Very Audacious
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Very Audacious
Dressing vs Stuffing
We back, y'all!
Welcome to Very Audacious, the podcast where we audaciously delve into faith, culture and everything in between. I'm your host, sean Tripline, and we're not holding back, so buckle up for this audacious ride. If you're as daring as we are, don't forget to like, share and subscribe. Very Audacious Family, the A-Fam. It is so good to be in this space and to also have the world's best co-host in the world, brother pastor Jaylen Baker. What's up, man?
Speaker 2:Hey man, we back in this thing. It's been a while, it's been a minute.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's been a hot minute, a hot second back. Yes sir, yes sir, but it's good to be back, man, how you been For real.
Speaker 2:I've been good bro, I've been good man. I actually officially got him started as an elder at my church in the last couple of weeks, so I am officially an elder associate pastor over at Jekyll's Wells. I stopped by and see him every, every, every in the area and, yeah, man, school's been good. I've been loving what I'm learning and reading and writing. It's been a good time, man, it's been a good time. It's just loving doing what the Lord has called me to do. How you been, fam, how you been. You don't get into how you been. You're going to get into that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm going to give you that. So before we shift to me, you mentioned your installation as an elder at Jekyll's Wells, also known as J-Well. What is the address to J-Well? Tell us where it is.
Speaker 2:Is it bad that I don't know what the address is?
Speaker 1:Well, what town? What town is it?
Speaker 2:It's in Well, I know I think it's 2000,. Root 27. So we are in North Brunswick, new Jersey. I'm going to our website right now to get the address we are located at. My lord, my lord, you should know the address of your own church 2000 NJ 27,. North Brunswick Township, new Jersey. If you just Google us Jekyll's Wells Community Church, I ask you to pop right up. But we are in North Brunswick, new Jersey. Come on by, we'd love to have you.
Speaker 1:Amen, amen. Yeah, I know you're there. I enjoyed my time in worship and grateful to the people at that great church that have affirmed you in this way and if affirmed what.
Speaker 1:God has already done in your life and the calling that God has placed on you. That is an immense blessing and I just give God praise for that. It's a blessing to see you know we talk about you and all the rest of our friends from seminary People that are tuning in for the first time in. J went to Princeton Seminary together our masters of divinity, and he's back in his PhD because he's an overachiever. All right Now, as for me and my house, we're going to mind our business.
Speaker 2:All right.
Speaker 1:But J had to go back to get the PhD. So, we're grateful, but to see everybody growing and thriving in various ways and how God is just doing a new thing is just so powerful. So you asked about me. Now let's go ahead and address the elephant in the room. Now you said you said somebody in your camp asked a question about the podcast. What question did they ask?
Speaker 2:Well, I had a few responses. One person was like are y'all just done with the podcast? We finished, we get finished. And I have one person say, hey, I'm joking but I'm also kind of serious, Did y'all get canceled? I hope y'all didn't get canceled, man. So it's been some questions and some questions amongst people about what we've been at tripling.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we didn't get canceled. My electricity got cut off, my God, my God, I'm just kidding. Everything's built in front of my electricity, but listen, this is what's been going on, people of God. So in my life those that know me well know that I serve in ministry, very grateful to do so Because the assistant pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church also serve in interim capacity at the Hapro Baptist Church Great people over there and I truly love the spaces that God has given me to serve in.
Speaker 1:But at Bethlehem, our dear and beloved senior pastor, charles Warren Kwan, our pastor, recently underwent a very serious surgery heart surgery and there were complications and essentially all of our worlds were turned upside down as we were praying for him and bombarding heaven for his healing.
Speaker 1:So we are so grateful that after a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very Um very scary situations Going to be honest, it was very scary and uh very troubling Um that Jehovah Rapha showed up and showed out and uh took, you know, from complications, you know, to ICU.
Speaker 1:Now he is in rehab, you know, relearning the process of walking and doing what he has to do for his physical body. But we just give God thanks for the doctors at Abboton hospital and all those that have cared for him in the season to allow him, um to be able to experience this miracle in this way, um. So for that reason, I have had to scale back from a lot of things, as we have, you know, tended to the, the Kwan family, uh, beautiful, wonderful family. I've had the pleasure of walking beside them through this process as well. As you know, the enlargement, augmentation of my role at Bethlehem during this season, um, it's been um a challenge, but one that has been met with a lot of grace and mercy and love from the leadership of our church, and so it's really been. As we look back on it, you know, the apostle Paul says all things work together for good for them. That love God called according to his purpose.
Speaker 1:Everything don't always feel good, everything doesn't always look good, but the guy that we serve has the power to work it for good.
Speaker 2:And that's good.
Speaker 1:So. So in that you know, we've experienced the goodness of God, so that's why we have not been here. We did not get canceled. My electricity did not get cut off.
Speaker 1:It's simply that we had to take a little, uh, sabbatical for a moment, um, so that we can tend to some of these things. Now I want to say this the local church matters. All right, yeah, when we think about you know we're doing virtual ministry with, we're doing things in different ways, um, but the local church matters and in moments where life is real, that I mean that experience of being in fellowship and community matters and it really is consequential for our daily lives and, uh, I've had to tend to that, you know in the season so so, uh, so so grateful that uh, Jay did not give up on me, um in this process, as well as the rest of you.
Speaker 1:thank y'all for checking in on the problem and making sure. I'm good.
Speaker 2:I'm good and I'm glad that we are back in this place because this is actually matters as well. Amen, and, as you know, I'm, I'm, I've been with Tripline, I've been friends with him since he's been an assistant pastor at Bethlehem. Yeah, I definitely would say that they could not be more blessed and lucky to have someone like Reverend Tripline step into their role and uh be serving in this role as he's been serving. As you know, the emergency with Pasquain uh has happened and yeah, I'm, we're grateful to God that God has delivered uh you're a pastor um, uh from from that emergency and we're thankful that he's recovering well. And we're also grateful that you know you, you were ready to step right on in and be obedient to the call that God has on your life and step again to that role in the ministry in the way that you have at at Bethlehem. So we're grateful for you, brother. Thanks, I'm thankful for what God has done.
Speaker 2:I know that that was very unexpected timing for you, to say the least. Yeah, man, but yeah, man you were, I think, I think I think you were. You were as well suited for the job and I'm happy to see what the Lord continues to do through you at that church. And uh, yeah, as as as, uh, as Pastor coin continues to to, to, to train you and mentor you, um, in that role.
Speaker 1:Yup, I'm grateful for him, and so let's keep praying for him. Thank you, brother, for that, uh, for that affirmation. So I want to talk for a second about a holiday.
Speaker 2:It's the holiday here we go, here, we go we bout, we bout to hit December.
Speaker 1:We just passed now. Obviously, everybody knows what I'm thankful for in this season. Um but I want to talk about you. Know what? What? What has happened in your life? How did you spend the holiday, brother?
Speaker 2:Well, I spent the holiday back home with my family in Texas. We were having a good old time eating some dressing. You already know what it is eating some dressing, some smoked turkey. You know how we do it down in the south. We're going to put that turkey in the smoker to get that flavor, absolutely. And yeah, man, and you know I don't know if I've ever told you about this particular dessert dish that my family does. That's probably one of the best desserts and unhealthy is dessert that I cause you to have a heart attack is a honey bun cake. You ever heard that before?
Speaker 1:I ain't never heard about it.
Speaker 2:Man it a bless you if you let it. I'm just, I'm just out here to tell you so that's something that's, that's, that's a staple dish in our house. We usually don't do it around the holidays because we ain't, we ain't out here trying to die of diabetes. But that honey bun cake, man, it a bless you in ways. I just just. It's soft, it's moist, it really is a honey bun manifesting in just a blessing. It truly is. It's phenomenal, it's actually phenomenal.
Speaker 1:Now, when you say, when you say honey bun cake, now are you saying that you're? Is it like you're layering the cake or the honey buns and your? No, no, no, no, no no no, no, or you actually you're blending it up and put it in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, so, so it really is like we're making a homemade honey bun, so we don't. Oh, got it. I want to make sure I'm doing this right, yeah. So it's it's. It's better than little Debbie's. Little Debbie's ain't got nothing in her homemade oh it's gonna be some big Deborah.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's it. Oh, that's it, man, that's it. So that was good. You know what else I did? I also got to spend some time with my. I got a brother, a little brother and sister, and we went to go see the new Hunger Games movie, which is good. Yeah, it was just good. Spend time with them, catch up with them, talk with them. We all adults now, man, we all getting older and just know the conversations we have right now is different than we was 12 and 13 and 14. We got grown folks, bills and all that kind of stuff. So we're talking about life. So it's always good to just catch up with them and just, you know, speaking to them a little bit. So, yeah, man, had a good time with the family, had a good time with the family. How about yourself, man? What was y'all eating over there? What was y'all doing over there, man?
Speaker 1:So so I'm gonna briefly talk about the menu because I want to stay right here. Actually, this question of menu I'm but uh, man, grandma did, grandma did most of the cooking, I did the macaroni and cheese. Now I'm going to say this you know, this is an effort. This podcast is an effort, you know, for us to think about faith through the lens of culture. We have many cultures that are represented in our community here at very audacious. It's not just one note. We've got a lot of different people from different parts of the country that are here, from different cultures. I want to say that when someone says to people that may not be familiar with the soul food culture um, if someone says that you have the task of making the macaroni and cheese, that is a big deal, all right. So I had the task of making the macaroni and cheese, which is more important than the turkey in in this particular vein of black soul food culture.
Speaker 2:So I would agree, I would agree with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So I think it's more important. Even on Thanksgiving, though, yeah, and my and my house at least bro at my house the mac and cheese. It might be like 15 of us in there and we be having like two full pans of mac and cheese. I mean that's, that's the most consumed item, um, thanksgiving dinner.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess that's true, but I guess for Thanksgiving at least the turkey, because everybody go eat turkey. You know what I'm saying. It's like everybody know I really it's interesting, man.
Speaker 1:Bro, I didn't have a single fork full of turkey why?
Speaker 2:On.
Speaker 1:Thanksgiving. It does not excite me at all. It don't excite me.
Speaker 2:I don't know if it excite anybody if I'm being honest, but on Thanksgiving we all got it. And let me say this A smoked turkey hit different Like my uncle gonna smoke that joint. I'm into this. It hit different. It do hit different Like I ain't gonna have it, you know, Any other day but Thanksgiving, but it do hit. So we all gonna eat turkey Like there was no. Well, we Texas man, it was no leftovers. We don't do leftovers on Thanksgiving. So I feel like but so in my family if you mess up that turkey they gonna talk about you just as much as the macaroni and cheese. Wow, On Thanksgiving. On that day, On Thanksgiving, yeah, so all right.
Speaker 1:so turkey it matters, and I would say that it matters in my family too. I mean, we definitely won a good turkey. It's important. But just for me individually, man, I can live without it. I really can.
Speaker 2:I can too, bro Me too. You say it in the same way I can live without it.
Speaker 1:So, essentially, we had the turkey, we had the mac and cheese, we had collard greens, we had string beans, we had potato salad and this work is more interesting and we had oxtails. I don't know if you ever had?
Speaker 2:Yeah, oxtails, no, I still.
Speaker 1:Now I say oxtails with an S because it's the soul food version of it, the Southern American version, like in the gravy. Now the Caribbean version, they call it oxtail no S right, but this was the more like the Southern version of Oxtails.
Speaker 2:Educated today.
Speaker 1:Educated yeah yeah, yeah, and Chitlins, y'all do Chitlins.
Speaker 2:Mm-mm, mm-mm. I don't like Chitlins, bro. I hate Chitlins.
Speaker 1:Grandma made Chitlins and I was surprised because she hasn't made Chitlins in a number of years. Chitlins, but for those who don't know what Chitlins are they are.
Speaker 2:It is some food.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's yeah. Chitlins, shortened to be Chitlins, is a part of the intestinal tract of a pig and that, yeah, it don't sound good, it don't smell good and I don't eat it. All right, so it was prepared, but I didn't have it. Now I posted that Grandma made Chitlins and then people started texting me out the wazoo yo, can I get some Chitlins? Can I get some Chitlins? I'm like y'all really be eating Chitlins like that.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. Nope, nobody the Black folks man, so nobody the Black folks.
Speaker 1:So there's two cultures in the world that really get down with the Chitlins. Let me get some Chitlins, bro, black people and various shades of Asian people love Chitlins.
Speaker 2:Oh fascinating. I know that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, if you go to certain Chinese restaurants like especially like the real ones, like the Szechuan restaurants and stuff, you will see like pig intestines written on the menu Like they eat it. They're about that life, that little amount. But yeah, so I left out one thing. You mentioned that y'all had Honey Bun Cake. I'm here for. I'm here for I've never had it before but I have developed a sweet tooth in my older years. And you also mentioned smoked turkey. I love the idea of a smoked turkey. I love I would make a jerk turkey. I would go with that.
Speaker 2:That sounds good, that sounds good.
Speaker 1:I would go that far with it. So I'm here for that Fried turkey. I've had that before. That's pretty good too. But I'm really here for the smoked turkey thing. That sounds great. But then you mentioned dressing. Now were you eating ranch. Was it Thousand Island? What kind of dressing were you eating?
Speaker 2:Check line. You are just your tool. I mean, here's the thing I don't know where you get this from. I really don't know where this comes from, and you know, I've done some research. So I go to a multi ethnic church. So we got, we got, we got it all. We got Hispanic, we got, we got everybody likewise.
Speaker 2:So I thought it was a black thing. I really thought it was a black thing. But then I had this southern woman, white woman, come up to me and she said you know, jaylin, we do dressing in my house too. And I say a word Now what do you mean by dressing? Maybe you are talking about ranch dressing for real, for real, what are you talking about? He said, no, no, no, we do the cornbread, the chicken, the onions, all the, all the things. And I was like, well, I'll be a dog on, how about that? So I was like maybe this is a southern thing that we know actually what to call a dish. That is called cornbread dressing. Now, we ain't stuffing it in the turkey. It is delicious all on its own, with some cranberry sauce on the side.
Speaker 2:And let me tell you something this year, trip lot, my Amy, she, she traditionally does it she put her foot in that dressing this year. It was out of this world, fee, not me. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It was unreal. I was like what in the world did you do to this dress? And then she, he put some, some kind of, some kind of potion in his jaw. I can't stop eating it. My plate was full of it, full of that dressing, and she was like hey man.
Speaker 1:I don't. I don't doubt that it was good.
Speaker 2:I don't doubt that, of course, because you know, because you eating the same thing, but calling that stuffing for some reason, I don't know why. Wait, wait, wait.
Speaker 1:Now I want to say this I want to give a history lesson to my oh my gosh that you want to say that it's the same thing, but for years you have given me grief and have assumed that, because it's called stuffing, that it was stove top. You know what I mean and I had to educate you and inform you that the very thing that we call stuffing is the exact same thing that others call dressing in different parts of the world Stove top is terrible.
Speaker 1:Some people say soda, some people say pop, some people say a cool drink, whatever. You know, we all have different names, but we have the same sort of taste and flavor profile. So it's essentially the same thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I guess bro.
Speaker 2:I guess the stuffing just has such a disgusting connotation to me that I don't want to name anywhere near my house. Yeah, this is not stove top. Yeah, they had. Like if anybody said, if anybody said they brought stuffing to my family, we would all look at them like they would create, like who told you to bring that? You know what I'm saying. And then we open up and look at it. I say oh, that's dressing.
Speaker 1:That ain't stuffing. I say okay, come on in, Fine, fine, come on in, so y'all actually don't put any inside of the turkey though.
Speaker 2:No, we don't do that bro. No, okay, all right, so we do, do that.
Speaker 1:So I think that makes it make sense, like when you think about the idea of stove top stuffing. That to me is oxymoron because literally stuffing is stuffing. You stuff the bird with what you consider dressing. You know, you take the cornbread you put. You said chicken, like sometimes you could do chicken, but also, or Thanksgiving, we tend to use turkey.
Speaker 1:But, to me, turkey has more flavor than chicken. It actually does and it actually tastes. Turkey is drier than chicken, but it doesn't matter inside of stuffing. So the only turkey I had this Thanksgiving was inside of the stuffing. But we put it in, got the onions, you got the celery, you got all that stuff, the drippings from the turkey, all of that it goes in there.
Speaker 2:No, we do chicken broth man. We don't do drippings from the turkey.
Speaker 1:Well, you know what I mean Chicken broth, turkey broth, whatever you need. You know what I mean. Whatever you get you done, whatever, and the words of outcast, whatever finds you lost your mode, all right. So, whatever you need, to get it done, you know. But the point is Stuffing. We stuff the bird with that thing that you call dressing, and then we also make some on the side because you need more. So, but yeah, man, so I'm happy. At least, in this stage of life, you have at least identified the fact that there are very few differences between what you have considered dressing and what I consider, I guess, man.
Speaker 2:As long as you don't bring it to my house, I'm fine, bro, wow.
Speaker 1:Wow. Now I want to say this to the people that are in the Philadelphia and New Jersey area I challenged Brother Jerry. He didn't say nothing to me when I said this on social media, but I challenged him. I said if you want to actually make this award, I'm willing to make our cornbread stuffing and we can compare it to the Texas dressing. I ain't scared.
Speaker 2:You know, here's the thing about that. So I'm not scared, it's just like. So let me educate people about my brother, tripp and I. He actually likes to cook. Tripp and I's a chef Likes to cook. See, I just cook to survive, like I consider myself a pretty. I cook good food, my food is good, but it's like I don't get. I'm not passionate about cooking, so it's hard for me to get up to be like oh, I'm a B-trip line, blah, blah. I'm just like man, I don't feel like cooking, that's right, I don't feel like cooking. So it's like.
Speaker 1:I ain't never scared.
Speaker 2:And in the words of the famous rap, I ain't never scared. But then I think about man. I got to cook that whole dog on dressing, take it up and blah, blah. So I don't get up for it, but I'll do it then. But I'll do it. If the people want it, I'll do it. Maybe we should put it out there.
Speaker 1:I'll do it. Let's just say at some point in the future, when we have a gathering with friends and things like that, that we make sure we include that in the menu so that whenever that time comes, we can compare and finally put this thing to bed.
Speaker 2:Because I'm telling you, cooking and dressing ain't small, it's a process. It's a process, it's their steps, they're steps, they're steps and they just like, think of the back of that.
Speaker 1:You got to make something. Just to start, that's true, you got to make cornbread. Cornbread will work.
Speaker 2:That's not true, especially if you do it from scratch. Yes, man, especially if you do it from scratch.
Speaker 1:Let's work by ourselves, and that's just how it's done.
Speaker 2:I'm just like I got to do all that Just to prove to him that my stuff is better. I'm like you know what? Bless you Doc, bless you Doc. You got it Literally. Go ahead and enjoy your turkey. I'll enjoy my chicken.
Speaker 1:Right, right, for those that need a translation bless your doc means whatever. Bless your doc. Bless your doc Yo man.
Speaker 2:I'm going to let you have it, man.
Speaker 1:Brother, I needed this check-in. I really needed this. I want to say to our people that are here with us we're about to get back into the groove of this. Do not lose heart, don't lose faith in us, but life has been real and we are just so excited to get back into this groove, talking about what's going on in the world, going on in culture, putting that in the conversation with God's word Jalen, I appreciate you, man. During this holiday season, we need to stay close and together uplift one another. This is definitely a time in which there's an opportunity for us to continue to show off the love of Christ in one of his lives, regardless of how you eat your food, we're connected in this way. Yes, sir.
Speaker 1:I appreciate you, man.
Speaker 2:Of course. Of course looking forward to getting back into it. Man Can't wait to dive into the conversations. We got some fun ones coming up. I think what we're going to do for our next trip and I ain't told you this, but I'm going to tell the people first so that we're going to do it I think we're going to do a top five Christmas song list for the holidays. So we have a fun one coming up and there's plenty of serious stuff to get into, as we often do. I think, given the Christmas holiday, let's go ahead and have the debates of what qualifies as a good Christmas song and, thankfully, trip line. I'm going to say this thankfully, adele does not have any Christmas songs or records, so we ain't got to get into that.
Speaker 1:I don't want to hear little Adele. I don't want to hear little Taylor Swift. You know what I mean. I'm just going to put the hook up. I don't want to hear you can do some of it. I don't want to hear the 24 new years of new season and we need some new artists. Oh shit, he said whoo, oh my god. That's a good topic, though that is a good topic. I like that brother. That's good, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:We're going to get into it. What's funny about it is, I think, we got to expand Because me and you knowing us we only going to say Black Christmas songs, so we got to do that. So Kelly Clarkson got some bangers. Kelly Clarkson got some bangers, man. And hey, you know, I ain't going to lie to you, bro. My favorite Christmas group is a group called Pentatonix. Oh, I know them, everybody knows them. Ok, ok, ok, pentatonix. I'm just saying this time they told me pa-da-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba.
Speaker 2:He just broke out in the song. That's amazing. That's going to be the whole podcast. Let's break it out in the song.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're going to perform next time.
Speaker 2:That's literally what we're going to do. Well, I don't know. Can we play the music? Do we have copyright to do that?
Speaker 1:You know what? We're going to have to talk to our legal team. I'm not Our legal team. We have a team that's called Chat GPT.
Speaker 2:And we're going to ask them what can we do? We'll be watching you figure out my next song. Yes, we will, yes, we will, yes, we will. All right, man, that was a good talk to you, man, it's great to be back.
Speaker 1:Great to be back, man. All right be well. Talk to y'all later.
Speaker 2:Have a good one y'all.