. Wait a minute. Wait a second.
Nick:Wait a
Alexander:minute. So, basically, that's like the world that that you're living in. And I think one of the the most interesting and kind of fun foods that you eat a lot of is this Cosmato salad wrap. And it is three ingredients, which is tomato, space lettuce.
Nick:Oh. I was like, tomato's doable.
Alexander:Yeah. Tomato's doable. Space lettuce, which is a strain of lettuce from space. Nice. It's like blue and kind of like has like cosmic almost like aurora borealis looking to the leaves.
Alexander:And then, something called a gray ab, which is basically a fruit. It's a red fruit with a bunch of eyes on it. And you're like, I gotta get me eat that. Gotta eat that.
Nick:Gotta put that in my mouth.
Jeff:Do they blink?
Alexander:I don't think they blink, but it is kind of weird to look at. And so basically, you make these three ingredients into little salad wraps that your character eats. And if you eat it, you get a negative side effect called temptation of the flesh. And Dabolism? No.
Alexander:But The other temptation you become the temptation. Oh. When you eat this, one of the other SCPs that you find later in the game is called a laek. And it is basically an apparition that if it's haunting you, only you can see it. So, you're playing with friends, they can't see it.
Nick:It's a little girl from Lethal Company.
Alexander:Yeah. It's basically the little girl from Lethal Company. Almost exactly the same thing because it also makes these like weird noises where, And if you aren't looking at her or if you're not paying attention, if it touches you, you die. But I will say it's like one of those apparitions that's kind of like shy. So if you look at it long enough, it'll disappear.
Nick:Oh.
Alexander:And later late later into the game, you can like build defenses to like scare it off essentially. And spoiler alert, as you get really deep into the game, you can actually capture it. Wow. And eat that. And eat that what
Jeff:is the soup do?
Alexander:The the soup is for later. Right now, it's just a wrap.
Nick:Okay. Soup? You guys know what
Jeff:the soup
Nick:is for? Sorry. Soup is for eating.
Alexander:Yes. No. It literally just it it heals you a little bit and it fills up your hunger which as like a staple in the genre, your hunger and thirst and sleep levels are like of big importance. Same with your need to go to the bathroom Yeah. As well.
Alexander:Yeah. And it's kind of become one of the one of the many memed lines.
Nick:It's iconic.
Alexander:Yeah. If you're not paying attention to your characters like needs, your character will say some line like, I think I need to defecate.
Nick:Because they're nerds. Because they're nerds. Yeah. Nerds. So You got pocket protectors and snake skin belt.
Nick:Yeah. So
Jeff:the the salad of temptation.
Alexander:The temptation of the flesh?
Jeff:Yeah. Temptation of the do?
Alexander:It makes the leiic spawn more Oh. To come and get you.
Nick:But it's for you.
Alexander:But it's yeah. It's just for you. So if
Nick:if you eat it
Alexander:and I will say there are several food that are like part of the like SCP sort of thing. For instance, there's a fish that you can find in one of the alternative dimensions. If you eat that fish, cause you can make nigiri out of that fish, of course.
Nick:And of course. If you eat that fish Good it will
Alexander:a, cause weather effects, which is fog covering the map, and you need to go to a a certain area to like take care of it, but also in that fog are other enemies that are horrifying that wanna kill you as well. So there are several food that is good because it gives you food and oftentimes it'll also fill your thirst as well. But by eating it, you're essentially causing more of these enemies to spawn around you.
Nick:That's fun.
Alexander:It is fun.
Jeff:Sounds like a video game.
Alexander:It it it does sound like a video game. But the the wrap itself has this like very like delicious looking like aurora borealis like space like theme because it's the the space lettuce. There's what you see like little slices of tomato in there and like the cut of grabs, you don't see the eyes as much. So, it just it seems like it'd
Nick:be it'd be tasty. Nice. I'd eat that. Yeah. Wanna see the eye?
Alexander:Yeah. And also, if you're paying attention, you can just look at the leiuk and he'll disappear. Yeah. Sometimes. Sometimes.
Alexander:Alright, dad. Hey, what what you got what you got?
Nick:So The cyanide. Part two to making sense.
Jeff:Yeah. So so when I think of fantastical foods, I grew up in as a child in the seventies, and so I grew up watching Scooby Doo.
Nick:Oh, okay. And I thought you're gonna say something different.
Jeff:No. I grew up watching Scooby Doo and
Alexander:And we have been on a Scooby Doo kick Scooby
Jeff:Doo kick. And I did not understand the whole meaning of Scooby Snacks at that time. Oh, yeah? I just I just knew that it made Scooby Doo things awesome, but you know, because he wasn't scared anymore.
Nick:Yeah. It's a little bit of like a a little like Popeye's spinach power up kind
Jeff:of Scooby Snacks are one thing I'd wanna taste just to see what they taste like.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. I get that. I think every kid is like Yeah. Yeah.
Nick:Snoo Scooby Snacks.
Alexander:But Yeah.
Jeff:If it's depend on how it's used or what it's meant to be, it could be just a moon pie or something sweet.
Alexander:Well, yeah.
Jeff:You know?
Nick:I I'm I think they're good, you know? Because I think for like Shaggy and Scooby are the ones who eat the mostly. Yeah. And, like, they have the insatiable appetite, but, like, they're, like, three Scooby snacks. They're, like, that's, like, a godsend, you know?
Nick:Yeah. And they have insatiable appetite, so, like, they gotta be hitting.
Alexander:Yeah. Well, that's kind of what I was thinking is it kind of looks like a obviously, like a like a dog treat. Yeah. But Shaggy eats them up too. So I'm thinking they're almost like a like a Biscoff kind of cookie.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah.
Alexander:Also with like the Elven Lambeth bread, because like you said, these guys have like an endless stomach and yet like three of them is is enough.
Nick:Yeah. Because I feel like for Scooby Doo, it's like it's very iconic for like Daphne to be like, Shaggy Scooby, you gotta do this. And they're like, no way. You can't. There's no there's no chance you could ever convince us.
Nick:There's nothing you could do. There's not like, there's nothing in the world that would change us. We're not gonna go in there. She goes,
Jeff:how about for a Scooby snack?
Nick:And they're like, what about two scooby snacks? And she's like, you better be good. And they're like, okay, two two scooby snacks is good. Two scooby snacks is good, you know?
Jeff:Yeah. I yeah. Anyways
Nick:You know, for sure. I think Yeah. Like I said, I think everyone If you grew up watching Scooby Doo, you'd be like, yeah. Yeah. I wanna try one.
Nick:And I feel like that's why marketing, you know, they tried to market it.
Alexander:That that's why a lot of things have been like Scooby Snacks like marketed.
Jeff:Yeah. But have you see Why isn't anyone like produce Scooby Snacks?
Nick:Because like it I think it's like a very undefined thing.
Alexander:I I wanna say, I feel like I saw Scooby Snacks. Like, I thought I saw like graham cracker. Yeah. Like the the graham cracker teddies, but as Scooby Snacks.
Nick:I've seen those.
Jeff:Could
Nick:be. I know they've done like gummies. You know, the the Yeah. Scooby Doo gummies are good.
Alexander:Yeah. They got the Scooby Doo gummies.
Nick:But like, I don't think they've ever Well, I mean like, then if if you're licensed by Warner Bros and you create a product called Soup Scooby Snacks
Alexander:Yeah.
Nick:It gotta be crazy, you know? And I don't think they've ever done that.
Jeff:Yeah. Because not even when the the live actions came out did we see anything
Nick:like
Jeff:that.
Nick:Thank God.
Alexander:Hell yeah. But that was
Jeff:an obvious time when something like that was
Nick:It's true. Yeah. That's right.
Jeff:Excuse you know. Oh, we're Mark, we're partnering with Little Debbie and they're coming out with Scooby Yeah.
Nick:I think that would be the the company to pair up with to be honest. Little Debbie?
Jeff:Yeah. Yeah. Because they they make just weird
Nick:They make those like weird looking very sweet decadent things.
Alexander:Yeah. And I feel The zebra cakes brownies.
Nick:Coffee brownies. They do the the whatever whoopie pie like the oatmeal pies and whatever. They also do those like really good like rolls or whatever they are.
Jeff:The Swiss rolls rolls. Yeah.
Alexander:And the nutty buddies. Yeah.
Jeff:So yeah. I I mean, I I just I was like, why isn't it even Probably because they've been amorphous.
Nick:Peanut butter. If it's like a nutty buddy, oh my god. Oh my god. I get it.
Alexander:We gotta come up with that.
Nick:Yeah. Honestly, I think the closest thing we've gotten is just go to Buc ee's and figure out, like, what their iconic sweet is, you know? Because I feel like that's, like, you know, mascot, really decadent, super heavy. Right. I mean, they have that, like, what?
Nick:Like, like quarter pound chocolate peanut butter Yes. Like cookie thing. Yep. That thing is so heavy.
Jeff:I still have not been.
Alexander:Well, we we have one that's kinda close to us. We can take a family road trip out there.
Nick:Yeah.
Jeff:The other day I broke out all the different things we bought from different distilleries and whatever and said, okay, let's plan out the next five or six
Alexander:Yeah. We we do have a bit of a stockpile right now.
Jeff:Although a lot less now that we've done these
Nick:we're going through them. Yeah.
Jeff:So we're gonna have to do a road trip here. So
Alexander:Yeah. Well, that's always part of the fun. Yeah. Alright. Well, I think our drinks are empty here.
Alexander:Oh, what? He
Nick:loves doing it.
Jeff:End of the second sec sec.
Nick:Oh,
Jeff:yeah. Please like and subscribe.
Nick:So Leave a comment.
Jeff:Yeah. Leave a definitely leave a comment.
Nick:If we're super off on what you're thinking Yeah. What would you do? Or
Jeff:if you know of a local vineyard, winery, distillery in Virginia that you'd like for us to try or even DC or West Virginia or North Carolina.
Alexander:Oh, well, that too. I was mainly waiting to see people like, I can't believe you guys forgot about this Yeah. Old nineties anime with crazy looking sci fi food in it.
Nick:I'm sure Gundam or Ava or
Alexander:And I will say, there are blind spots for us.
Nick:A 100%.
Alexander:We talked about it. While we've mentioned Final Fantasy here, we are not big Final Fantasy fans. No. We're not big Monster Hunter fans. So there are blind spots in things that we know.
Nick:And although I talked about loving Fifteen with their really cool car, and it's all about one of your companions having like a chef. Yeah. Like, that guy only cooks real food and it looks good as heck, but it's real. But it's real.
Alexander:And this is dances.
Jeff:Well, we'll see. Alright. We'll see
Alexander:y'all in just a second. We're gonna get our third and final drink. Don't go anywhere. And, we are back for our third and final segment here. Great job to our father for choosing the order of wine as it has just been getting darker and darker as we've gone.
Alexander:We know that We knew they were all three whites.
Nick:This is like very amber looking though.
Jeff:Yeah. Yeah. So usually what that means is that the When they squeezed the grapes, there was more peel on it. Oh. So usually, the darker the wine is more peeled, so like a red wine will have more peel on it.
Alexander:Do they normally peel grapes to squeeze them?
Nick:No. Okay. They filter?
Jeff:They filter.
Nick:That would be my assumption.
Jeff:Or they do like a single squeeze. Dude, not an inch per minute.
Nick:But wait, when you looked at worked at that vineyard, what did they do?
Jeff:I I only play one on TV.
Alexander:Yeah. On TV.
Jeff:But Yeah. So I'm So this is a dessert wine. Usually, it's very sweet. Yeah. But the other thing that does is dessert wines is like ports and liqueurs and this had a smell almost of like a liqueur.
Jeff:I'm really curious to see what this tastes like. This is from Michael Shaps. Yeah. It actually was in the order that we visited because we did blend them second and then we did this one third.
Nick:Yeah. Then it hailed.
Jeff:And then it snowed and hailed. Yeah. I'm very curious about it though. It's a small bottle. They cheated us.
Nick:This is the raison d'etre. Yeah. D'etre. D'etre.
Alexander:Well, we D'etre.
Jeff:You took French?
Alexander:Yeah. You took French Oh. In middle school. Yeah.
Nick:My one year.
Alexander:Alright. Cheers friends. I am interested to try this. I feel like we haven't had a lot of dessert wines. So wine in general is kind of a blind spot for us and then dessert wines even more so.
Alexander:Dude, don't know if I've had a dessert wine.
Nick:I'm like, what am I dreamt
Alexander:both of you have had a very interesting usually what dessert wines taste like?
Jeff:Dessert wines are our wild card.
Nick:Alright. Maybe I have had a dessert wine. This is interesting. Woah.
Jeff:This is more like a liqueur.
Nick:Yeah. Oh, I was like, I'm like, I can put this in
Alexander:a very yummy. A lot.
Jeff:It has a this it coats the mouth. Yeah. Has a sweetness to it. Has a fruitiness like figs or
Nick:Yeah. Fig.
Jeff:Or dates or something like that.
Alexander:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff:Can you imagine having some cheese and fruit platter after
Nick:A cheesecake.
Jeff:Or cheesecake.
Alexander:I feel like I would agree with you.
Nick:I feel like a cheesecake. Oh, that's crazy. Because I think the richness of like a full bodied dairy thing. Yeah. So I guess the the cheese is good.
Nick:I think a brie would would go really good with
Jeff:like a baked brie with like raspberries or apricots on it.
Alexander:Yeah. I can get behind part of this.
Nick:The fruit conversation might be left off. But
Jeff:yeah. I I really do like it a lot. It's very different and I I do appreciate what it is.
Nick:Or what what about some brie and prosciutto?
Alexander:Yeah. I'm I'm in for there.
Nick:You know, and then like a very sweet the drink is the sweet. Yeah.
Jeff:Yeah. Against the saltiness of the brie and the prosciutto.
Alexander:Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff:And some olives to get some saltiness. Yeah.
Alexander:I'm in. That would be really
Jeff:good. Anyways
Alexander:Very tasty.
Jeff:Or some gherkins.
Nick:Gherkins? They're like the little pickles.
Jeff:Oh, okay. What the British call.
Nick:What are those small little like more like vinegary things?
Jeff:Capers?
Nick:Capers. Capers.
Jeff:All all good things. I'm also
Nick:I was
Alexander:gonna say we're we're going down to charcuterie
Nick:we're we're talking about food already in the topic and then we're just pairing it already. Yeah.
Alexander:But this is all real food. Icky.
Nick:The Let's get back on top.
Jeff:I think the best thing about this is that it leaves this really pleasant taste in my mouth.
Alexander:Yeah. I agree. I will say I I don't like the smell as much.
Nick:The smell is like very potent and kind of off put me.
Alexander:Was about to say, the smell is almost abrasive when you smell it. But then tasting it, think it's very like sweet.
Jeff:Yeah. It's hard to describe.
Nick:It doesn't smell like a taste. Yeah.
Jeff:I don't know what it smells like.
Nick:Something very strong. Yes. And something that kind of
Jeff:It's it's definitely an alcohol smell.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I was
Alexander:gonna say too. Like there is
Nick:A more
Alexander:fermenty Yes. Fermented smell to it. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know.
Alexander:I I
Nick:Sounds like kombucha.
Alexander:A little bit.
Jeff:Yeah. Yeah. Can see that.
Nick:Alcohol. Kombucha. I mean
Alexander:yes. Yeah. Other than that, I I really like this one. Tasty. Alright.
Alexander:Now, we're getting into the into the soup that you were you were questioning about here. I knew that when we were talking about this topic, I wanted to mention this anime and that of course is Delicious in Dungeon. Literally, you if you haven't heard about it, the the premise of the story is these are adventurers trying to get back one of the main character's sisters, one of the main character's sister, excuse me, Fallon, and but they're broke. They have no money, so they can't afford to buy supplies or food to go back into the dungeon. So instead, they decide that they should eat the monsters that they kill while they're going through the dungeon.
Alexander:And I have always thought this is a great idea. Yeah. And I don't know why more things aren't exploring this.
Jeff:But Okay. You say that but then there's always this conflict with every meal. Right? The girl's like, I don't
Alexander:wanna eat that. Yes. Sure.
Jeff:The main the main hero guy. Elios. Yeah. It's like, I'll eat anything. Let's try that.
Nick:Yes. He's like, he like, know, is putting the seed in him. He's like, what if we just like ate one of the monsters? You know, like episode one. Yeah.
Jeff:Yes. So it's That is why people go, oh, they're gross. We just killed this, whatever.
Alexander:Yeah. But I I think I just meant like outside of this show in particular, I feel like more media should Like more fantasy media should kind of like explore that a little bit. Yeah. Like eating a dragon. Like what if you know, your D and D group kills a dragon, they should eat it or they kill some sort of like, I don't know, some some like basilisk or anything like that, they should think about what that food would be.
Alexander:Yeah.
Nick:If you kill a chimera, you get shabu shabu.
Alexander:Yeah. Exactly.
Nick:You get the variety of meat from one animal.
Alexander:Yes. But So basically, each episode is a monster of the week style episode with an overarching plot of of delving deeper into the dungeon to get Fallon back. And basically, every episode, there's at least one, if not two dishes that they kind of like prepare like it's a cooking show Yeah. With monsters or exotic plants. And one of the things, because I love soup and stew a lot Crazy.
Alexander:Is they make a tentacle, kelpie and undeen soup. Or stew, excuse me. And the ingredients for this are, they start normal and then they get weird. Onions, carrots, salt, pepper I can do that. Senchi's brown sauce and then a shank of Kelpie, which is essentially Horse?
Alexander:A water horse creature, which who's like hair, like mane and tail are kelp, but it's like a horse that like drags people into the water to drown them.
Nick:Yeah.
Alexander:Tentacles that they found, which are basically like plant roots that have like paralyzing barbs, so you have to peel the the skin of the root in order to eat it. And then an undeen, which is a collection of very small water spirits that make up a sort of entity. I
Nick:was like, horse meat, got it. Tentacles, you know, you can find some noodles or like some like thick roots. Water spheres, I feel like that's pretty hard to replicate. Yeah.
Alexander:Well, and Jellyfish.
Jeff:Get some jellyfish.
Alexander:Will say, they talked about the tentacles, Not as much when they're making this soup, but when they were eating it just raw, they talked about the tentacles having like four quadrants. Like they peel them like a banana and the tentacles themselves had four quadrants and each quadrant of the tentacle had a different taste. Yeah.
Jeff:Well, I mean, I think you got us on to this and we actually finished watching it. The remarkable thing about
Nick:You guys actually finish it?
Jeff:Yep. We did. Mom and I did.
Alexander:Yeah. Probably finished it out.
Nick:I was like I was like, I don't remember you guys
Alexander:finished that. I was like, we were watching it together and then we like stopped watching when they were like at two episodes left. Yeah.
Jeff:Yeah. So, the the remarkable thing is like you said, it was just like a cooking show because it'd be like, first you chop this up in this style, Julien style, whatever. And it's it's like in the middle of all this fighting also they stop everything around you and you cook. Yep. Yeah.
Jeff:It's like this, like, break in the action or whatever.
Alexander:Yes. Yeah. And I think that is so fun and I I love it. I think what is appealing to me about this soup in general is a, I love soup and stews and I mean, onions, carrots, whatever. That's great.
Alexander:One, I wanna know what the kelpie tastes like. Two, I wanna know what these like tentacles taste like. Yeah. And three, the reason why they made this soup is because their mage, Marceline, was out of magic. And apparently, an undeen, consuming this like water spirit is filled with so much magic that it will also restore your magic.
Alexander:But the question is, what does that mean for us? Like, what does that taste? What does magic taste like?
Nick:Yeah. Condensed magic. What Would you eat magic, you know?
Jeff:Yeah. Well, I've got the magic.
Alexander:Yes. And I will say, I I think that was really appealing to me because I've had soups where I'm like, wow, this is so magical. To then go a step further and be like, I'm actually eating magic.
Nick:These soup soups are actually magical. Yeah. Like literally.
Alexander:Which I think is super cool. But I will say there are a lot of other like meals. Basically, meal in the show, I'm like, yeah, I'd eat that.
Nick:They cook it up pretty good.
Alexander:Yeah. Like the the living armor is basically like some sort of like mollusk inside of armor Right. That they like cook up like
Jeff:Clams or whatever.
Alexander:Clams. Yeah. They they make like a sherbert using like treasure insects. And ectoplasm. Ectoplasm.
Nick:And then they freeze it on spirits. Or Yeah. No, it's holy water. Yeah. Yes.
Nick:Yeah. And then they froze it with With like hitting it While killing evil spirits. Yeah.
Alexander:But yeah. I mean, every every dish looks looks so good. Yeah. And I really love this exploration. Because we were talking about it.
Alexander:There are other shows that talk about like fantasy worlds, but oftentimes, they're like, and they cooked up Japanese food. Yeah. Yeah. Which I think is cool and there's a there's a place for that. But, there's a show called Restaurant to Another World.
Alexander:I love that. And, it's basically where a Japanese chef cooks up Japanese food for like fantasy people and creatures.
Nick:Oh.
Alexander:And I would love the inverse, where it's like Japanese salaryman coming into a like fantasy tavern and having them like cook up like, oh and this is Minotaur or do you know like whatever.
Jeff:Well, we talked about you know when when you talked about Red Lion having someone be creative and think about it. This is this story to me is actually two storytellers.
Alexander:Yeah.
Jeff:Because you have the one storyteller that's like, okay, what type of food do you wanna cook up? I'll create I'll create the adventure part of this.
Alexander:Right.
Jeff:And then the other part is like, I'm I'm gonna you think of the the kitchen part of it. Yeah. You know? But they but they definitely they depend on each other.
Alexander:Oh, absolutely.
Nick:Yeah. So it's pretty cool.
Jeff:Have you seen the manga?
Alexander:No. I have not read the manga.
Nick:Is it a manga or light novel? I don't know what it is first, but I
Alexander:know there is definitely a manga of it out. Okay. I'm not sure if the Again, with a lot of these like anime, it's hard sometimes to determine whether the anime is an advertisement for the light novel or if the anime is an adaptation of the manga or if the manga is a spin off from the anime because the anime did well.
Jeff:Right.
Alexander:I'm not a 100% sure. I think it was a manga turned into an anime, but I haven't looked that deeply into it, which I should have because I hate the way that season one Yeah. Ended. Yeah. That's fair.
Alexander:To be continued. Yeah. At least they were obvious about it.
Jeff:Yeah. They were very obvious. I'm like, where's season two? Oh, it's a it's an anime. There's no season
Nick:two. So true. I think Listen, Napa's busy. Napa is busy.
Alexander:I was about to say, I think we will get a season two. It's been very popular and it was really popular when it come came out.
Nick:Napa's working on the new Jutsu Kaisen movie and the new Jutsu Kaisen season and they just finished campfire cooking
Jeff:in another world. Yeah. Alright.
Nick:The studio is doing crazy work.
Alexander:Yeah. They're doing all the things. Alright. Yeah. That's my soapbox about stews and soups and magic.
Alexander:I'll kick it over to you, dad.
Jeff:I'm going old school. Hard to believe.
Nick:Uh-oh. How old school? Very
Jeff:old school.
Nick:Oh my God. Back to the Flintstones.
Jeff:Three thousand years ago. No. So, when I thought of this, the other thing I thought about almost immediately was there is a dish in Greek mythology called ambrosia. Most people know it. The the funny side or parallel side to this is that there's also a dish in rural America called ambrosia.
Alexander:Oh. What?
Jeff:And it has
Alexander:Oh, no. The way you're shaking your head.
Nick:Does it moonshine kind of thing? No. No.
Jeff:Coconuts, pineapples and mandarin oranges.
Alexander:Okay.
Jeff:Mixed together. What do you mean?
Alexander:Oh, it's like a smoothie? Tropical fruit.
Jeff:It's fruit salad.
Alexander:It's a fruit salad.
Nick:Oh, it's a fruit salad.
Alexander:Yes. With wait. With coconut?
Jeff:Yes. It is a weird thing and there's always these adaptations and if you look at like Midwest or southern church cookbooks, ambrosia will always be in there.
Nick:That's very odd. Yeah. And like name it that? Because like ambrosia, the connotation is like it's the the drink of the gods.
Jeff:It's well, say it's a drink, some say it's
Alexander:Oh, it's Oh, you're right. You're right. Sometimes it is described a food or both. Yeah.
Jeff:That's sweet and whatever.
Nick:Yeah.
Jeff:And I don't know how that name translated
Nick:get to Midwest America. How did that happen?
Jeff:Oh, Southern America because I grew up with it.
Alexander:Yeah. Oh, you've had this dish before.
Jeff:Yes. My mother used to make it almost every
Nick:Well, that's cheating then. That's cheating then.
Jeff:That that's what made me strong.
Alexander:You've had the
Nick:now. We're talking about food that can't happen.
Jeff:This was not that good. This is this is the same as why jello and mayonnaise is in every recipe from the fifties.
Nick:Gosh. Yeah.
Jeff:Look. A salad a lettuce salad with lime jello and lettuce. Anyways. Yum. So anyways, Greek mythology says that there is this and I thought of it perfect from a dessert standpoint.
Jeff:Yeah. A sweet dish that gave you youth Mhmm. Strength and magic or
Nick:Yeah. God. No. I've forgotten. But it was it's like Like divinity?
Jeff:It's it's like divinity, but it's like whatever your power is. And so this is the in Greek mythology this is the food of the gods.
Nick:Yeah. That's sweet like honey. Yeah. It was like it's like the the nectar of the gods. Yeah.
Nick:I think it's also you know that immersion has got too many titles. Alright? Yeah. For like a very like a general and vague way to
Jeff:Mandarin describe oranges and Well,
Nick:and pineapples? There like a theory where like ambrosia is just like apple juice or something? Right? It's like a it's like a fruit juice or something.
Jeff:It could be. I mean
Alexander:Or it could just be the the apple.
Nick:Or just honey.
Jeff:It could be yogurt with honey in it.
Nick:Yeah. You know? It could be anything. I I like the idea that, you know, you're like, yep, this is what it is, it does this, and only the gods know what it is. Don't tell anyone.
Nick:Yeah.
Jeff:I'm just curious, like you, how would you feel after you ate it?
Alexander:Yeah, yeah. Exactly, like
Jeff:You know? So, it's like, okay, sweets. You're drinking this or whatever it is.
Nick:Yeah. It go it goes back to like my hero sweets. You're like, you you drink it and like there's some like very significant change that happens to you.
Alexander:Supernatural change that you cannot fathom.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. And presumably, it's good.
Jeff:Yeah. Presumably.
Alexander:So, you're
Jeff:like sipping or where there's or yours where it's like, oh, get this, but then you also Oh, yeah.
Alexander:Yeah. There's a negative effect to it.
Nick:Yeah. Space wrap, it's like, wow. This was like a very interesting, you know, dining experience. Now, something is hunting you. Yeah.
Nick:And only you can see.
Jeff:And if it touches you, you're dead.
Alexander:You're dead. Yeah.
Jeff:But at least you're not hungry.
Nick:But at least you live to poop another day.
Alexander:You know what? That's kinda how the game goes. And that's kinda why it's fun.
Jeff:But it's played with groups. You can play with other people.
Alexander:Yeah. Yeah. It it is I will say, as a side note about Abiotic Factor, it is a very extensive game for being an indie title, for being one of the survival titles. There are a hundred hours of gameplay, probably more.
Nick:That's pretty good.
Alexander:And if you're playing it by yourself, that time exponentially increases. Yeah. Because if you have like a full group, it makes the base building, the resource collection a lot easier. If you're doing it by yourself, that you you gotta do everything by
Nick:games kinda just hit different
Jeff:I was thinking different. I was thinking about I was thinking that this was closer to the the lethal company.
Alexander:Oh. No. No. So I will say abiotic factor does kinda fit into like a horror genre. But typically, we talk about like survival games or survival style games, it's about like collecting resources, building a base, and like expanding further and further.
Nick:Imagine like the No matter the setting, the premise is your like castaway. Mhmm. Yeah. Like you're like in a remote area with nothing and you Age have to build Age of
Jeff:Empires. Sure. From nothing. Yeah.
Alexander:Kind of. But like
Nick:the the game process It's horror. Well, it's like you wake up on a beach with nothing.
Alexander:Yeah.
Nick:And now you have to work from the stone age to whatever, you know, the game allows. Yeah. Is the sort of idea.
Alexander:So like a lot of other like popular titles is like Grounded, where you're like a teenager who's been shrunk down to the size of an ant and you have to build the base to figure out how to get yourself bigger. Or raft, where you are on a like two by two wooden raft with like plastic barrels underneath and your goal is to like direct your raft to like nearby small islands to collect resources off of that. Get back on the raft and build the raft bigger and bigger. I like survival games.
Nick:Got it.
Alexander:Or or Minecraft even. Yeah. Minecraft.
Nick:Minecraft's the big one.
Alexander:Yeah. I can't believe I didn't say that first but
Nick:Minecraft's the big one.
Alexander:Alright. Nick.
Nick:Yeah. Hey. What's up everyone? To round this off, I think I went for a classic that has a lot of real food in it. However, it's like Maine, like, the chase card, you know, like the chase food that is in is is the sort of namesake.
Nick:I'm talking about Stardew Valley.
Jeff:Oh, okay.
Nick:And I am talking about the stardrop fruit that you get awarded every now and then when you accomplish something great or when you, you know, do something very important for the town or for your farm. So Stardew Valley really quick. It's a farming sim. You are like, I am stuck in the city at a dead end job. Oh, I got a letter from my grandpa.
Nick:Grandpa. He left me an overgrown farm that I'm gonna start taking care of. And then you you start cultivating a farm and you you get up to some shenanigans with the the local people of Stardew Valley, the the the name of the town. And star drop fruits are once again, they are these like mystical magical fruits that are just awarded to the player at random moments. Like if you beat the a dungeon Yep.
Nick:You get one. If you Oh my god. If you finish your first year like living on the farm, believe you get one. Mhmm. And that there's a variety of other things that you like very strange and like like pretty significant milestones in order for you to get one of these star drop fruits.
Nick:You cannot grow them. They are the only like food that you cannot grow. And they are described as, like, fresh, juicy, and the taste is takes you back to a precious memory.
Jeff:Oh. So, it recalls the memory.
Alexander:So, you get
Nick:ratatouille every time you eat
Alexander:this. And,
Nick:the the how it's translated into gameplay is while you're creating your character at the very start, there is an like, you're like, I'm, you know, this is the color of my hair. Oh, I want a cat or a dog, you know, and like Yeah. Oh, this is what I wanna start where, like, where at the start? And at the very end, there's an open ended question that just says, type in something you love.
Alexander:I think it's, what's your favorite thing?
Nick:What's your favorite thing? Something like that, yeah. And then you type it in and then every time you eat a star fruit a star drop fruit, it'll be like, you think of this. Yeah. You know, and it's it's it's this very juicy fruit that ratatouille's you every time you eat it.
Nick:And I was like, yeah, I need I need to have one of those. Right?
Jeff:But it's it's also at symbolic milestones also.
Nick:Yeah. It's like this very it's it's almost like the Stardew's Stardew Valley version of champagne.
Jeff:Right.
Nick:You know? Yes. It's like it's like the celebratory reward that you dine on and then it's gone. But also, it permanently increases your stamina.
Alexander:Which is a really important thing.
Nick:Really, really important. The game, you know, anything you do in the game reduces your stamina, and once you're out of stamina, you cannot do anything for the rest of the day. And it's a it's a days, you know, it's a time period cycle game where like the years matter, the seasons matter. And so if you're out of stamina, you're you're eating like 15 stacks of algae in order to get
Alexander:that You're eating cave carrots.
Nick:You're eating cave carrots. But, you know, this The stardrop fruit bowl is like It's like one of those rewarding, oh my god, I got one. You know, it's like very rewarding, and then it's like, you think of peanut butter, you know, and you know, like it adds more. It's like, it's very personalized to you as well on top of it.
Jeff:Yep. That's really cool.
Alexander:Oh, man. We could do a whole episode just talking about how great Stardew Valley is. Like literally, I I think the number one rated game on Steam. It just an incredible
Nick:I think it is. Yeah. I think it is still What is it like a 99
Alexander:Yeah. Rating? I mean, it's like almost the perfect game. Yeah. Well, we've got the Yeah.
Alexander:We have we have the board game behind us here. Yeah. Which not the perfect board game, but it is fun.
Nick:It is fun. Yeah. I I like It's reminiscent of game. Yeah. But unfortunately Yeah.
Nick:It is one of those moments where
Alexander:like, wow, that's fun. I would rather play Stardew Valley.
Nick:I was about to say, unfortunately, it's not even my favorite farming sim because Sun Haven just does Sun Haven. Sun Haven is my preferred farming sim in that like weird niche pixelated two d top down Yeah.
Jeff:Before we get to Oh, hey.
Alexander:Yeah. Sorry. While we still have time left, Ari, what was everyone's favorite drink? Dan?
Jeff:This one.
Alexander:Yeah. Nick?
Nick:I'm choosing this one.
Alexander:We're in agreement. It was this one, the dessert wine.
Nick:So rich.
Jeff:The other two were just
Nick:They were like They were good white wines, you know. But this one this one was so full bodied and rich and
Jeff:Plus, immediately, we started thinking, what we keep what I can eat this with?
Nick:You know?
Jeff:Other ones didn't do that.
Nick:The other ones were like, it's a good white wine and I have no complaints.
Alexander:Yeah. I I was thinking about seafood for the first one but I definitely think you're right. We immediately started talking about real food and getting off topic here
Nick:for that's dangerous.
Jeff:Yeah. Super dangerous. Only for the dessert wine is it dangerous.
Nick:Yeah. I would say though for the the first wine is what I would eat with or drink with most of the foods I mentioned.
Alexander:Yeah. I I agree too. I think that one was just solid.
Jeff:I think it was the driest of the three so Yeah. I do definitely like that one the best.
Alexander:Alright. Well, we are out of time and out of alcohol. Oh, you could have said wine. Oh, out of Yeah. You're right.
Alexander:I messed up. Well, we're out of time and out of wine. Thank you all so much for watching. Please like, comment, subscribe. Make some make some noise about what we missed.
Alexander:Thank you all so much for watching. We'll see you in the next one. Bye bye. Peace, love, and esports. I don't know.
Nick:Keep rocking in the free world. And
Jeff:do do do do do do. That was really good. Yeah. And very different. Yes.