Apocalyptic Chopped Challenge | Zombie Book Club Ep 105

Brave the wasteland pantry with us as twelve zombie‑fiction creatives—competing under our B.I.T.E. rubric—turn shelf‑stable staples like peanut butter pretzels, Belgian beer, macaroni, donuts, and yes, human flesh into horrifyingly inventive three‑course feasts. From “cheese‑dusted long pork with peach hummus” to “scrotum balls in blood sauce,” this tongue‑in‑cheek culinary horror explores how desperation, and sheer imagination collide when civilization—and good taste—falls apart.

Warning: your appetite may not survive.

Recipe Submissions from:

• Jack Callaghan
• Z Martin Brown
• Jo Salazar
• R Cuthbertson
• Nora
• Sylvester Barzey
• Alice B. Sullivan
• Gerard Clarke
• The Scimsons
• Megan
• Ollie Eats Brains
• Brian from Zombpocalypse

Transcript

Episode Introduction

Speaker 1 0:20

Welcome to Zombie Book Club, the only book club where the book is the culinary equivalent of the sleep paralysis demon. I'm Dan, and when I'm not frozen in abject culinary horror, I'm writing a book about a zombie apocalypse where the people in safe zones eat nutrient-enriched peanut paste to ward off starvation and probably still wouldn't eat any of the food we're going to talk about today. I wish that was a joke. I wish I didn't have to know about the food that we're about to talk about.

Speaker 2 0:45

It's my fault, I just thought we needed to do this. Okay, let's do it. I'm Leah and today on the show as an appetizer, we are serving up an author pitch and some personal life updates before diving into the main course Life updates, the apoc, not yet. Oh, I'm trying to do my. You ruined my menu description. I'm sorry. Leave this in. People can see. This is the truth of our this is how it really works.

Speaker 2 1:12

And today on the show, as an appetizer, we're serving up an author pitch from Ross Killey and some personal life updates before diving into the main course, the Apocalyptic Chopped Challenge. Say that three times fast, Dan.

Speaker 1 1:26

Apocalyptic Chopped Challenge, so that three times fast Dan Apocalyptic Chopped Challenge, apocalyptic Chopped Challenge, apocalyptic Chopped Challenge you win. I did it, yeah.

Speaker 2 1:32

Twelve contestants are going to combine eighteen random shelf stable ingredients into their three-course Last Supper menu for a secret prize.

Speaker 1 1:42

So they're going to die after they eat? This is what you're saying.

Speaker 2 1:45

Yes.

Speaker 1 1:45

Because it's their last supper.

Speaker 2 1:46

Well, all of them will, except for one.

Speaker 1 1:50

Oh, the winner gets to live.

Speaker 2 1:52

The winner gets to live and they get a prize Okay, which they'll have to decide for themselves if it's truly a prize, that's a good prize, depending on how you look at it, I guess yeah.

Speaker 1 2:06

I didn't think of that as there are some horrors worse than death.

Speaker 2 2:08

We release episodes every sunday, so sub scab oh, oh, no, I don't like that one. Did you ever eat your own scabs as a kid? No, did you. Yes, moving on, uh, somebody else is eating their own scabs. That's listening. You understand, I didn't do it all the time, but I definitely did it once. Oh, have you ever eaten your own?

Speaker 1 2:32

booger.

Speaker 2 2:33

No, oh, I wasn't that kid I totally was that kid uh, but we're gonna, we're gonna uh share some personal life updates, dan, as uh, our amuse bouche, oh numero, oh no, I can't, I'm combining languages, I just shouldn't even try the amuse bouche yeah, the amusing bouche, the appetizer, appetizer number one, before we get to the main course is we have personal life updates.

Speaker 1 3:03

I don't know what's been going on give me your three bullet point update I mean, everything's fucked one but that. But we expect that now too. That's the new normal. I only have one more update it's not, it's not like wishes leah. So my, uh, my third life update is that I found a genie and, oh, all of my wishes have been going horribly so that's why our bunker smells like an old sock.

Speaker 2 3:32

Yeah, because it does. I wished for old socks. Oh my god, I just realized you have socks in here. Yeah, yeah, dan uses the bunker to get dressed in the morning for work because he's so kind and he doesn't want to wake me up.

Speaker 3 3:46

Yeah.

Speaker 2 3:47

I just want to say thank you for that, but I did just realize that it smells like wet socks for a reason.

Speaker 1 3:52

Yeah, there's a reason for that. Also, I can't smell it because I don't have a sense of smell.

Speaker 2 3:58

That's wonderful, I get it. Let's get to the main point here, which is that you're wonderful and thanks for not waking up in the morning, and turning the light on in the bedroom, yeah. That's really kind.

Speaker 1 4:07

Yeah, I mean, you know, maybe in another lifetime I would have been that guy. But no, I prefer to let you sleep. You're very sweet Because I'm nice like that.

Speaker 2 4:17

You know what this is going to be my life update. It's like a thing that I love, that I would normally never talk about because it's such a small, tiny, lovely moment. Which life update. Every morning, in the work season, Dan gets up somewhere between three and four 30 in the morning, typically. Yeah, Um, at that point I've woken up myself three or four times cause I have insomnia and um, most of the time I hear him and feel him stir, and sometimes we even like chat for a couple minutes.

Speaker 2 4:45

A lot of the time I'm him and feel him stir and sometimes we even like chat for a couple minutes. A lot of the time I'm past the fuck out. But what always happens and I know it always happens because I do remember this is Dan comes over to my side of the bed and he gives me a little kiss and he tells me he loves me and then he creeps away and opens the door really quietly, closes the door, comes into the bunker, turns on a light, does all that stuff. I don't hear the man at all and that's really nice.

Speaker 1 5:11

Does it um?

Speaker 2 5:11

it's only the moment to know that I kissed the dogs first.

Speaker 1 5:14

No that makes it sweeter.

Speaker 2 5:22

Uh, nero, really. I mean, he can't start his day without a good morning kiss. Yeah, do they really like it On the lips?

Speaker 1 5:24

Yeah, that's how he likes it.

Speaker 2 5:26

I don't even think. You kiss me on the lips before you go, do you? I do? I don't know exactly what's happening because I'm not fully conscious. Yeah, but I didn't know. You gave the dogs a kiss on the head.

Speaker 1 5:35

Well, no, a kiss on the lips.

Speaker 2 5:39

No, you my life. I don't have anything else to say. You said the rest of terrible out there, yeah there's things to be grateful for, and that's definitely high on my list yeah, that's about it.

Speaker 1 5:47

I've been having stress dreams about the new guy at work, but I know I don't feel like that's an update I had a dream about how great my broccoli was doing.

Speaker 2 5:56

Oh yeah, how's that? How's that going? Well, we ate it. More is going to come, but we ate the first round.

Speaker 1 6:01

How does the dream live up to the reality?

Speaker 2 6:03

Oh, my dream. They were way bigger. They were, they were impressive. I was very happy, some thick rocks. Yes, oh God, I said my mother could listen to this episode and I forgot until right now. Hi, mom. We're going to move on to our second appetizer, our prequel. You gotta have two our runner our show opener, our official show opener, the can opener of this episode yeah, our author pitch.

Speaker 1 6:33

Yeah, this is like Applebee's, where you go for the apps.

Speaker 2 6:35

Yeah, Uh. Author Ross Killey is a new ZomBestie of ours and he wrote a book called Nightmare Jungle. Oh right, I remember the cover yes, incredible right, I remember the cover. Yes, incredible art. I have the art up here, dan. Do you have it up? No, I'm going to try and describe it to you. I know you've seen it, but this artist they go at Dahmer art like Jeffrey Dahmer's last name. Wow, I don't know if that's intentional.

Speaker 1 6:58

H-M-E-R.

Speaker 2 7:00

Yeah, yeah, dahmer art and it looks like a zombie in the jungle, which sounds right Nightmare jungle, and there's some soldiers, there's blood everywhere and there's like really incredible illustrative detail of the zombies faces, and then the back cover is a fucking scary zombie eating what looks like a tugboat with an American flag and soldiers on it. All of it's taking place in the Vietnam jungle. That sounds rad, during the Vietnam war. I don't know, sounds pretty terrible. Let's listen to what Ross Killey has to say about his book, and by terrible I mean being in the nightmare jungle, not the book.

Speaker 1 7:35

Right, yeah, that makes sense. Nightmare jungle does not sound like a fun place to be.

Speaker 2 7:39

So let's listen to Ross Killey's author pitch for his book Nightmare Jungle.

Personal Life Updates

Speaker 4 7:46

Old man Eli has waited decades to tell his story. When a guest shows up on his porch, he finally has a chance to be heard, an opportunity for the world to know what really happened back in 1970. And now not only will he tell of the horrors of war, but of other things, things that wait under dark canopies, things that shamble through the flooded reeds of the Mekong, things that hunger for flesh. A new zombie epic by Ross Killey, author of Full Moon Highway and the horror comedy Stuck to a Monster. Equal parts platoon and apocalypse, now mixed with undead classics such as Dawn of the Dead and Zombie. Once you step foot in the nightmare jungle, you'll always belong to it ross, that sounds excellent.

Speaker 1 8:30

Yeah, you know, as as ross was talking, I I couldn't help myself, but but think like yeah, you know, I don't usually love historic zombie stories, right like this takes place back in the vietnam era history however, I've, as I was listening, I'm like wait. A second night of the living dead came out in 1968. This is perfectly possibly canonical with night of the living yeah, while while monroeville and evansville, pennsylvania, are being overrun by zombies, maybe in the jungles of Vietnam, while the Vietnam War has taken place, there are also zombies.

Speaker 2 9:12

I got to say that was written and obviously read really well, to the point where, when you thanked us at the end, ross, I was like wait, what. It shook me out of a totally different place. You definitely captured my imagination.

Speaker 1 9:23

But yeah, that's just my takeaway, not knowing much more than what we've heard from Ross. So let us know Read this book and let us know if I'm right.

Speaker 2 9:31

But yeah, that sounds like an excellent read, very immersive.

Speaker 1 9:34

Just that little intro put me there, and because of the art that I just saw too, I could picture the heat and the oppressive humidity, yeah, and the darkness of a jungle, and then zombies, yeah, and also it makes me want to watch um apocalypse now, like here, hearing that I'm like I want to watch apocalypse now and imagine zombies there, because I imagine that that's, that's what that's, that's, that's where, that's where this is going to take us I think that ross's author pitch is going to be the most edible thing in this entire episode.

Speaker 2 10:08

Yeah, I want to consume this book. I'm not sure about what we're going to read now, but if you have a special intro oh okay, let's, let's get into the apocalyptic chopped challenge.

Speaker 1 10:21

Leah, tell us what this is all about.

Speaker 2 10:24

Well Dan, the world has ended. Oh no. But, dinner is still due. Oh good, You're happy about that.

Speaker 1 10:31

Yeah, well, you know what the world being over was a bit of a bummer Dinner coming soon. That brought my spirits back up.

Speaker 2 10:40

Got it Well, this came about. This challenge came about because one I love the show Chopped and Got it Well. This came about. This challenge came about because one I love the show Chopped, and if you haven't watched Chopped, it's a show that's on the Food Network and, I think, hulu. We don't have access to it. I wanted to watch one before but I used to be obsessed with it and essentially they would have a few well-known, high-quality chefs on the show competing against each other for a three-course menu where they were given four ingredients per round and a very short amount of time to decide what to do with it and cook it. They had to use all of the ingredients and then present it to these judge chefs and then each round, somebody would get chopped, basically.

Speaker 1 11:15

Oh, no, yeah, They'd chop them into pieces.

Speaker 2 11:19

Yes, their logo includes a butcher knife. Our logo, for this includes a bloody butcher knife.

Speaker 1 11:24

What do they do after they're chopped into pieces, Like how do they get rid of the bodies?

Speaker 2 11:29

They don't show that part on the show. Oh, they show them walking through the slaughterhouse doors.

Speaker 1 11:35

Oh, Well then, I can't believe. I haven't seen this show.

Speaker 2 11:41

It's not a slaughterhouse, but we're going with that, okay. So what I decided to do is, like we've been asking every interviewee mostly authors, some fellow podcasters, some just awesome people that we love when they come on. We do these rapid fire questions, as you know, and what's one of the questions we always ask?

Speaker 1 11:57

oh what? What shelf stable food item? Yes, who do you want to get out of your canoe?

Speaker 2 12:02

no, that was for living day weekend.

Speaker 1 12:06

I did like that one though, but yeah, uh, the the shelf stable food item.

Speaker 2 12:10

Yeah, which shelf stable food item would you pick to survive on for the rest of the apocalypse, if you came across like a warehouse? And so we've had, um, at this point we're like in the dozen more than or not dozen more than two dozen interviews that we've had on the show and um, I chose 18 shelf stable ingredients that people shared with us, and for the three course meal that folks were being invited to make, they had to pick six of those each that were assigned okay, so, um, if I'm understanding this correctly, our guests and our friends are all responsible for what we are going to have to talk about today.

Speaker 1 12:53

Yeah, because they chose the food.

Speaker 2 12:55

They chose to participate in this.

Speaker 1 12:57

They chose the food that we had to work with.

Speaker 2 13:00

Oh yeah, you're right, it's their fault. Yeah, we didn't choose. It's not fault. Yeah, they didn't. We didn't choose, it's not us.

Speaker 1 13:06

No, so don't blame us when you listen to this podcast and you throw up all over the dash of your car while driving to work.

Speaker 2 13:14

Yeah, I should warn you now. You might want, if you're eating, don't eat Stop eating Put it down, put it down, put it down, yeah, yeah, and you probably won't want it after You're going to have to give it some time.

Speaker 1 13:23

Maybe pause and eat. I don't know if you want to eat a whole meal.

Speaker 2 13:28

No, no, because you'll throw it out. Ideally, listen to this, as you can decide that it's okay to fast for a couple of hours.

Speaker 1 13:34

Or days. Yeah yeah, you'll probably want to fast for days.

Speaker 2 13:37

We'll report back how long it takes us before we want to this episode. Yeah, so again, each ingredient was specially selected by a previous guest, so they are at fault for this. And, at the end of the day, the mission for apocalyptic chop challenge is to craft a three-course meal using that list of 18 ingredients, divided into three on uh courses oh boy, yeah, okay um so let's talk about the ingredients are, and then we're going to get into it.

Speaker 2 14:02

Okay, let's hear these ingredients for the, and then we're going to get into it okay, let's hear these ingredients for the appetizer round they have to use path of the pale rider hot sauce from laurie calcaterra craft mac and cheese, which is a special kind of boxed mac and cheese from canada but like mac and cheese here, peanut butter pretzels I can't eat.

Speaker 1 14:22

I mean already I just see that on the list and I'm just like, oh god, no, because I just I can't eat. I mean already I just see that on the list and I'm just like, oh god, no, Because I just I can't eat another one. I've had too many. I had a big jar of them in my backpack that I took to work and I ate so many that I can't even think about them without like tasting it and feeling the mass of peanut butter and pretzel in my stomach.

Speaker 2 14:47

I'm really sorry that happened to you, Dan. It's my fault.

Speaker 1 14:51

It's all your fault.

Speaker 2 14:52

Dried fruit mix Okay SpaghettiOs, okay Pizza kit.

Speaker 1 14:57

Okay.

Speaker 2 14:58

All right For the entree round. We've got potato soup, cheez-its, peanuts, canned peaches, bean medley and human flesh the other white meat now, we all know human flesh is not shelf stable unless maybe they've you know, they smoked it or whatever. However, this was given to us by our very first interviewee, joshua grant, who wrote another zombie apocalypse, so it has to be in there as the very first interviewee.

Speaker 1 15:23

Well, you know what, if I may Leah, it can be shelf stable if the person that you are collecting the human flesh from is still alive, oh my God, which I'm sure is what Josh Grant intended.

Author Pitch: Ross Killey's Nightmare Jungle

Speaker 2 15:40

Yes, it's going to be a hard episode. Dessert Vegan Cheesy Mac care of Joe Salazar. From a hard episode Dessert Vegan Cheesy Mac Care of Joe Salazar, doug Wait, thanks, joe Donuts. Okay, who was donuts from? I think that was from Steve Urena Peanut butter, originally given to us by Z Martin Brown but repeated by like five guests, it was like by far the number one choice. Honey O's cereal Is that like honey.

Speaker 1 16:04

Bunches of O's.

Speaker 2 16:06

It's a very. I got a very specific image from Owen from Days Worth Living, co-creator of Days Worth Living, and it's just like a post cereal box and just says Honey O's. And then it looks like Cheerios to me, but it doesn't say Cheerios.

Speaker 1 16:21

And it has like little granola bits on the inside.

Speaker 2 16:24

No, not that I can see, although Rowan, not Owen, I just really called you Owen, rowan. Sorry about that. Oh, rowan, rowan, Rowan. This is where I admit that I did have an edible before this episode. I feel like it's required now after fucking that up. That is the last thing. I it's my last supper, okay. Before that, we're listening to this or talking about this or doing whatever we're doing baked beans and vegetarian sausages, tesco specifically yeah, who, uh who.

Speaker 1 16:53

Who chose that one?

Speaker 2 16:54

jack callahan oh and belgian yes, belgian beer. All right, well, is our last. That's quite an um of things. I mean each individual, one of these things. If I was just working with the pizza kit and Kraft mac and cheese. Great dessert possibilities there right.

Speaker 2 17:30

Like they go together and the hot sauce add that in. But like, please don't make me put the dried fruit mix on it, that's gross. So the hardest part is using all of them. Yeah, because some of them can combine nicely, like if I had put canned peaches and donuts together you could have made like a peach glaze on your donut.

Speaker 1 17:47

Yeah, and they're not limited by their tools, right? No, we're not being like you can only use a rock and a machete and that's all you get. No like you can do whatever you want and that's all you get.

Speaker 2 18:06

No like you can, you can do whatever you want. However, a part of our scoring is going to include believability in terms of end of time realness so is this.

Speaker 1 18:12

Is this where I should tell you about how we're going to score things. Yes, all right. So we've got a very specific scoring rubric that we've developed specifically for this challenge, something so ingenious that it requires an acronym BITE, b-i-t-e, because it's the end, is what it stands for? So B stands for blech or bingeability, either one. This is our yummy to yucky scale.

Speaker 2 18:45

Which, if it's extremely yummy, you get a five, if it's extremely yucky, you get a five. Yeah, you can get a five either way, five being the highest score Yummy and yucky, they're the same thing in our book.

Speaker 1 18:54

Yeah, would you risk your life for one more bite, or would you rather eat your own shoe? That's what the black scale is all about.

Speaker 2 19:06

I feel like eating your own shoe is part of like being on the Donner party pipeline, because they started by eating their shoes before they started eating each other.

Speaker 1 19:13

Yeah, you know, I would have waited for the other people to eat their shoes so that I could catch up to them more easily. Oh my god, I stands for ingenuity. This is your creativity score. How cleverly did you use the cursed pantry? Mad genius or just mad TBD, tbd, t, t for tone and taste. This is your presentation of your art masterpiece food thing or horror show. This is determining whether you described it with flair, drama, horror or humor. Bonus points for gag-worthy imagery or delicious sounding.

Speaker 2 20:01

If you make this sound even in the direction of delicious, I'm going to be deeply impressed.

Speaker 1 20:06

And E end times realness. Would it actually happen? Does it have apocalypse vibes? Does this feel like a thing someone would cook under apocalyptic pressure, pressure, pressure, you know.

Speaker 1 20:29

and it would have been nice, I think, if we uh let people know uh how they were being scored, before we know nothing about this, but we made this up like hours ago, so we've, uh, of course, put the most amount of time and effort into this and definitely didn't wait until the last second to figure out what we were doing and by we I mean Leah before she had the edible.

Speaker 2 20:47

Yes, I was prepared.

Speaker 1 20:49

Yeah.

Speaker 2 20:49

So one by one, you know in in chopped. How they do it is by course. So they start with appetizer round and then somebody gets chopped and then so on for each round.

Apocalyptic Chopped Challenge Rules & Ingredients

Speaker 1 20:58

But because we have 12 entries, I think the best way to do it you suggested, dan was the whole menu and we're dredging them on the whole menu to determine who is the ultimate winner and get the best score I mean, if, if we had, if we had a netflix tv series like we could go round, round by round, course by course, but you know, um, we gotta, we gotta keep things moving along, especially with 12 contestants, that we gotta eliminate all of them in one episode. Yeah, only one can survive. Only one yeah, only one can can make it to the end. Only one lives. Who will survive and who will be chopped like dead weight by Quinn? Quinn is going to do the chopping. I'm very excited. Let's get cooking.

Speaker 2 21:44

Say that one more time. Zombie emoji fire emoji Don't do that, okay, dan delete that last thing you said.

Speaker 1 21:54

But I liked it, though, all right.

Speaker 2 21:57

Oh well, then bring it back. I'm bringing it back. Okay, Dan, it is time for you to open the score sheet, because that's the order we're going to be doing this in.

Speaker 1 22:04

Oh, there's a different. Oh, there's a sheet, yeah.

Speaker 2 22:06

There's a spreadsheet I made.

Speaker 1 22:08

I got to request access.

Speaker 2 22:09

No, you should. If you got the link, you should be able to open it Really.

Speaker 1 22:13

Access denied Request access. That's a lie. I requested the access.

Speaker 2 22:27

So here's where I admit that there people on this that are not um prior guests of the show but in some ways are responsible for who I am today, starting with my friend nora, one of my first friends in vermont, also a former co-worker, who I adore and really respect for her culinary skills. So instantly when I was thinking about this I was like I gotta see what nora would do with these ingredients. These are not ingredients nora would ever put in together in one meal, but actually I say that for most people in this competition.

Speaker 1 22:49

But I want to start with nora can I tell you a secret about nora?

Speaker 1 22:53

she's gonna be listening, so yeah nora, you can, you can, you can hear this, it's okay. Um, when you first met nora and uh and we moved to Vermont, it was my first winter off and I had to do a lot of the cooking because I wasn't going to work and I'm like, how do I cook things? And, leah, you were like you should go on a website that I use a lot to find recipes and I think it was called like Nora Cooks Vegan Correct and you would talk about this website so much and talk about your friend nora so much that I actually thought you just knew the person who ran the website, like this is nora's website and I thought they were the same person I think I do have like an affinity bias for nora cooks vegan, though, because of my friend nora, who is an excellent cook so um.

Speaker 1 23:45

Let us know, nora are you the person behind? The website, and how do you get so many great recipes?

Speaker 2 23:51

let's get into Nora's uh menu for us famously last minute. Love you, nora, that's my, that's my joke for you. But we are both famously last minute. That's not true either. My god, I'm being just shut up, yeah this is gonna be fun to edit.

Speaker 1 24:08

I'm so sorry.

Speaker 2 24:09

I thought I'd be fine and I lied to myself. Okay, nora, this is her appetizer round a crunchy amuse bouche board featuring ants on the log, inspired peanut butter, pretzel and dried fruit crackers. You would crush them, mix them, shape them and bake. Okay, optional layer with Kraft mac and cheese rounds.

Speaker 1 24:31

What is a round?

Speaker 2 24:33

I'm not sure. Maybe, like you know what, I can't speak for her. Like a ball, oh, she described some, sorry. Okay. A selection of mini calzones using the pizza kit. Flavors included classic, classic pizza, spaghettios, spicy mac and cheese.

Speaker 1 24:48

Oh okay, she definitely got all of the ingredients in this appetizer you know, what I love about that is that she has these mini calzones that are all like different fillings. She didn't try to find a way to cram all of them into the same, into one big one yeah she made a board got some, some finger foods. Yeah, I love that Cause. Like well, who wouldn't want like a, like a, a collection, like you know, all of these little mini calzones? It was like which one's this, I don't know, I'm going to find out.

Speaker 2 25:15

Yeah, honestly, I would eat this to do this. Okay, entree round peach marinated peanut and cheese encrusted human flesh kebabs. Serve with a duo of protein packed potato and bean medley soup reduction dipping sauces okay, also sounds good.

Speaker 1 25:36

Yeah, um, I mean, I don't know if I've ever had a bean soup reduction dipping sauce, but it's not disgusting.

Speaker 2 25:46

I would imagine you'd have to emulsify the beans, yeah, and then same with the.

Speaker 4 25:50

You just have more of a thicker texture soup with the potato. It'd be kind of like dipping barbecued human flesh into bean soup.

Speaker 2 25:58

Alright. Well, that just became gross. That just became gross. Yeah, I think I'm here for the entree round, until the dipping sauces, now that you've ruined them for me? Uh, because I think peach marinated makes sense yeah, for long pork. Uh, yeah, you have the salty like encrusted also like a great idea yeah, um, dessert round vegan cheesy mac layer cake with an emulsion frosting of beer, baked beans and vegetarian sausage. God, this meal is really taking us for a ride. Yeah, this one went all over the place.

Speaker 1 26:34

Peanut butter filled, honeyo, crusted refried donut bites that sounds like it could be good yeah, so like this is like taking the peanut butter from the pretzels and putting them in the donuts.

Speaker 2 26:44

Yeah.

Speaker 1 26:45

Okay.

Speaker 2 26:46

Yeah, that sounds good, so I would eat half of the dessert, I would eat half of the entree and I think I'd eat the entire appetizer round.

Speaker 1 26:54

Oh yeah, I'm going for all the appetizers. Um yeah, I'd give, I'd give the entree a chance. Like, I don't know how I feel about dipping barbecue into bean soup Kabobs. Yeah, but it could work, it could, it could work.

Speaker 2 27:11

I mean, maybe there's some good seasonings which we're just presuming are available in the chopped kitchen yeah, apocalyptic kitchen, which is quite an assumption I think very generous. So let's get into the first scoring round here. We're each going to give a score out of five for b, is it blech?

Speaker 1 27:27

or bingeable, oh, for the whole thing, yeah, oh, no wait, which? How do we? How do um?

Speaker 2 27:36

I would think about them in. In nora's case there's like 50 percent blech and oh, this doesn't math together but I would say there's more binge ability than blech. But both are, both are, both exist. So I would give her like a four because I would say most of it yeah okay, dan's getting a three. I've got a four. Okay, let's talk about um I can't write I need to have another copy of this open hold. Hold on Ingenuity. How cleverly did they use the cursed pantry.

Speaker 1 28:08

It was pretty clever. I think the appetizers were very clever.

Speaker 2 28:12

Appetizers 10 to 10, or 5 out of 5 in this case, yeah.

Speaker 1 28:17

I think it kind of petered out by the dessert.

Speaker 2 28:19

Well, dessert was like 50%, so let's break it out into 100. Appetizer 33% out of 33% was like 50, so let's, let's break it out into 100. Um, appetizer 33 at a 33, main course for me 50, so now we're at like 45. Okay, yeah, so two and a half, and then the dessert. One of the things was really fucking good, so I think I would give nora a three out of five. If that math made sense to you, then we are mind melding whoever's listening.

Speaker 1 28:45

Yeah, so a three.

Speaker 2 28:47

Yeah, that's what I'm giving her.

Speaker 1 28:49

Yeah, you agree, I can't edit.

Speaker 2 28:52

Oh, I'm just putting it in for you.

Speaker 1 28:54

Okay, I need. Oh, I see. Okay, alright, forget that editing Dan.

Speaker 2 29:00

I'm making an editor just so you can feel like you have control in the world.

Speaker 1 29:04

Tone and taste. Leah, how was the presentation Concise? It was concise. I think there could have been more flair, like, while she did do a great job of explaining what these things are, there were things that didn't. It wasn't described in a way that made me want to eat it, like the bean medley reduction sauce. I kind of have to use my own imagination for that. I didn't quite see it.

Speaker 2 29:38

It sounded a lot very close to like what would I actually be on a menu? I think that's the way that Nora approached it. That's true, yeah, but I think I'm going to have to give her sort of middle of the road here. Two and a half for tea.

Speaker 1 29:48

Oh, we can do halves, I am Okay. Yeah, I think two and a half is accurate, not to copy you or anything.

Speaker 2 29:56

What about end of the world realness?

Speaker 1 29:59

Oh, I mean, I think this is all totally doable. I mean totally doable. I mean, are there going to be survivors like cooking up such a a gourmet feast? Nor I, definitely. Where they're making bean medley reductions? Maybe not I, but you know, maybe maybe they're like we have something to celebrate today.

Speaker 2 30:17

I'm making that bean medley reduction for your human flesh the people in the world who really love to cook and find it to be like a love language and a thing that's their expression, I think, in the right moments, would do this. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 30:31

I think the appetizers definitely would be a hit in the apocalypse. Yeah, they'd want those mini calozones.

Speaker 2 30:39

I think the thing that might be hardest to do is the cake.

Speaker 1 30:42

Yeah, that was the one that lost me the most.

Speaker 2 30:45

Yeah, i'm'm gonna givea three for end of the real worldness. End of end of the world realness. Yeah I think three is accurate you're just doing all the same scores as me, dan well you have two different scores no I did one different okay, nora is rounding out a score of 24 out of 40 great job, nora not bad you're in the lead. Yes, okay, moving on to our, on to our friend Z Martin Brown of Skippy the End fame.

Speaker 1 31:07

Yeah, you know Z I've got a. I have high expectations. You should, After the peanut butter situation, Don't let us down Z. All right, I'm going to read it to you, dan.

Speaker 2 31:18

Okay. So Z Martin Brown is the author of the non-essentials one and two book three coming out soon and we had an interview with them in the winter time of 2025, and here is their email to me. I smoked a fuck ton of weed. I understand.

Speaker 1 31:32

Then thought five out of five. Already.

Speaker 2 31:34

Then thought long and hard about my culinary choices and came up with this main course potato soup, cheese it's. And hit me with that can of peaches. First I eat the peaches and save as much of that golden juice as possible for the potato soup to make the soup. I use the empty peach can as my cauldron mix and cook the soup over an open flame. This is a zombie apocalypse, so it's safe to say. Electricity and gas grids are fucked. I finish off by chumbling, chumbling cheese. It's crumbling cheese. It's over the cooked potato soup. Crunchy cheddar croutons.

Speaker 1 32:07

Yeah, I like that.

Speaker 2 32:08

Appetizers. I just realized this is in order. I don't know if this is my copy pasting or yours. Appetizers, I mean right off the bat, it's dried fruit and peanut butter pretzels. I'll eat those at a wedding or you bet your ass they're snatched up by yours truly. The third ingredient is tricky craft. Mac and cheese versus pizza kit. I love pizza, but I've never tangled with a pizza kit before, so I go with what I know. Give me the mac cook and mix all three ingredients into the nutty crunchy and very gooey goodness dessert. No fucking brainer, I do this on the regular for fun. I'm very intrigued. Now donuts grab two, then slap a hefty spread of peanut butter on the inside of each. Now take your honey out, cereal Crush it like you're now fucked for one game count the zombie apocalypse got a hold of that one and sprinkle the golden crumb over the peanut butter goo. Got it Great. Now smash the two donuts together. Eat peanut butter to peanut butter.

Speaker 1 33:04

Oh, yeah, got it Great. Now smash the two donuts together. Eat peanut butter to peanut butter.

Speaker 2 33:08

Hmm, oh oh. Butt to butt, oh yeah. Now I've got myself a sticky crunchy honey nut dessert sandow. I dunk the sinful dessert into more peanut butter between bites Repeat until I either pass out from a sugar coma or am eaten alive. I'm super hungry now. The munchies are taking over my gut and brain. This is fun, but I gotta go. Smiley face z. I try to do your letters justice, zach they're just so good.

Speaker 1 33:32

Yeah, the you know what? The the multiple donuts filled with peanut butter butt-to-butt situation, um, that's, uh, that, that's.

Speaker 2 33:42

That was something I would eat it. Yeah, I would a hundred percent eat the dessert Did, did, did, did.

Speaker 1 33:50

Z Martin Brown use all of the ingredients.

Speaker 2 33:53

No, oh, z Z, those, yeah, those. Uh, you didn't have edibles, like me, but you smoked something and it got you, yeah, you know I, I feel like, I feel like like to be fair.

Speaker 1 34:07

What we should do is for uh, whatever our score is, we should deduct a point from each, from each, each category, because not all, not all ingredients were used let's start backwards with him, because I think end of the world realness would be five out of five oh, yeah, yeah, I get, I give, I get, yeah, five out of five.

Speaker 2 34:28

He already said that he some of this he already does yeah, but I love the actual like cooking out of the peach, can I?

Speaker 1 34:35

love that he ate the peaches first, yeah, and then use the juice so then we each he's getting a point knocked off from that.

Speaker 2 34:45

So four yeah from each of us.

Speaker 1 34:47

All right t tone and taste yeah, I really like how z has presented this um.

Speaker 2 34:54

I think I would give z a five for presentation so, sadly, z, you're only getting a four and I was gonna say four, so you get a three for me. But I agree, I mean, I mean I was chuckling quite a bit. Very funny to read Ingenuity.

Speaker 1 35:11

How much creativity did Z exhibit?

Speaker 2 35:14

I mean, it seems like Z exhibits creativity on the daily with their dessert choices.

Speaker 1 35:17

Yeah, you know, I think some of this is, you know, it's very real world. It's very real, like the Cheez-It croutons, like that was one of the first things that I thought of. So, while I do think it's creative, I don't think it's the most creative, especially since he admits that he already does some of these things.

Speaker 2 35:38

Well, that doesn't make it not creative, though. Like who else does that?

Speaker 1 35:41

It's true, but it wasn't creative for specifically for this challenge.

Speaker 2 35:45

Also Z. I require photographic evidence that you actually do make that dessert. I want to see it and I want to see you eating it. That's the only way I'm going to believe that's true.

Speaker 1 35:53

So, that said, I'm going to give a four, a four, okay.

Speaker 2 35:56

So down to a three, and I was also going to give a four, so also a three. And, last but not least, blech or bingeability oh, I think, I think it's fully bingeable.

Speaker 1 36:06

I'll give it.

Speaker 2 36:07

I'd give it a four, you want to eat a potato soup that includes peach juice.

Contestant Entries & Scoring Begins

Speaker 1 36:11

I don't know. You know a little bit of sweet in your potato, like I've. I've made some soups that were unintentionally sweet. That ended up really good I.

Speaker 2 36:23

I mean I do like the idea of the crunchy cheddar croutons a lot again, yeah, and like I made.

Speaker 1 36:29

I made potato soup that had carrot in it and the carrots were extra sweet and it made it like a sweet potato soup almost, and it was actually pretty good. It wasn't my favorite, but it was good. So what would you? What score would you give? Uh?

Speaker 2 36:42

I'm going to give a three. A three, it was only a two. I was also going to give a three, so also a two. So, z Martin Brown, you are edging Nora out by one point. Sorry, Nora. Apparently, you cannot use all the ingredients and not get chopped in this chopped, yeah, we have slightly different rules. We're making them up as we go Nothing about.

Speaker 1 37:04

This is fair.

Speaker 2 37:05

Like the apocalypse. All right, moving on to Megan.

Speaker 1 37:09

All right, let's hear it.

Speaker 2 37:10

All right, megan says for an appetizer spicy, sweet, stuffed fruit bites, avoiding the PB filling. Take just the pretzel part and crumble up Stuff into dried apricots topped with hot sauce. To taste, honestly, yeah, sweet and spicy Stuff into dried apricots top with hot sauce to taste.

Speaker 1 37:26

Honestly, yeah, sweet and spicy. What I really love about this is that you've taken the peanut butter out of the pretzels, which is the part that makes me feel sick right now.

Speaker 2 37:33

Interesting. Yeah, so you just get like the salty crunchy carb, which is a win. And the peanut butter maybe we can put that on the ground and just step on it with our shoes. I'll eat the peanut butter. Another time.

Speaker 1 37:44

Actually, Nero can have the peanut butter. That's true, he's also hungry.

Speaker 2 37:48

I'm super into this second appetizer, the super pizza pasta cups. Cook mac and cheese according to instructions, combined with SpaghettiOs, mix in seasoning from Pizza Kid and extra sauce if desired. Serve in small cups with cheese on top. That's fucking cute.

Speaker 1 38:03

Yeah, I like that.

Speaker 2 38:05

And then she says I'm arguing you would have more than one appetizer while your guests wait for the main meal. I mean, yeah, we've already established. This is a good idea and a great way to solve for this set of ingredients that's been given Main course. Don't ask what's in it. Slash terminus potato soup.

Speaker 1 38:20

Terminus potato soup.

Speaker 2 38:22

Love the Walking Dead. Cannibal callback. Yeah, crush up peanuts and Cheez-Its, mix and set aside Grill human flesh after adding a splash of peach juice to enhance flavor.

Speaker 3 38:33

Okay.

Speaker 2 38:36

While flesh is cooking, cook potato soup per instructions. Add bean mix and well-grilled human flesh Mix. Top with crushed up Cheez-Its slash peanut mixture as desired.

Speaker 1 38:43

Yeah, yeah, I can see this. I'm picturing it in my mind. This this sounds like food. It does. It's kind of shocking. This sounds like you know what I make in the winter time that's true.

Speaker 2 38:57

You do like everything but the kitchen sink soup all the time. Yeah, dessert in quotation marks bacon and and PB donuts. The PB donut is becoming a trend. Separate vegetarian sausages from beans, shred. Mix small amount of vegan cheese powder into beer and allow sausages to marinate Okay, and mixture for three hours. This is interesting. Remove sausages from marinade and bake until crispy and brown. Allow to cool. Remove sausages from marinade and bake until crispy and brown. Allow to cool. Drizzle pb on top of maple donuts. Top with crumbled sausage, bacon in quotation marks and crushed up honeyos. All right, I'm on board. I'm.

Speaker 1 39:33

I'm astounded people are able to do this you know, I I really like the usage of that belgian beer because you know when, when you were putting together this list, I was secretly hoping that people were going to use the beer to make like some kind of a batter or a sauce of some kind. And I'm, and I'm so glad that somebody's done it. I'm there might be more, but, megan, I'm glad, I'm glad that I'm seeing it come out of the gate so early so blech or bingeableingeable?

Speaker 2 40:02

To what degree, oh?

Speaker 1 40:03

boy, I'm fully in on two out of three. Yeah, I'm going to go with a four, and the only reason I'm going four and not five is the cups the entree cups. I don't hate them, but I would have liked the macaroni and cheese and SpaghettiOs to be separated into different cups.

Speaker 2 40:26

Like the calzone.

Speaker 1 40:27

Yeah, but you know we didn't have that information before.

Speaker 2 40:34

This is why scoring is unfair. Yeah, but also that was the appetizer round. I'm going to give it a solid three and a half.

Speaker 1 40:41

You know what? I'm going to go? Four and a half. Oh see, to be fair, because that was just the appetizer I gotta.

Speaker 2 40:46

I gotta give a half a point, because everything else was great yeah, I was into everything from the appetizer, the spicy sweet stuff, fruit bites, the super pizza, pasta cups, the main course. I mean it could just be the human flesh is gonna always be hard to convince me, um. But also it wasn't like grossly described, like if it had been gross and there could have been a higher score maybe there. And then dessert sounds like you're doing the best you can with the ingredients you've got, so I would try it. I would try it. That's why I give it a three and a half. What about for ingenuity?

Speaker 1 41:18

I'm going to give. I'm going to give a four for ingenuity.

Speaker 2 41:25

I'm going gonna give it a three just because I've heard a couple of these things before. Oh, yeah, yeah from our fellow uh contestants. I'm gonna get harder as I score this is.

Speaker 1 41:33

This is scored on a curve. So if, if you were, if you were one of the first people, you get scored easily, and if you're at the last one, it's like like we've already heard this one Taste Tone.

Speaker 2 41:46

I think. Nicely written, yeah, very clear and concise.

Speaker 1 41:49

You know this would be on Nora Cook's Vegans website.

Speaker 2 41:53

Nora and Megan would be friends. Yeah, saying that now.

Speaker 1 41:56

It very much did read like a website recipe. The only thing that was missing was like the seven paragraph uh, life story beforehand, where it's like my mom, when I was a little girl, used to cook human flesh all the time you know this was a missed opportunity.

Speaker 1 42:14

Somebody should have given us one of those, but nobody's got time for that yeah, maybe next year yeah, this is, we're doing this again yeah, next year we're doing it again and everyone is required to put their life story before, and we'll read the first couple lines and then skip it.

Speaker 2 42:29

Okay, so for taste, I'm going to give a solid three. I think it was great. I wasn't blown away yeah.

Speaker 1 42:34

I think that's accurate. I'm going to give three because it did the job but didn't overly flare it. I didn't viscerally feel it in my mouth.

Speaker 2 42:47

What an end-of-the-world realness. The Terminus certainly feels real.

Speaker 1 42:55

I think this is very real. I think all of the techniques you would use to do these things would be very approachable in the end of the world. You could get yourself a little crock pot, a little Dutch oven, and you'd probably be able to do just about anything.

Speaker 2 43:09

I'm going to give a solid three just because it didn't quite meet like the Zach level of realness.

Speaker 4 43:14

Yeah, zach is at the bar, you're going to go with four.

Speaker 2 43:17

Yeah Well, guess what? We're actually curving on a positive curve because Megan's our third contestant and has the highest score. Yeah, 28 points, 28 points, all right. Moving on to the Sylvester Barzee Zombie Ween King, will he also be the apocalyptic chopped king?

Speaker 1 43:34

Yeah.

Speaker 2 43:35

Double, crown.

Speaker 1 43:36

Previous. Culinary masterpieces include Barbecue Sue.

Speaker 2 43:41

Yes, from Zombie Ween 2025. 2024. I would say 2025 because it's coming. I'm excited for it. I also did learn that sylvester barzi is a fan of chopped the show, so I have high expectations. Let's see how he does also.

Speaker 1 43:56

I like I get the impression that sylvester barzi knows his way around a kitchen. I get that feeling.

Speaker 2 44:05

Like just because of the barbecue soup and how nicely it was described.

Speaker 1 44:08

It's just a vibe I get Like. If we go to Sylvester Barzy's house, he's like oh, I'm going to show you something.

Speaker 2 44:16

I always so envious. I'm very deficient in this category, probably because I've atrophied that muscle over time. So Sylvester Barzy is an author of so many books with just a couple highlights uh, the dead soil, or sorry, I always say that there's not, that it's just dead soil. It's a great book. Dead soil had an interview about that also this last winter and the planet dead series, another great zombie series, and a plethora of horror books. For the appetizer, sylvester says beef stuffed, fried mac balls with a pretzel crust and a sweet and spicy dipping sauce.

Speaker 1 44:47

All right.

Speaker 2 44:48

Yeah, Meatballs from SpaghettiOs for filling pizza, kit dough and peanut butter pretzels for breadcrumbs and dried fruit puree infused with hot sauce Also sounds great.

Speaker 1 44:57

Yeah, what I like about this is that it's picking ingredients out of what he has to work with. It's picking ingredients out of what he has to work with. And also, the puree of the dried fruit is a great idea, because just throwing some dried fruit in the middle of all, that would have been pretty upsetting, I'll be honest. But you puree it up, maybe turn it into a powder or a gelatinous form. You can turn it into something good.

Speaker 2 45:22

Yeah, it mixes a little bit better I'm already gonna give you a preview that you're gonna get a lower um end of the world realness score for me, because I think it would be really hard to make a puree of like dried fruit unless you had re-infused it with more liquid than just hot sauce, unless it was a lot of hot sauce and a little dried fruit we have an unlimited amount to whatever, true, I guess you were thinking that it's dried fruit.

Speaker 2 45:44

We're not talking like gummied fruit or okay, well, dried fruit's still gummy, though I think that would be hard to puree. I'm gonna try it then. I guess, I guess we do. Main course, cheese dusted long pork on a bed of mashed potato puree and peach hummus that sounds fucking good. Good, yeah, how does?

Speaker 1 46:04

peach hummus work Again the peach and potato.

Speaker 2 46:06

Well it's, I don't know, I don't know how it works.

Speaker 1 46:13

I just thought you'd have the answers.

Speaker 2 46:15

Sounds feasible, maybe because, oh, they've used the beans, oh okay, to bring into the peach, yeah, yeah, grouted Cheez-Its into powder to dust the human skin. Pork brines.

Speaker 1 46:26

Yeah, that's a great idea.

Speaker 2 46:27

Peanuts, peaches and beans for hummus. Oh see, Sylvester always explains Thick potato soup for mashed potato puree, dessert round Crunchy honey, peanut butter, stuffed donuts with a beer, glaze and cheese fondue. All of that sounds good to the cheese fondue. I don't know, I don't know. Oh, I mean it could work. I know beer and cheese go together, but I'm not convinced about the rest honey that could. So the ingredients are honeyos crushed and mixed with peanut butter for filling sliced donuts like bagels. Belgian beer and baked bean sauce for glazes.

Speaker 2 46:56

Cheesy mac cheese sauce for fondue okay yeah, or I'm really pleasantly surprised that I am not like wanting to vomit, to vomit very much so far. Yeah, I'm mostly like I would try this.

Speaker 1 47:07

You know, sylvester was in the army. I was in the army and my feeling about my time in the field, when MREs tended to come with a packet of either cheese sauce or peanut butter, was that it's not a good idea to mix them. That's why they come in separate, separate.

Speaker 2 47:31

It um, uh, I don't have.

Speaker 1 47:35

I don't have a short answer for this. Oh, uh, I'm just going to say diarrhea.

Speaker 2 47:41

Oh, that is a short answer.

Speaker 1 47:44

And it's.

Speaker 2 47:44

It's a lot longer of an answer, but that's just the one I'm going to give you.

Speaker 1 47:50

You know, the cheese sauce is greasy and spicy, whereas the peanut butter is thick and sweet and oily, and all of those oils can coalesce together in a manner that is unsatisfying. I feel like this would be a little bit different of a scenario, because we're talking about a high-quality Teddy's peanut butter as what is indicated in the imagery that you gave for this challenge, and then a cheese sauce from a mac and cheese pack. This does not sound like something that I would want to risk.

Speaker 2 48:28

But you're not putting them together, you're just dipping it, so it doesn't matter. It's still ending up in your stomach at the same time, even if they're two different sauces.

Speaker 3 48:35

Yeah.

Speaker 2 48:36

Oh no, I think, sylvester, you've tanked yourself with Dan. I was like but that's not on the list. I'm not being able to. I can't predict the diarrhea here and when I read this I want to try it. Minus again. I'm not really into either. Sauces are where it's getting me here for a lot of these choices.

Speaker 1 48:54

Look, if it weren't the apocalypse, I would risk it.

Speaker 2 48:56

But I would eat everything, I would try everything here.

Speaker 1 48:59

So I think what that's actually going to do is that is going to affect my end times realness score, Because in the end times I'm not going to risk peanut butter and a cheese sauce at the same time.

Speaker 2 49:12

So your score has to be lower Mine. I'm going to give a five. You know why am I giving it? Because I like you, sylvester, it's good. I believe in this.

Speaker 1 49:20

I'm going to go with a four for end times realness.

Speaker 2 49:24

Okay.

Speaker 1 49:28

What about taste and tone? Let's go four and a half. It's described with flair, drama horror. Yeah, there's definitely flair.

Speaker 2 49:37

I think it was good, but it wasn't as illustrative as others. Okay, so I'm going to give it a solid three. You said four, yeah, okay, what about ingenuity? I got to say high up there.

Speaker 1 49:49

Yeah, I think the ingenuity is right up there.

Speaker 2 49:51

Like I said, I really like the way the individual items of food yeah, the beef stuffed fried mac balls, the pretzel crust and a sweet and spicy dipping sauce. Yeah, sounds delicious. So I'm going to go, and I think that there's some ingenuity there. I would never have put the fruit and the hot sauce and made it a puree. Personally, I don't know. We'll see what people do. I'm going to give a four and a half. You know, four and a half. I'm going to give a four. No, I'm going to give a three, just because I've given three to everybody else and I feel like I'm inflating my scores. Every person.

Speaker 4 50:29

Sorry, sorry, sylvester, I did give you a five for end of the world realness, just because I like you.

Speaker 2 50:33

And B blech or bingeability. I think this is also a solid menu. I would say a four.

Speaker 1 50:40

Yeah, I'm going to give a four and a half Wow. And what really sells me is the cheese, that dusted human flesh, that dusted human flesh.

Speaker 2 50:48

Cheese dusted human flesh. Yeah, it sounds good. Yeah, well, sylvester is leading the challenge at 32 points. Wow, yeah, I'm so sorry, nora, that I read yours first. There's just you weren't going to. Let's see if Gerard can beat the score of 32. So we have Gerard Clark beat the score of 32. So we have Gerard Clark, author of the End, also a guest from 2025, who provided us with one of the ingredients in this challenge that I don't remember, but one of them, gerard. Which one was it again, yeah, let us know.

Speaker 2 51:20

Let us know. Okay, so they, they have a bit of a story here. They say, all right, all right, all right, I had to use AI to create the pics, but gave vivid instructions for these masterpieces of culinary delight. Oh, there's pics. Yeah, oh, dan, should you read this in a mix of Canadian and Irish accent, can you do?

Speaker 1 51:40

that how Channel Gerard. Oh so like a Newfie accent. Don't say that oh so like a Newfie accent.

Speaker 2 51:45

Don't say that. First of all, okay, pausing for a public service announcement that the term Newfie is discriminatory.

Speaker 1 51:53

Oh well, I'm not Canadian, so I didn't know that.

Speaker 2 51:56

I know.

Speaker 1 51:57

That's why I'm making a public service announcement. I didn't see the PSAs.

Speaker 2 52:00

Leah, there were none. I just learned over time because we used to make a lot of jokes, jokes about people from newfoundland around the table as a kid and I didn't know any better. Okay, but yeah, so I probably shouldn't do the accent that term, no, no, you shouldn't. That term is for people from newfoundland, okay, um, and it's frankly a classist thing because it's about it's really about class and wealth oh well, I don't know any of those things.

Speaker 2 52:28

But do you think you can try? Try to do a British or an Irish. Probably not. Okay, we'll keep going then. I've been to a few classes at Gordon Ramsay's Academy in London and I think I've done him proud. Oh, I do remember Gerard saying that Instantly, you've given yourself credibility. So everything you say next, I'm going to believe you, because Gordon Ramsey would not tolerate anything less than perfection.

Speaker 1 52:51

That's true, but also we have to score this as if we are Gordon Ramsey.

Speaker 2 52:56

Oh, is that what we have to do now?

Speaker 1 53:00

I think so Okay, Because.

Speaker 2 53:01

I mean Can you channel Gordon Ramsey?

Speaker 1 53:03

Because I don't know if I can be that way, let me channel Gordon Ramsey. Do you need to watch a quick like reference? Yeah, let's. Okay, I'm I'm. I'm gathering the abuse within me. Okay, I'm so sorry, the explosive rage. Okay, I'm coming up with some catchphrases uh, like, like. Uh, what you call this food, this is what dogs eat.

Speaker 2 53:29

Okay, I'm ready hold on, I have to google gordon ramsey catchphrases to make sure you are being accurate. This isn't a pizza, this is a mistake, this is an italian tragedy. Hold on, I gotta read a few others. Oh, that's really nice. Actually, gordon, if you want to become a great chef, you have to work with great chefs. That's exactly what I did, and that's what Gerard did, by going to the Gordon Ramsey school.

Speaker 1 53:56

Yeah, alright, I think we have to go to Gerard's house too.

Speaker 2 54:01

Oh, I think this is perfect. I don't Nope, never, never mind. This makes no sense. I'm looking at a meme that says who left raw pork in here? From um, gordon ramsey, and then the, the guy from fast and the furious, whose names I don't remember. He's still alive, if that helps you. Other famous guy, ben diesel yes, ben diesel's in a car and he says don't need food safety when you got family. Gordon Ramsay is leaned forward in his chef's white outfit with a pencil behind his ear and says your family died from food poisoning. That's a good meme. I think I'm going to have to put that as part of our episode Thumbnails. Hold on, I'm going to copy paste it Moving on. So you're ready to be gordon ramsay oh yeah, I guess.

Speaker 1 54:50

So I mean, I've literally never watched any of gordon ramsay's tv shows do your best blend in some simon, yeah, I saw. I saw the, the show where he was actually really nice and went around the world um learning different techniques from uh, different chefs bad people can play nice sometimes you know, like, uh, like he learned how to make like a legitimate pulled noodle noodles from a noodle shop in japan and uh, he was very appreciative and uh respectful of the noodle pulling master the noodle pulling master of which there are, like three in the world, noodles who have perfected the art of pulling noodles. Yeah.

Speaker 2 55:34

Sorry, I'm just picturing their LinkedIn. Their tagline says noodle pulling master. I'm sure it's a very serious thing.

Speaker 1 55:48

I'm sorry it is a traditional and time honored profession. I'm really sorry, from a time when pasta makers didn't exist and you had to pull noodles from dough by hand. Leah, the disrespect of the profession of noodle puller. Leah.

Speaker 2 56:14

I really I respect, I respect I'm trying to say it I respect, I respect noodle pulling. Okay, I'm sorry. I didn't know this was gonna happen today noodle pulling okay, I didn't know this was going to happen today.

Speaker 1 56:35

Okay, I need a minute. Everyone's going to be like. My favorite episode was the one where Leah laughed for 25 minutes straight after saying the word noodle puller.

Speaker 2 56:49

I can't breathe. You're doing that thing you do sometimes. I don't consent to laughing more.

Speaker 1 56:54

You have to stop. You're the one laughing.

Speaker 2 56:57

You're the one saying the funny things. I just want everybody to know. The dance made me cry.

Speaker 1 57:05

There's literal tears coming from Leah's eyes.

Speaker 2 57:09

You can hear me sniffling. Okay, we need to read Gerard's menu. I'm starting from the beginning and you should click on my cursor in the Google Docs so you can see these images.

Speaker 1 57:23

Okay.

Speaker 2 57:23

All right, gerard, you're going to get the respect you deserve. I'm going to read this from the start, all right, all right, all right, you're right, you're gonna get the respect you deserve. I'm gonna read this from start all right, all right, all right. I had to use ai to create the pics, but gave vivid instructions for these masterpieces of culinary delight. I've been to a few classes at gordon ramsay's academy in london and I think I have done him proud.

Speaker 1 57:40

Oh, this is where we just went, totally lost ourselves when we talked about gordon ramsay going to learn how to pull those noodles.

Speaker 2 57:48

I'm not going to laugh For an Appy. I have created Apocalyptic Pizza, a simple pizza base spaghettios loaded with hot sauce. For the sauce, mac and cheese topped with peanut butter, pretzels and dried fruit mix.

Speaker 1 57:59

I mean, you had me until the dried fruit mix. But you know, what I love is that somebody made a pizza out of the pizza kit. Yeah, seems really kit.

Speaker 2 58:07

Yeah, seems really smart. Yeah, the visuals interesting. I got to say that, yeah, the dried fruit mix is the least appealing, which is surprising for me to say, because it would probably be the closest I could get to like pineapple on a pizza.

Speaker 2 58:19

Yeah, I mean, maybe there's a canned pineapple, yeah, maybe there's a dried pineapple in there and just pick out everything that's not a pineapple for the main course we have stews stew extra creamy potato stew with petite with extra creamy potato stew with beans, peanuts and real chunks of stewart rip. Oh, poor stewart. So I guess stewart's not being kept alive in this case. Top Topped with Cheez-Its and peaches the little chef hand the hand emoji. Yeah, I got to say that the visual that AI made for this does look appealing.

Speaker 1 58:56

Yeah, even the peaches. If I don't think too hard about it, even the peaches look like they belong in this soup.

Speaker 2 59:02

I think we're going to have to try peaches and potatoes after this.

Speaker 1 59:04

I think so.

Speaker 2 59:05

Yeah, there might be something there. And for dessert we have the palate cleanser Donuts with a quotation marks cheese, because it's vegan cheese and peanut butter sauce oh, already you're going to be upset Topped with baked beans, vegan sausages and honeyos. Why is it called the palate cleanser? I hear you ask.

Speaker 1 59:32

Because as soon as it goes down, down, it's coming back up again. Okay, that's true. So wash it down. The nice bottle of belgian beer. You know? Vomit emoji, beer emoji. Yeah, you know where, where I took off points before for the combination of peanut butter and cheese. Um, you have to add it back, especially seeing the image. Yeah.

Speaker 2 59:44

Can you describe the image?

Speaker 1 59:45

Dan. Well, we've got a nice bottle of beer that just says Belgium on it. Thank you, ai. What looks like a pile of donuts, the very top, is some cereals, the honeyos dropped on the top and cascading down the sides. The second layer, under the top donut, is some beans and then it just looks like there's some cheese and the third level dripping down over some hot dogs, yes, and hot dogs obviously being human flesh, right.

Speaker 2 1:00:25

No, I'm wrong, they're the vegetarian sausages, right? Okay, yeah beans and vegetarian sausage, and then more cereal and also some like looks like some peanut butter yeah, it looks um.

Speaker 1 1:00:36

Oh god it does. It does look like it. I mean, my stomach hurts just looking at it.

Speaker 2 1:00:41

To be honest, it is if I can like squint a little bit and believe that the donuts are maybe buns. Nope, that's bad too, because I'm thinking about how fucking soggy they'd be.

Speaker 1 1:00:51

Oh, oh yeah, they'd be covered in, they'd be drenched in bean sauce they'd be so soggy, yeah, um.

Speaker 2 1:00:57

Okay, let's start with the blech or binge binge ability.

Speaker 1 1:01:01

I gotta give high marks here oh, because I think it's both like that's what makes it high.

Speaker 2 1:01:08

I think that makes it a five oh man um the app's delicious sounding minus the dried fruit, unless you're a pineapple person, which I am, so maybe I would like it and as awful as that dessert looks, I can't deny that I would, probably I would.

Speaker 1 1:01:24

I would succumb you try it. I would succumb to, to the siren's call of the cheese dripping down the side of the donut would you just like pick up the donut, like lick the cheese off of it I, I feel like something like that, because it was, it's, it's, it's in a pile, like you're gonna have to just go in face first. You just start at the top and you just push your face down into it until you're done Like a trough.

Speaker 2 1:01:54

I mean, that's just, I guess. Embrace your inner toddler, right? You don't have to look. Good, it's the apocalypse. I'm going to give it a four for binge ability. I think it's pretty solid. It's up there. You're supposed to be gordon ramsey, dan, yeah, what would gordon ramsey say? What do you say?

Speaker 1 1:02:10

this is perfection I mean, gordon ramsey would give it a zero, but I think I'm gonna give it a four. I think I'm with you on this one okay, solid four.

Speaker 2 1:02:20

What about ingenuity, you know, I think, using the pizza actually as a pizza? Yeah, that's pretty good ingenuity, yeah, I mean.

Speaker 1 1:02:29

I thought about a lot of the things that I would do when we were putting this together, and I never once thought about making a pizza, so using it as intended is actually very ingenuous. Where we're lacking ingenuity is using the belgian beer as a belgian beer I agree.

Speaker 2 1:02:51

I think I'm gonna give this a solid like three. It's not quite a four, but a three and a half oh, I was gonna say three and a half.

Speaker 1 1:02:57

I'm trying not to copy you, leah, but I told you we agree too much, yeah that's okay.

Speaker 2 1:03:04

It gives the higher numbers. That's exciting. Uh, taste and tone.

Speaker 1 1:03:07

I gotta give this one, I think, a five yeah, five for taste and tone I think that's accurate because not only not only was it described very well and did it paint a visceral picture in my, in my mind, but also visual references were given which nobody listening benefited from. But I assure you, um, you are on the winning side for not having to see the dessert.

Speaker 2 1:03:33

Yeah. So what would you give for the tea of bite A five. Yeah, okay, we are on to end of the world. Realness, no, um, sue, stu feels real the pizza also that feels real. It feels real as well. Again, it's the dessert where it gets unhinged, and I'm going to give it a four for that reason.

Speaker 1 1:03:52

Yeah, I'm going to give it a three and a half because I need to be different from you. Very important and, uh, and yeah, that dessert really, well, guess what Really upset me.

Speaker 2 1:04:02

Do you think Sylvester or Gerard have the higher score?

Speaker 1 1:04:05

Oh, I already looked. Well, then you can let the world know, gerard, you have half a point more than Sylvester.

Speaker 2 1:04:13

Gerard is in the lead. We've literally just gone from Nora at 24 and we've inflated our score to Gerard at 32 and a half. Yeah, and weirdly, I'm getting hungry, and I really wasn't anticipating this.

Speaker 1 1:04:23

Yeah, this is going to make me hungry.

Speaker 2 1:04:28

All right, we are halfway through the challenge. Let's move on to Jack Callahan, author of Zombie, nerd and Half-Turned Harrowing. Alright, you said you were going to read this one, dan, because of your French accent.

Speaker 1 1:04:37

Oh yeah, I can pronounce French words really good. Alright, are you ready, Leah, for my mastery of the French language? I'm ready. Fessin Apalactique Menu par monsieur Jacques Callahan. Jacques Callahan Entry. Dried fruit brought back to its natural state of plumpness with a tantalizing hot sauce marinade.

Speaker 2 1:05:03

Interesting.

Speaker 1 1:05:04

Zesty tang of the fruit, accented by the oral scorched earth policy of the sauce Accurate. It's like there's a party in your mouth and you're not allowed to leave. That's the worst kind of party.

Speaker 2 1:05:18

The roof is on fire.

Speaker 1 1:05:20

Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:05:20

The roof of your mouth. It's bad.

Speaker 1 1:05:22

Moving on to the plaid principle.

Speaker 2 1:05:25

It sounds like plaid principle but it's L-A-T Plaid principle, the principle plate.

Speaker 1 1:05:30

I'll translate yeah, cheesa infused potato soup. Okay, that's a win.

Speaker 2 1:05:35

I don't think it would be, because potato soup's already got like a thickness to it. You add the Cheesa, it's going to be like a glop.

Speaker 1 1:05:41

Oh, it's infused.

Speaker 2 1:05:42

Yeah, oh yeah oozed, yeah, oh yeah, you didn't know here. If you know like you added some extra liquid from, say, the peach salt, the peach can or something like that, I'd be like, okay, I believe it, but it's not there um well, jack assures us that it is soothing and warm, like an unwashed jumper or a hug from a boneless grandparent have you ever been hugged by a boneless grandparent? Yeah, once what was it like?

Speaker 1 1:06:06

it was really mushy, which is what this sounds like. It sounds like it'd be really mushy, and you know what jack owns that oh, I just realized the hug from a boneless grandparent is the meat.

Speaker 2 1:06:20

Oh, oh, oh, wow. You know what? I think that grandparents love, love their grandchildren enough that they would be okay with this.

Speaker 1 1:06:30

The Viende Humani with a peach reduction glaze and bean medley side. Oh, I like the bean medley as a side. You don't have to put it all in one bowl, I guess.

Speaker 2 1:06:45

I love this. There is a vegetarian option, but you'll have to catch one first.

Speaker 1 1:06:51

What do you have to?

Speaker 2 1:06:51

catch the vegetarian oh.

Speaker 1 1:06:57

You know I'm one of the few people I've got a very controversial take on cannibalism. I think it's actually the most vegan thing you can eat, only if they're rich. I mean, think about all the animals that you're helping by eating a human yeah, one eaten human probably saves like in a lifetime, like thousands of animals likely.

Speaker 1 1:07:21

Yeah, um, let's move on. Leah to lead dessert. Peanut butter filled donuts. This is becoming a favorite. Everybody is doing peanut butter filled donuts. I feel like we have to amend all of our scores Too late. That's too much work, sorry. The filling should be used sparingly Okay, that's a change. Most people are just glopping it on there. That's true. Used sparingly Okay, that's a change. Most people are just glopping it on there. This is sparingly. Not only will this prevent it from compromising the lightness of the donut pastry, but if any of your guests have an allergy, you plan on killing them. They won't notice it right away. I was not anticipating it. Would recommend a raise of the eyebrow followed by a declaration of Well, my friend, it would appear that the real dessert shall be me savoring the sweet taste of your death.

Speaker 2 1:08:15

A garnish of maniacal laughter is optional. Hold on.

Speaker 1 1:08:25

Nero is looking at me very strangely. Yeah, ziggy's passed out, ziggy did not wake up for any of that.

Speaker 2 1:08:32

Wow, that took a turn. I didn't expect.

Speaker 1 1:08:36

All right Well.

Speaker 2 1:08:37

That was okay, really good, but I got to say, like the very creative Z Martin Brown, jack Callahan, I think he's missing some ingredients.

Speaker 1 1:08:46

It's true, or at least didn't mention them.

Speaker 2 1:08:50

Yeah, Because for dessert we've got peanut butter, we've got donuts and we have a murderer and a murdered and laughter, but that's it.

Speaker 1 1:09:01

Yeah, which, I guess, is how you get the human flesh.

Speaker 2 1:09:07

Well, but you've had the human flesh before. It's notparent. Remember your boneless grandparent, the sacrifice, oh, it was for you well, that's for the yeah, so I think you get a free hug and food. This is another example of like. This is really great and I think it might be all close to close to all fives across the board, except for the fact that they're missing some ingredients yeah points, points off, points off for every single category yeah, let's start at the beginning okay blech, or bingeability, uh oh boy um, the appetizer with the, the dried fruit brought back to life with hot sauce.

Speaker 2 1:09:37

I could not eat that, so that's a high level of blech, because I am curious though um, my dad's lips burned literally from eating a green pepper once. Yeah, not a spicy green pepper, a regular bell pepper yeah.

Speaker 1 1:09:51

Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:09:52

So that's a that's going to be a five out of five for me on the blech immediately. That's not. They're not feasible for me to consume.

Speaker 1 1:09:59

Yeah, I forgot that the scores also work this way. The soup sounded mushy.

Speaker 2 1:10:11

And unsoothing and warm. Warm like an unwashed jumper, yeah, or a hug from a boneless grandparent. Wait, is the jumper also a person here? I was imagining a piece of like an item of clothing but, now I'm picturing like a somebody who jumped to their death and was also unwashed.

Speaker 1 1:10:22

You're high but you know what could be either either one there's, you know like they could. They could both work um in the uk. A jumper is a sweatshirt oh wow.

Speaker 2 1:10:35

That's not what I was picturing at all, but still gross. I'm gonna give you a four, because I would have given you a five on the blech bingeability scale.

Speaker 1 1:10:43

Yeah I'm gonna go with a three, because it all sounds very um, so actually a two British yeah, oh, you're just taking points off for being British.

Speaker 2 1:10:51

Yeah, wow, I bet you Gerard, with their Irish heritage, really loves that. I bet are we trying to start a feud in the UK? Yeah okay, so you gave it a two and I gave it a four Ingenuity.

Speaker 1 1:11:05

Well, I'm going to go with a three, because not all the ingredients were used. So, actually, and also the peanut butter donut. I'm sorry it's on a curve at this point and we've had, we've had like five peanut butter donuts at this point. Yeah, I think.

Speaker 2 1:11:26

I think ingenuity is like we're not talking about the writing, because that's the taste and tone portion of the bite scale, but for ingenuity of, like the ingredients, I would say a solid three as well, which, unfortunately, jack, gives you a two Taste and tone. I'm going to also say you knock this out of the fucking park.

Speaker 1 1:11:42

Yeah, fives, fives, so fives across the board.

Speaker 2 1:11:45

you get a four from each of us, but it would be five if it was all the ingredients. Yeah, uh end of the world realness, oh oh yeah, I think it's pretty real.

Speaker 1 1:11:56

Murder. Yeah, the murder. Yeah, killing people with peanut butter. Um, eating your boneless grandparent? Yeah, putting hot sauce on dried fruit because you think it'll bring it back to life, or maybe you don't want to taste what you have to eat next yeah, like I'm just so fucking sick of dried fruit, I'm just gonna put hot sauce all over it.

Speaker 1 1:12:17

I had a friend in afghanistan who, uh, who just smothered his food and and mustard every day. Uh, doesn't matter what it was, he put mustard on it and I'm like, you know, after a long time I I'm like, wow, I didn't really. You know, I've never met anybody who liked mustard as much as you and he's like I don't like mustard. I'm like, but you put it on everything. He's like that's because when mustard is on food, you can't taste anything but the mustard.

Speaker 2 1:12:48

And he did it to cover up the horrible taste of the food we were eating, was it?

Speaker 1 1:12:50

that bad it was, did you start putting mustard in all of your food? I didn't, okay, but what I did do is, every single day, I wrote out a um, a suggestion for the suggestion box that suggested that all of the cooks be fired and sent back home. Oh, because the food was so terrible, and I would also explain how much diarrhea it gave me.

Speaker 2 1:13:11

Because of the peanut butter and cheese sauce combo Right.

Speaker 1 1:13:15

So much peanut butter and cheese sauce. This is feeling very real for you, Dan.

Speaker 2 1:13:19

I'm going to give this a solid four for End of the World Realness because of the murder which ends up being a three, sadly so for you. What would you do?

Speaker 1 1:13:28

oh boy, uh. Yeah, I'll give it a five because I do think that this is something that that jack would cook in the end of the world. I really like the flair of the french menu. Um, I feel like jack would would absolutely open a fancy restaurant at the end of the world.

Speaker 2 1:13:46

I feel like Jack is going to claim discrimination after I read this score 25. Oh no, so Gerard Clark is still in the lead at 32.5. Sorry, jack, it's the lack of all the ingredients which, if I was being fair, I wouldn't obey that criteria, because so many people asked me and I don't. Chopped is an American show, so maybe this is actual discrimination because Jack and I don't. Chopped is an American show. So, like, maybe this is actual discrimination because, jack, you don't know that it requires them all. Wait, didn't you give me one where it does have them all? Oh, did I read the wrong one? Hold on, correction Everybody. I think Jack is in the lead because I read the wrong menu.

Speaker 1 1:14:21

Oh, no, leah.

Speaker 2 1:14:22

Oh no I, I, oh no I, I.

Speaker 2 1:14:24

so jack sent an email this changes wednesday, july 9th, 5, 51 pm, with the original, which is what I read and I thought I copy pasted the right one. I guess I didn't, uh, then on thursday, so plenty of time for me to notice, and in fact I responded. But anyways, on thursday they sent me oh, here's the revised version, using all the ingredients this time, and they were super polite and kind and said, like you know, sorry for the confusion, damn it. And then why do you have to be nice two hours?

Speaker 1 1:14:53

ago. It's so much easier to give you low scores when, when I don't know that you're being nice behind the scenes yeah then, jack.

Speaker 2 1:15:01

I wrote jack back two hours ago, received and included in the episode. You rock jack, you lovingly are you wonderful curmudgeonly human on the other side of the ocean whom we adore oh my god, we gotta give all of his points back. Okay, well, I gotta read the parts that were added okay or changed okay.

Speaker 2 1:15:17

so for the entree rounds, the appetizer for us, the entry. The entry, yes, mac and cheese and spaghettio pizza crust poppers with a peanut butter pretzel crumb coating, an explosion of flavor or, more accurately, a strike on the back of the head. Whoa, these take turns. A strike on the back of the head of the hammer by a man that shouts flavor. Oh my god, oh Okay, that was funny, so let's keep going. We'll see how we want to amend our scores. So the plot principal was correct. It had everything that was in there. It had the peach reduction glaze, the bean medley and peanut side and the vegetarian option. The dessert is where it changes completely.

Speaker 1 1:16:06

Okay.

Speaker 2 1:16:10

Les desserts, phil donut roulette. Your guests choose from the tray, their hands shaking with a mixture of excitement and dread. Which will they get? Perhaps peanut butter? Perhaps beans? Oh, this is like that jelly bean game. Oh, you know what I'm talking about where you know yeah, tasty or terrible.

Speaker 1 1:16:27

It's like, does this one taste like vomit?

Speaker 2 1:16:30

then jack says personally I find nothing more delicious than a bean filled donut on brand. I mean it could be good, I? I mean jack is the king of beans, not the king of zombie weaned, but definitely the king of beans. The damn things have nine grams of sugar per tin anyways, so they're technically a dessert in their own right. I agree, that's true. I've had like those uh black bean brownies, which are pretty good oh yeah.

Speaker 1 1:16:53

Well, I think these are baked beans, and baked beans are always like really sweet, which?

Speaker 2 1:16:57

is why I love them uh, then jack says, whatever the outcome, at least they'll have a beer to wash the taste away. If any of your don't drink alcohol, either due to health reasons or because there's some sort of teetotal straight edge wuss, then they're out of luck, aren't they?

Speaker 1 1:17:12

Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:17:12

Wow, I guess they are. Jack. My family is a bunch of alcoholics. This is deeply offensive. Note. You'll notice that each course on the menu contains a dish which includes peanuts. If any of your guests have an allergy and you plan on killing them, you will have three opportunities to do so. I recommend a raise of the eyebrow, followed by a declaration of well, my friend, it would seem the finest dish of the evening shall be me savoring the sweet taste of your death, and then, more maniacal laughter.

Speaker 1 1:17:44

Oh my God, this changes everything. It does it, does it, does we have to rescore? I was so satisfied giving Jack a low score, I gave so.

Speaker 2 1:17:53

I'm going to say five for bite, yeah For for a black bingeable. On the three for you.

Speaker 1 1:17:58

God, ingenuity goes skyrocketed, it's skyrocketed.

Speaker 2 1:18:01

Give it a four. I was originally a three. I'm give it a four. I was originally a three, I'm gonna make it. I'm gonna make mine a four. Okay, uh, taste and tone also improved, I'm gonna do 4.5. I don't think it's the very, very best. I think it's a five, but you think it's a solid five.

Speaker 2 1:18:14

Okay, uh, end of the world realness uh boy I'm gonna stick with my original score, yeah I'm gonna go stick with my original score okay, well, jack, you may be the king of beans, you, son of a bitch, because you have a score of 34.5, knocking your irish author friend out of the running ah, I hate that jack's winning well, that could change based on the trend of the episode.

Speaker 1 1:18:42

Don't let us down everybody else we have alice b sullivan oh, alice, alice won't let us down.

Speaker 2 1:18:50

Alice, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta, knock jack out yeah, alice is a friend of ours that we got to meet in real life. I'm sorry if you hear our dog literally gagging in the background, are you okay?

Speaker 1 1:18:59

yeah, he looked at the picture of the donut pile thing. He's like no, yeah, I showed it to him and he's just like that's not funny.

Speaker 2 1:19:10

So Alice is an author as well. She's written quite a few wonderful zombie novels, including Elementary Undead, which is book one for the Undead series, and the Aftermath series, which we are reading the novella right now for which is called the Collapse. We're going to be talking to her this summer when she comes to visit yeah. For which is called the Collapse. We're going to be talking to her this summer when she comes to visit.

Speaker 2 1:19:27

Yeah, that's going to be great. This is Alice's appetizer. Using the sauce from the SpaghettiOs and the cheese from a pizza kit, I'd make a mac and cheese and dry fruit cap. Nero doesn't like this at all.

Speaker 4 1:19:37

Alice and that would be especially offensive to Alice, who loves animals.

Speaker 2 1:19:42

I'm sorry, alice. To be fair, I don't think nero likes spaghettios. Okay, restarting, using the sauce and spaghettios and the cheese from the pizza kit, I'd make a mac and cheese and dry fruit casserole. That is gross, I agree nero with a peanut butter pretzel base and crumb topping drizzled with hot sauce. The drizzle of the hot sauce makes sense yeah, the dried fruit casserole.

Speaker 1 1:20:06

Oh my god that's just.

Speaker 2 1:20:08

That's diabolical in a whole other way entree fried human flesh breaded with crushed peanuts and cheez-its okay topped with a sauce made from peach syrup, mashed peaches and soup, served over with the potatoes from the soup pan.

Speaker 1 1:20:22

Roasted potatoes and bean medley yeah, that sounds, yeah, that sounds like a nice dinner.

Speaker 2 1:20:28

It does Sounds pretty regular. We have heard the crushed peanuts and cheeses before that's come up a couple times. Dessert Honey-o's and peanut butter layered bar Okay, With cheesy vegan mac and donut crumble topped with a Belgian beer. Wait what? Oh, it's a reduction. Okay, sorry, I had to get to the end of that sentence to think it was good. Topped with a Belgian beer, mashed beans and a vegetable sausage reduction.

Speaker 1 1:20:51

Wow, that is a strange reduction it is. I'm trying to imagine it.

Speaker 2 1:21:11

You've got all these layers of sweet and then you have this sauce reduction that's salty and hoppy. I like the idea of the bar when I read the ingredients like peanut honeyos and peanut butter sounds good. I'm always thrown by the cheesy mac and donut crumble um top of the belgian beer mash bean and vegetable sausage reduction. This is disgusting, but you've made it sound good, which I think is actually like everything that you've written. You weren't like doubling down on the disgusting. You made it sound good if I didn't pay a lot of attention to the ingredients.

Speaker 1 1:21:35

Yeah, if that was just in a menu, yeah, I'd be like okay. You'd be like, yeah, sure. And then you get it and you're like what the fuck? You know, if you?

Speaker 2 1:21:40

just like skip over the ingredients. It's a layered bar with a crumble, topped with a reduction. Sounds delicious. Yeah, uh, okay, uh, blah, or bingeability, blah, okay. What's your blast score? Oh boy, that's like a four blah okay, I think it's a four because I believed it was good until I realized it was blah ingenuity oh, um, you know I I'm going to go, I'm going to go with a three, because there's some elements here that we see a lot.

Speaker 1 1:22:12

I feel like you could have done a little bit more of the entree. The entree was good, um, but I think, I think we could have done more.

Speaker 2 1:22:21

I'm going to go three and a half because I really appreciated this is the first person to have a reasonable amount of hot sauce. In my opinion, with drizzle of hot sauce, drizzle, yeah, a little drizz, taste and tone. I mean I think it was. It was clearly a nicely written Um, it's again sort of like Nora's.

Speaker 1 1:22:43

It read like what you'd see on a menu menu and again I would order this and then realize when it got to me that that was a bad idea. Yeah, I'd say three and a half. Three and a half, yeah, um, and again like I would order it, and then I'd be like what, the, what, the fuck I think three and a half is fair.

Speaker 2 1:22:52

Yeah well, that's at least end of the world realness. Could you picture alice whipping this up for us in our survivor group kitchen?

Speaker 1 1:22:58

yeah, I think so. Um, do I think it's the best use of of those ingredients? You know, I feel like none of not not very many of these recipes are a good usage of these ingredients, when they could just be eaten alone, probably, to better effect. But, uh, one thing that I did like is using the donuts as a crumble yes, that was also very innovative um and yeah, I you know what I gotta up my, my ingenuity score for that.

Speaker 2 1:23:26

Yeah, I'm gonna bring that up to a four and a half, because the crumb, the, the crumble was a great idea yeah, um, so under the times, realist, I'll give a four. A four, yeah I'm gonna give a three. Oh, alice, you've broken the trend. Oh, oh, no, alice, I'm so sorry. I would have ordered your menu, but it's a 30, meaning that Jack Callahan, zombie bean king, is in the lead.

Speaker 1 1:23:50

I mean it's hard to compete with the zombie bean king.

Speaker 2 1:23:55

It is, but we have a special interruption from WZMB Dead Air Radio. Oliver Gray has a little clip for us, so we couldn't imagine leaving out our friends from Meval Valley who have been through a lot. They are actually in a real life apocalypse right now and Oliver Gray is the host of the only radio show that I'm aware of that still exists in their apocalyptic realm.

Speaker 1 1:24:21

Yeah, it's the only one I've heard.

Speaker 2 1:24:23

So we decided to airdrop all of the ingredients for Oliver, because actually they need them.

Speaker 1 1:24:28

So Oliver actually made all of these things? Is what you're saying?

Speaker 2 1:24:31

Oliver wait, what do you mean? Made all of these things? Oh, it's like to eat, yeah, unlike everybody else, this is a real situation for Oliver.

Speaker 1 1:24:38

Yeah this is all Oliver has to eat. So keep that in mind, everybody, while you're listening to this, that this is the food that Oliver has to survive on good morning, mevo Valley.

Special Broadcast from Oliver Gray

Speaker 3 1:24:54

This is Oliver broadcasting from WZMB, where the only thing more expired than my broadcasting license is my will to cook. I have no announcement today. No curfews, no HOA. The only thing more expired than my broadcasting license is my will to cook. Oh no, I have no announcement today. No curfews, no HOA. Passive, aggressive letters, just a nearly dead battery and a story to share. So I'm going to make this quick. A few days ago, I received a food drop from my benefactors. I'm not sure it could be the military group. It could be a group of local survivors. It could be a raccoon with an advanced pulley system. Honestly, at this point, I think I might trust the raccoons a little more.

Speaker 3 1:25:28

Oh no, the box was simply labeled Party Box, which at this point I know was a warning not a promise.

Speaker 3 1:25:38

Inside the box was a completely baffling collection of items that seemed less like rations and more like a dare, and I can only assume that this was put together by the undead themselves. But I am resourceful and a little unhinged, so I turned this into a three-course meal. As an appetizer, I made a couple little Hot Pockets Made with pizza dough, stuffed with mac and cheese, peanut butter, pretzel bites and chios enough hot sauce to simulate a near-death experience served with the dipping sauce made out of spaghettios and crushed dried fruit. You know, for the main course I went with a pie. I did a bottom layer of long pork with a layer of baked beans, chopped peaches and peanuts, because at this point in my life I like food that confuses me. Then I poured over a layer of baked beans, chopped peaches and peanuts, because at this point in my life I like food that confuses me. Then I poured over a layer of potato soup that was sticking with crushed cheese and top it all off with a handful of cheese.

Speaker 3 1:26:32

It's sprinkled with emotional detachment. Now they labeled the meat long pork. They they could have lied, they could have spared me, but, but no, they looked at me, looked at what was left of the world, and they just said he's ready. And you know what. They were right, because when the cows have completely vanished and the chickens well, we all remember what the chickens did. Oh yeah. So when someone hands you a package of ambiguously sourced meat, you eat it and you say thank you.

Speaker 3 1:27:05

For dessert, I made something fairly similar to bread pudding. If you squint and abandon God. Shredded donuts soaked in a sauce made from peanut butter, vegan mac and cheese, a splash of Belgian beer and baked beans topped with crushed honey. Yeah, the texture was kind of gelatinous and the flavor was somewhere between campfire trauma and midlife crisis in a can. So what have we learned from all this? Well, even in the smoking ruins of human civilization, as long as you have a can opener, a bit of imagination and a complete disregard for what's considered edible or moral, you can dine like royalty. This is Oliver signing off with WZMB and a reminder to always check the expiration date on your neighbors. Ciao. Expiration date on your neighbors.

Speaker 2 1:28:06

Well, now the jig is up. Oliver knows that we were the one who mailed the boxes. We'll send them a copy of our terrible, cruel laughter while they actually had to eat what we gave them do you think that there will be a retaliation? I mean, what could that look like?

Speaker 1 1:28:19

I mean oliver, could make us eat it.

Speaker 2 1:28:22

They can't. They're stuck on like a escarpment thingy.

Speaker 1 1:28:25

Oh, good thing.

Speaker 2 1:28:26

They can't do anything to us. We're their benefactors.

Speaker 1 1:28:30

What if Oliver enlists the help of these raccoons he spoke of?

Speaker 2 1:28:36

I really like raccoons, but please don't do that. They can keep living in the woods.

Speaker 1 1:28:41

Leah, is this blech or is this bingeable?

Speaker 2 1:28:45

It's fucking gross. I'm giving it a five. I was literally gagging. I have to agree.

Speaker 1 1:28:53

That was a five on the blech scale. Yeah, that was like literally, I'd rather eat my own shoes.

Speaker 2 1:28:59

This is our ninth contestant and, yeah, I'd rather eat my own shoes before my boneless grandparent yeah, you know, the appetizer almost had me until the dipping sauce.

Speaker 1 1:29:09

Yeah, and I, and I thought like this is salvageable, because at least if it's a dipping sauce you can just not dip it in the sauce yeah, that's true.

Speaker 2 1:29:19

I would say that was. The only salvageable part of this whole meal was that you didn't have to eat the dipping sauce well, I guess technically you have to, because if you are on chopped as a judge, you have to taste everything that's true um this is like.

Speaker 2 1:29:36

This is like nicole byers show, in a way like nailed it. What we're doing, this is just terrible. This could be a real show. Food network call me yeah, uh, ingenuity, definitely some new things. Pie I mean, that was fucking disgusting, but I'd never heard pie before yeah, so this is like a meat pie.

Speaker 1 1:29:53

Yeah, slash, it was everything. It was just all the food in layers, yeah, like.

Speaker 2 1:29:58

and then, honestly, I've already compartmentalized and blanked out what the dessert was, because it just made me want to cry, oh yeah.

Speaker 1 1:30:06

It was like a bread pudding of donuts and awfulness.

Speaker 2 1:30:10

It would sound like just mush. If I remember, that's how they described it. Yeah, I think ingenuity though, because, like never heard, bread, pudding, pie, those are new combinations. You know, when you've been in the apocalypse for a while and you've had everything else that people have made from this really unhinged episode, you might be willing to be like you know what I need, something new. Yeah, I'm going to go with a four for ingenuity.

Speaker 1 1:30:33

What about you? Oh boy, Four and a half.

Speaker 2 1:30:37

Four and a half. Okay, taste and tone.

Speaker 1 1:30:40

I got to give Oliver a five on taste and tone. Oliver made a radio broadcast and the flair was there. The horror was also present, the humor I mean. We couldn't get through the thing without Leah laughing, as if I just told her about noodle pulling.

Speaker 2 1:31:03

Oh, no See, that's dead to me. I've made that, so I won't laugh about noodle pulling anymore. You say that I respect noodle pulling.

Speaker 1 1:31:12

Yeah, well, just wait until I make you ramen later.

Speaker 2 1:31:17

Anyways also gag-worthy imagery, oh yeah.

Speaker 1 1:31:21

I gagged, absolutely. Nero left the room e.

Speaker 2 1:31:25

Oh wait, we did. Uh. So last one, I'm gonna oh, I'm also gonna give a five for taste and tone. E end of the world realness. I mean five. Yeah, they're actually experiencing the end of the world right now.

Speaker 1 1:31:37

You know, you know why this deserves a five, even though this is a terrible usage of all of these ingredients. Why Is that? Along with it came the appropriate amount of regret. Like this is somebody who was like I have a good idea, I'm going to do this, and then they made it, and then they were like I. I have to squint and abandon God for this to make sense, so yeah, that's a five.

Speaker 2 1:32:14

Well, I'm really sorry to say Jack Callahan, but Oliver is the new zombie bean King.

Speaker 1 1:32:19

Oh boy I mean that's going to be a hard one to be. 37.5, there's not, there's not many areas where oliver has not excelled. Yeah, we got a few more okay I'm so sorry.

Speaker 2 1:32:33

Brian from zompocalypse podcast, can you beat that? Did you know you're gonna go right? I didn't know, this is a random order. Um, let me find brian. Brian's actually one of the first ones that I got and I was like this sounds pretty good from what I remember, but I feel like at this point my curve is I don't know. I'm like saturated with grossness, but also like a strange desire to eat all of these things. Yeah, at least once. What about, about?

Speaker 1 1:33:02

you Some of these things I would try.

Speaker 2 1:33:06

Alright, our friend Brian from Zumpocalypse podcast, appetizer mac and cheese pizza. Okay, using SpaghettiOs as sauce drizzles and hot sauce Sounds delicious. Pb and pretzel PB, pretzel and dried fruit in separate cups Perfect.

Speaker 1 1:33:21

This feels very reasonable, very doable and delicious, and they also go with this appetizer. So, like you know, even though you're not making anything special by putting them in separate cups, it feels like it makes sense to have pretzels and dried fruit with this, what it feels like kind of like bar food.

Speaker 2 1:33:42

Yeah, it does feel like bar food and it feels like kind of like bar food. Yeah, it does feel like bar food and it feels it feels like hearty, tasty, apocalyptic appetizer.

Speaker 1 1:33:49

I would eat this, no questions asked I feel like the dried fruit and the pretzels could go in the same one like a, like, almost a trail mix.

Speaker 2 1:33:56

But oh, I thought of them as being like in separate cups. When I read, it was like they were both in separate cups together like no that's, I'm just saying that they could yeah, I think that they should yeah that's how I read it. Okay entree human bean and peanut potato soup. Okay, human bean, human bean. I love a slow joke that like takes me a minute to get it. Yeah, that's brilliant.

Speaker 2 1:34:19

It snuck past me at first yeah, and I gotta say beans and peanuts do go well together. Yeah, um, use potato soup. They're both legumes. Re-establish that last episode, I think, or the episode before whatever. Use potato soup mix in peanuts, bean medley, human flesh, sprinkle cheese it.

Speaker 1 1:34:36

I love that sprinkle cheese it yeah, like on top, you just like crush it up and sprinkle again the peaches I don't know peaches use this decorative topping, so I guess that implies you could take the garnish smart yeah, anyway, if it's, if it's resting on top, you can. You can still eat the garnish without it contaminating the rest of the soup peanut butter, mac and cheese and honeyo cereal.

Speaker 2 1:34:59

Use the beer like milk. Mix in everything like cereal. That's disgusting, that is awful.

Speaker 1 1:35:05

I went from.

Speaker 2 1:35:06

This is very common. It's very rare that it gets better. Yeah, appetizer usually the best Entree passable. I need to go back and look at the desserts to be like if any of those I would eat. If I looked closely, I know Alice's. I was like.

Speaker 1 1:35:24

I would eat this until I thought about it. Yeah, I would eat the entree. The appetizer is also edible. The dessert is not.

Speaker 2 1:35:34

So that's a two out of three. So I would say I would give us all a three and a half out of five for this.

Speaker 1 1:35:40

The dessert is something that Homer Simpson would do if Marge wasn't wasn't taking care of him okay, what's what's your score for blech or bingeability?

Speaker 2 1:35:52

oh, that's tough, because it goes from bingeable to blech that's true yeah we think that the blech is intentional with dessert oh my god, three and a half because I think it might be intentional.

Speaker 1 1:36:06

It actually made me go up to four oh, I'm sure it was intentional, but, like I, I feel, like I feel like it was going one direction and then went in the opposite direction again, we didn't share any of these rules like there's, there's not a, uh, there's not a meal consistency oh, you want to be grossed out from start to finish?

Speaker 2 1:36:24

yeah, I think you just made that up right now and absolutely did not score that way in the past. But let's move on to ingenuity. Uh, human beings, that's ingenuity. That is yes.

Speaker 1 1:36:34

Uh, the cereal definitely like actually just making everything into a Belgian beer like milk that's fucking so gross yeah, you know I am gonna give a high score on ingenuity I'm gonna get a solid four there too, yeah I'm gonna go four and a half because it is. There is some ingenuity there. There really is. That's the type of ingenuity that you regret later, it's true uh, taste and tone.

Speaker 2 1:36:59

I think again these. These read like I'm looking at a menu so it's like good and there's some good jokes. Yeah, like sprinkle cheese it that made me smile. Human beans uh three and a half yeah, yeah, three and a half from each of us. Last but not least, end of the world realness.

Speaker 1 1:37:15

I, after just hearing oliver's description, I think this is real because there's a certain point where you just don't care and you need something new yeah, yeah and and much like oliver's, I, I, I feel like the dessert at the end was was that thing that you do, where you're just like, like I'm gonna do this is gonna be good much like homer simpson, I believe in this and then you take one bite of it and you're just like you just push it away and then you leave the room without a single word.

Speaker 2 1:37:46

But then you come back to eat it because you're so hungry.

Speaker 1 1:37:49

At midnight you come back for more.

Speaker 2 1:37:51

I got to say this actually has real end of the world-ness.

Speaker 3 1:37:54

Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:37:54

Because all of these things feel cookable. Five, five Okay.

Speaker 1 1:37:58

That's real. That's your answer. Five, five, okay, that's real.

Speaker 2 1:37:59

That's your answer. Five, five across the boards. So close, but doesn't quite beat Oliver Gray from WZMB radio. You got a 33 score, brian. That's quite high. Okay, let's move on to our author friend R Cuthbertson, who has not been on the show yet, but we get to have them on this winter to talk about their book of undead, which just came out a couple weeks ago is it about surfing? And zombies. Oh, I was just guessing. Also it's a.

Speaker 1 1:38:28

Also, there's a sibling um dynamic too that's really interesting all right, I'm on board okay so cuthbertson writes.

Speaker 2 1:38:37

That's actually literally their handle. It's r cuthbertson dot writes, so you should go follow them. Uh, appy spicy spaghettio slash mac and cheese flatbread with a side of dried fruit and crushed peanut. Their handle it's rcuthbertsonwrites, so you should go follow them. Appy Spicy Spaghetti-O slash Mac and Cheese Flatbread with a side of dried fruit and crushed peanut butter pretzels.

Speaker 1 1:38:49

Okay.

Speaker 2 1:38:50

Main Creamy potato and bean soup. Everybody's doing soup With braised man meat. Oh, I was definitely pulling a noodle here. Okay, you didn't laugh at my pulling a noodle, joe you know, it was it. It just got to me I'm gonna start in the beginning create potato and bean soups with braised man meat and a crust of crumbled cheez-its. On the side we have caramelized oh that's good caramelized peaches with some crushed peanuts for texture. I like that.

Speaker 1 1:39:24

Best use of peaches, I think so far Other than the marinade, except for just eating the peaches and then pouring the juice in. That was very real.

Speaker 2 1:39:31

Yeah, dessert Sliced softies with a generous layer of peanut butter topped with crushed honeyos. This is starting to sound like Gerard's like gerrard's um deluxe cheesy mac noodles cooked in belgian beer. Okay, that's unique. Just using the noodles? Yeah well, using the.

Speaker 1 1:39:47

Using the belgian beer is like the liquid instead of water, and baked beans and sausages on the side yeah, I mean, it doesn't scream dessert, but it's edible food yeah, I, I'm not saying anything here I wouldn't eat, especially in an apocalyptic scenario, you know what I love for dessert, what it's just more food, yeah, so I feel like that's a great dessert for me.

Speaker 2 1:40:10

I mean, you're hungry?

Speaker 1 1:40:11

I don't think you're really caring too much, give me those beer noodles.

Speaker 2 1:40:14

I would imagine a scenario where you'd need to do this. You know a horde is coming and you're like'm gonna fucking go out.

Speaker 1 1:40:23

Yeah, party style, last supper I've I've been storing and rationing my food things around yeah, I'm just gonna eat it all. Yeah, and I don't care if I regret it, because I'm not gonna live long enough.

Speaker 2 1:40:36

It's your last okay, I think, for bleh slash binge ability, I I think I'm going to give a solid four, because I would put all of this in my mouth. What about you, dan? Yeah.

Speaker 1 1:40:47

I'm going to give a four and a half because it does sound appetizing.

Speaker 2 1:40:52

Okay, Ingenuity. I think it's pretty high the man meat for one.

Speaker 1 1:40:58

That's very specific. We didn't specify which parts of the human were yeah, flatbread instead of pizza.

Speaker 2 1:41:05

I mean, that's just psychological, frankly, but it worked for me, because again you want something different. And then the noodles cooked in belgian beer. I'm gonna give that also a four. What about you?

Speaker 1 1:41:14

for ingenuity ingenuity, yeah. I think four is a is an appropriate okay score for that, yeah taste and tone.

Speaker 2 1:41:22

Did it have flair, drama, horror or humor?

Speaker 1 1:41:24

I mean it had man meat that gives me an automatic three.

Speaker 2 1:41:30

I think it was pretty like solid. It was to be fair. Uh, it was a very short instagram like message on the thread yeah for the post, so I think it was great for that. What?

Speaker 1 1:41:41

about you for taste? Oh yeah, three Okay.

Speaker 2 1:41:47

End of the world realness.

Speaker 1 1:41:49

I think this is where it gets a five, because this sounds, for the most part, like something that you would actually want to eat in the apocalypse.

Speaker 2 1:41:58

I agree, and that gives you a very solid score of 32.5. Nice, but it doesn't beat. Of 32.5. Nice, but it doesn't beat Oliver Gray.

Speaker 1 1:42:05

It doesn't.

Speaker 2 1:42:07

So you know Oliver suffers, but they may win the prize for this.

Speaker 1 1:42:10

It's a possibility. What is the prize we're going to?

Speaker 2 1:42:13

say that at the end. Okay, insert Jack Callahan's. I don't like that laugh. Insert Jack Callahan's maniacal laughter here. Okay, last, second, last but not least, the Skimsons which I'm going to tell you all this is my mom and her partner collaborating and I'm really proud of them for what they've created, but I don't know if I can score it because of the level of bias that I have as my family unit, so you're going to be alone scoring this.

Speaker 3 1:42:48

Oh, it's just me.

Speaker 2 1:42:49

And they will judge you as their in-law.

Speaker 1 1:42:51

Well, already they're only going to have half the points.

Speaker 2 1:42:54

I'll just double it.

Speaker 1 1:42:56

Just whatever I score, you're just going to yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 1:43:04

I'm going can agree with. All right, the scrimson ones across the board. Oh, you can talk to my mom about that later. Okay, appetizer one. So there's, uh, two appetizers here. The first is spaghettios with scrotum balls in blood sauce I'm sorry what I guess they added the scrotum balls, I don't know.

Speaker 2 1:43:24

So SpaghettiOs with scrotum balls and blood sauce. And then we actually get a real recipe Dan SpaghettiOs with scrotum balls and blood sauce. Ingredients are hot sauce, kraft, mac and cheese, spaghettios and the pizza kit. Follow the directions on the box to make the mac and cheese Open pizza kit. I appreciate that detail, mom. Yeah, you want to open it first, like one of those things where it's like you gotta say the obvious thing, otherwise you're gonna get sued. Yeah, so it has to say open the pizza.

Speaker 1 1:43:50

You can't just put the pizza kit in the oven you gotta take the pre-kneaded dough out of the plastic before you put it in the oven.

Speaker 2 1:43:56

Yes, it's important. Mix pizza crust ingredients as directed. Open package of sauce and cheese in pizza kit. Mix sauce and cheese with mac and cheese. Form pizza dough into scrotum balls. Okay, indent each scrotum ball and open up to make Ew, I see what you did there To make a pocket for filling. Fill each scrotum ball pocket with the cheesy mac mix. This makes mac and cheesy scrotum balls Exclamation point. Seal up each scrotum ball to form nice firm balls for juicy eating. Bake for 30 minutes at 350, turning once after 15 minutes.

Speaker 1 1:44:38

Oh, I always hate it when you gotta turn it after 15 minutes.

Speaker 2 1:44:41

It's not done yet. Open up the spaghettios can by gnawing on it with your teeth. That is the points off. Spit out the lid. Very see again details. Don't swallow and heat as directed in saucepan. Warm up hot sauce in a separate small saucepan. Serve juicy, juicy mac and cheesy scrotum balls with spaghettios topped with hot blood sauce. Lap it all up with blood dripping zeal. Then they have a second appetizer that goes with this, which is called dry dried bowel excrement.

Speaker 1 1:45:08

God, that sounds like what I'm going to have after.

Speaker 2 1:45:13

Well, this is a very ingenious name, for we've already heard a lot of people do. It's just the peanut butter pretzels and the dried fruit mix put together, uh, and eat them with real finger toothpicks what are?

Speaker 1 1:45:24

what are finger toothpicks?

Speaker 2 1:45:26

like finger finger toothpicks like the toothpick is also a finger. So you like grab somebody's finger, I don't know, I don't know. You stab like a needle in the end and then you like hold it to grab the food, I don't know. Yeah, I think that that wouldn't work very well with the peanut butter pretzels.

Speaker 3 1:45:42

They would just break.

Speaker 2 1:45:43

Yeah.

Speaker 1 1:45:44

I mean, if you get it just right, like you maybe could pierce it.

Speaker 2 1:45:48

All right, entree Fleshy body part scramble A scramble. Yeah, all of the ingredients are there listed. My mom, or the scrimson sorry, I know that you had a heavy hand in this burn. Chop up the human flesh, peaches just the kidney substitute, cheez-its, chopped spinal bone, oh Ugh and combine, pour into a stir-fry pan, stir-fry until crispy. Then stir in peanuts, lymph nodes and bean medley extracted from a human stomach.

Speaker 1 1:46:18

Wow, wow. So the beans have to be partially digested, I guess. So I guess we didn't say that we didn't.

Speaker 2 1:46:25

Yeah, I mean, maybe they got this from a zombie. Heat potato soup which is also a lumpy stomach. Bile Pour over the fleshy body parts, scramble and serve, best eaten in large clumps scooped up by hand.

Speaker 1 1:46:39

Oh, so it even has like suggestions for how to eat it. Yeah, uh dessert.

Speaker 2 1:46:45

Dicks on sticks served in yummy vomit sauce. All the ingredients are listed there. Skewer the sausages individually to make dicks on sticks. Relish in the feeling as you skewer through the sausage dicks. Mix vegan cheesy mac as directed. What's wrong with the humans? Why do they want to be vegan? Flushes in well, it could be a vegan person anyways. In a large bowl, mix together the vegan cheesy mac with peanut butter, baked beans that you were separated from the sausages, honey, o's and chopped donuts to make yucky vomit sauce. I mean, that is an honest description of what it is vomit sauce. Wow, warm the dicks on sticks and vomit sauce. Serve excruciatingly delicious vomit sauce over dicks on sticks. Serve with warm belgian belch beer and hoover voraciously. Wow, scrimpsons, team scrimson. I'm not gonna say, I'm gonna let dan dan judge it. I fell orability. What's the score? I feel ill, okay.

Speaker 1 1:47:46

What does that get them? That's a solid five on Blech.

Speaker 2 1:47:51

Okay, I would have agreed. What about Ingenuity?

Speaker 1 1:47:54

Oh, this is very ingenuitous. Also, I want to add as I was listening to it this has all the vibes of you're going trick-or-treating and you go to the one house where they're not treating. They're inviting people in to reach through a bowl full of grapes and they're like they're eyeballs.

Speaker 2 1:48:19

I have a lot of bad memories of that.

Speaker 1 1:48:22

But very ingenuous, I would say I gotta go with a five for ingenuity.

Speaker 2 1:48:28

Are you just sucking up to my familial unit?

Speaker 1 1:48:33

I mean this is a very different take that we've seen across the board.

Speaker 2 1:48:38

It makes me think about the recipe cards that were in my house and some of the old recipe books with like handwritten recipes from family that very like it, just like I could like picture on like a human family level. It's like, oh my god, this is.

Speaker 1 1:48:50

I've read these recipes but, just with not so disgusting ingredients um tone I mean, this is humor, this is I mean. Yeah, I mean are you like?

Speaker 2 1:49:02

are you upset at the fact that you might give them a perfect score?

Speaker 1 1:49:05

I am very upset about it. I wanted to give you once.

Speaker 2 1:49:11

I mean, does it have flair, drama, horror and humor? Is there gag-worthy imagery?

Speaker 1 1:49:15

Yeah, yeah, it has all those things. I gotta give it a five. Okay, what about end-of of the world realness? Do I believe at the end of the world that people will be like like come inside and have my, my, my, spaghettios, scrotum balls with a?

Speaker 2 1:49:39

dry bowel excrement. Yeah, that doesn. That doesn't feel real. It's funny but not real.

Speaker 1 1:49:43

Maybe a crazy person, and this is where I'm gonna have to take points off. Okay, even though the food itself, with the exception of mixing the mac and cheese and peanut butter, which I've already explained, is a very bad idea. Why won't you guys listen to me? Even though I think that all of this food is very foodable, I gotta take off points, because I don't think that you could present this to somebody in the apocalypse and be taken seriously. They'd be like what the fuck are you talking?

Speaker 2 1:50:23

about. Maybe this is a villain character.

Speaker 1 1:50:25

It has to be a villain this is a villain chef yeah, I'm gonna go. Oh, my god, this is hard. Four, four four.

Speaker 2 1:50:32

Okay, what does it do to the score? Oh my god, they edged out all over gray by a half a point at 38.

Speaker 1 1:50:42

We have one more, ollie, I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 1:50:46

Yeah, I should never have invited them into this. My mother will never let me live this down.

Speaker 1 1:50:50

Ollie, this is all Leah's fault.

Speaker 2 1:50:53

Does this mean that my mom and her partner are the zombie bean king? You know what? There's one more, joe. Salazar are you going to beat this score? Because it's still not a perfect score. We could be 40.

Speaker 1 1:51:06

Joe Salazar is a very talented writer, very good at writing Great imagination.

Speaker 2 1:51:13

Great at describing things. Nero, our dog, agrees Hold on a second. Nero, come. Are you ready for the finale, the final contestant? I'm ready, all right. Also a message in part of the thread for this post where I made a call for recipes, joe says okay, here is my answer. Period App colon smoothie period.

Speaker 1 1:51:35

Yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 1:51:36

How do you feel about that?

Speaker 1 1:51:38

So we're saying SpaghettiOs, the pizza kit, including the dough and the sauce, and whatever toppings. The hot sauce, mac and cheese. Mac and cheese, a smoothie, yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 1:51:54

Also, there is no other description, just smoothie. The entree Joe says Main colon smoothie Period. The entree Joe says main colon smoothie period. So now we're looking at a smoothie made out of potato soup cheese. It's peanuts, canned peaches, bean medley, human flesh. That's going to give you diarrhea, yeah.

Speaker 1 1:52:19

But you know what Good protein, though, do?

Speaker 2 1:52:21

you think? Do you think Joe's going to go somewhere? New for the dessert.

Speaker 1 1:52:25

Um, I don't. I have a feeling that we're heading somewhere, yeah.

Speaker 2 1:52:34

Dessert, colon, also smoothie, but no period at the end. It's very important. This is like a poem and there's very intentional punctuation, I think, happening here. I'm gonna read it all as one beautiful poem. Okay, here is my answer app smoothie, main smoothie, dessert, also smoothie. It is a soothing uh melody to it, that is disgusting. The dessert round is a smoothie made of vegan cheesy mac donuts, peanut butter, honey-o's cereal, baked beans and vegetarian sausages and Belgian beer. That is a fucking vomit fest.

Speaker 1 1:53:13

It actually sounds better than the previous two smoothies.

Speaker 2 1:53:16

Do you think so, but can you imagine the smell?

Speaker 1 1:53:21

Could you imagine what the blender would look like after you were done?

Speaker 2 1:53:27

like human excrement yeah, not dried.

Speaker 1 1:53:30

It looked the same way going in as it looks coming out oh god uh, all right, are we ready to score? I think so will joe?

Speaker 2 1:53:44

horrible abomination blech or bingeability. This is a five out of five. Blech, yeah, fucking disgusting, easily five blech that's honestly like I can imagine smelling it and it's making me want to gag ingenuity. I mean, they used every ingredient they did, but that's, that's the baseline. People lost points for not using every ingredient, but we can't. What does use every ingredient get you for ingenuity? How and how much ingenuity is smoothie?

Speaker 1 1:54:13

I guess. I guess, if you're talking about smoothies, they are typically low, low energy, low creativity, burn. You know, you, when you're making a smoothie, you're doing it because you need sustenance, not because you're after an experience yeah, like are you toothless at this point.

Speaker 2 1:54:34

Have you just had like your teeth rotted?

Speaker 1 1:54:35

out because, that said, the smoothies that we had at living dead weekend were excellent.

Speaker 2 1:54:40

They were, and they were unlike any smoothie I'd ever had, because I'd never put avocado in a smoothie before so you're saying that you you're leaving room willing to suspend your disbelief and be like maybe this could be good, because I have not had this combination of things in a smoothie before this makes me think of something.

Speaker 1 1:54:57

Um, it was a movie that I'd only seen once. It was called end End of Days, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, I think it came out in 1999. It was about the end of the world, where the devil comes back and the Antichrist is born. His name is Donald Trump and that part I made up, but at the very beginning they're trying to paint Arnold Schwarzeneg as this um, really fucked up alcoholic character who, like, is just off the rails and his partner comes over, wakes him up off his couch because he's in a drunken stupor, um, and he's like you're late for work. And he's like, oh, I gotta get ready for work. So he makes a smoothie and he does it by grabbing all of the like leftover food on his counter and putting it in a blender.

Speaker 1 1:55:42

He picks up a slice of pizza off the floor and sniffs it and then puts that in and then he drinks it and that's, that's what this is giving and as much, as much as I gotta say that like a smoothie is like the thing that you do just to sustain yourself. It is in, it is it takes. It takes some, some creativity to say I'm gonna take all of these things and not make a meal and instead just blend it in a blender for shock value like it's art. It is hard I'm gonna give it a three and a half okay it was very impassioned for three and a half.

Final Contestants & Winner Announced

Speaker 2 1:56:22

Okay, I was very impassioned for three and a half. I'm surprised it's not higher. I don't know, this feels like a poem to me, but I feel like that goes into tone. So I'm going to save my love for the poem that is this entree, entree, yeah, entry Ingenuity. I think it's a smart solution, but it doesn't take the level of creativity that was required for the other ones to come up with. And also there could have been a surprise somewhere with something not quite as smooth.

Speaker 1 1:56:54

I feel like the whole thing was a surprise. I'm going to give it a three. It had the same amount of surprise as somebody jumping out of an alleyway and flashing you. Well, here's where I'm going to give it a three. It had the same amount of surprise as somebody jumping out of an alleyway and like flashing you.

Speaker 2 1:57:05

Well, here's where I'm going to get to the tone taste Surprise. Was there humor? Yes, yes. Was there drama? Yes, yes. Horror, yes. Was there flair? And did it make me gag? Yes, yes, because I think this is a perfect example of less is more. You don't always have to say a lot to make somebody want to fucking vomit. Yeah, I, um, I'm going to give five. You're giving a five, give me a five.

Speaker 1 1:57:33

Oh, I hate to agree with you. This is a poetic masterpiece, but it uh. I can't give it a five though you don't have to. I can't give it a five though you don't have to. I can't. Leah.

Speaker 2 1:57:42

Then what are you going to give it? I don't know. At this point, my mom or sorry, the Skimsons have it in the bag. So unless you do something drastic with me, I'm not picking favorites.

Speaker 1 1:57:54

Leah, each one of these people I scored on the merits of their food and how they write about their food. Okay, and no bias allowed, but you're right Like it does describe all those things with like one fucking word that just says smoothie, yeah, oh, and there's definitely a tone and a taste and a taste it and a humor. Like you can taste those words, it's disgusting yeah, yeah, it tastes like hot garbage end of the world realness again.

Speaker 2 1:58:29

Only a villain would make this for somebody else to consume, so I guess they're. I don't know. I feel like there's going to be a little more in the middle for me, but you tell me what do you think?

Speaker 1 1:58:39

I.

Speaker 2 1:58:39

I think it is real because, like you, think you'd be willing to take all those ingredients that are perfectly edible by themselves and make those movies.

Speaker 1 1:58:44

No, absolutely not. But if I was a psychopath, I'm imagining, let's say, I'm wearing the face of another human being on my face. Okay, because I want to live my life as that person after the apocalypse, and I go from place to place cutting people's ears off. Wow, this took a turn and I don't have a whole lot of time to venture into culinary adventures. I'm not eating for enjoyment, I'm eating for sustenance. I'm going to make a smoothie out of all of this random shit I found in somebody's backpack, because I need the fuel that's going to help me get my next face mask. You have to keep it down.

Speaker 2 1:59:31

You have to keep it down. I can't imagine any human being with a functioning tongue saying yes to this. If you were injecting it into your body some other way directly into your stomach fine I well that's, I'm boofing it.

Speaker 1 1:59:47

What's that it's when you put it up through your butt instead of through your mouth are you really?

Speaker 2 1:59:52

this might make it even worse oh my god, all of this is terrible. No, it makes sense this only makes sense if you are, you are harming someone else that you love Exactly.

Speaker 1 2:00:04

Or did love, and that's the goal, because I'm a psychopath in this reality.

Speaker 2 2:00:08

Okay, so from your point of view, if they were a full psychopath, what score would this be?

Speaker 1 2:00:13

Two, it is a better idea to just eat your food, yes, instead of putting it in your butt.

Speaker 2 2:00:23

I'm going to give it a three because I did not think of putting it in my butt and I am willing to put like sort of in the middle answer with like, yeah, if you think about it from the point of view of a villain who wanted to do something terrible. Yeah, like, imagine if, like, we were psychopaths and we were like you know, what we're gonna do in the apocalypse is we are gonna get all of our favorite authors and we're gonna bring them into our bunker. We're gonna tie them down and break their knees and make them write the next book in their sequel and we have to feed them and we have to threaten them with some, some consequence, because they know we want them to be alive and we know we want, they know that we want them to keep functioning. Yeah, so the one thing we can really threaten them with is physical pain or torture and I think saying I'm gonna put these in a smoothie and force you to fucking eat it.

Speaker 1 2:01:10

Right, the next chapter is diabolical yeah, also we could get some like giant hamster feeding bottles and like hang them up in the corner of their of their cell and they have to like lick the little ball bearing to get more of the smoothie to come out.

Speaker 2 2:01:26

Wow, see, this is why I think the Tonus was brilliant, because the imagination can go wild with something so simple. But I'm still giving it a three for end of the world realness, which means Joe gets 31 and a half points and the Skimsons, god damn it.

Speaker 1 2:01:42

The Skimsons, god damn it, since one I think there's no justice in this world I don't think.

Speaker 2 2:01:49

Why is there no justice? How do you feel about?

Speaker 1 2:01:50

the skimsons one.

Speaker 2 2:01:52

Yeah, how do you feel? About that it's just wrong, it's wrong, it's wrong so you think I should give the prize to the runner-up all of no, I are the rules, but. Well, here's the problem is that I know for a fact that my mother can't eat any of this shit.

Speaker 1 2:02:08

That's true. Is that points off for the end of times?

Speaker 2 2:02:11

realness that's actually a good point, but no, because they were following the challenge. They could have been making this for somebody else, that's true.

Speaker 1 2:02:17

You know they didn't make people food that they could eat. Well, joe could have been making those smoothies for somebody else right to harm them.

Speaker 2 2:02:22

Yeah, um, okay, mom, burn. I love you. This was beyond expectation. Yeah, welcome to the sick noodle pulling worlds of zombie book club. And you won. You won, but you don't win the prize because you can't eat it well, the prize, I prize. I was going to actually make the menu, one item from the menu, and taste it.

Speaker 1 2:02:50

I'm really glad Joe didn't win.

Speaker 2 2:02:55

But I don't know if I can eat scrotum balls.

Speaker 1 2:02:59

We're going to eat some scrotum balls, Leah.

Speaker 2 2:03:02

I wanted to eat all over his menu. I wanted the pie, the layered pie. You wanted that there's something worse about it being disgustingly named. I wish I could have scored for that one. You, you all, wouldn't have gotten as high of a score if it wasn't for dan, just so you know. I would have scored you lower, just so I would have made sure that I got to try the pie leah, this is all your fault it is because I agreed to be non-biased and that's for okay.

Speaker 2 2:03:27

Well, that's the prize, and I guess it's maybe a prize for everybody else. You're gonna get to watch a video of dan and I attempting to make this menu and trying, well, trying it I don't know if we're gonna be able to make the full course three courses, but we'll we'll try one. Maybe we can have a vote on which one we should eat.

Speaker 1 2:03:46

The good news is that the instructions were very clear.

Speaker 2 2:03:49

They were yeah, we're going to be able to make it.

Speaker 1 2:03:51

Yeah, there's not going to be any guesswork involved, for sure.

Speaker 2 2:03:54

Should we let the listeners know which thing we have to eat? I don't know why I thought of this as a prize.

Speaker 1 2:04:10

Who's it a prize for? Who wins my mother, I guess so.

Speaker 2 2:04:15

Although I don't think she wants to see me suffer. I think Burn does, though Burn definitely does. Yeah, well, we made it through. Are you hungry, are you not? I'm kind of confused. Yeah, personally, right now I'm gonna need some time and space before food um, yeah, it's.

Speaker 1 2:04:36

It's gonna be a long time before I eat again.

Speaker 2 2:04:38

Um, it could be days I actually suggested that we have a smoothie for dinner tonight before we read this. That's right, and I'm officially revoking that suggestion as a dinner and I know it's not a tip, but whatever you can have a smoothie any time of day, but not Joe Salazar smoothies. No, those are no. Well, we've come to the end.

Speaker 1 2:04:58

Yeah, thanks for sticking with us this long, oh boy. Yeah, thanks, thanks for sticking with us this long, oh boy. What a what an episode. Um, how are you feeling, leah?

Speaker 2 2:05:08

I'm feeling like I can't find our end of the show now. Me too, I'm trying to scroll. I don't think they're there so I'm trying to find.

Speaker 1 2:05:14

Oh, I found some, okay, uh, you know, if you guys want to support us, you could leave us a rating or review. We like reviews.

Speaker 2 2:05:25

Something I've noticed lately because I have access to Buzzsprout, where we publish our podcast room is that most of you are podcast listeners, but we have more ratings and reviews on Spotify. So if you are an Apple podcast listener, could you go hit that five star for us? We'd really appreciate it.

Speaker 1 2:05:41

Yeah, give us that five. You know, If you don't listen on Apple, just download it and give us a rate.

Speaker 2 2:05:47

Maybe you can tell us what you would cook. Which team were you on? Team Joe Salazar. Would you want a smoothie? Who did you?

Episode Wrap-Up

Speaker 1 2:05:54

want to win. That's the real question. Who should have won instead of the Skimsons? The Skimsons, you could also sign up for our newsletter. Please do. I'm getting so close to it not going to people's spam folders. One day, one day, you're gonna get that highly coveted uh newsletter and you'll be like wow, this is what I signed up for. But also, if you wanted to follow us, you can follow us on Instagram at Zombie Book Club Podcast, or you can join our Brain Munchers Collective Discord. All the links are in the description. They're there, trust me.

Speaker 2 2:06:36

After reading this menu, the end is definitely nigh, baby.

Speaker 1 2:06:39

Oh, the end is coming back up.

Speaker 2 2:06:45

Or starting there, according to you, with the smoothie animal off the butt. Bye-bye everybody. Bye-bye. Don't die and don't eat any of these recipes. That's only or. If you do, we are not liable.

Speaker 1 2:07:00

We deny any responsibility.

Speaker 2 2:07:02

Yes, all right.

Speaker 1 2:07:03

Bye, bye, bye-bye. Do we are not liable? We deny any responsibility? Yes, all right, um, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye pink pony club pink pony

Speaker 2 2:07:26

club pink pony club. Pink pony club pink pony club.