Live: Why Is Massachusetts So Obsessed With Dunkin’?

Matt Shearer, aka Reporter Matt, has made a name for himself with his social media stories about some of the quirkier denizens of Massachusetts. One of his most famous is about the massive public outcry over the closure of both locations of Dunkin’ in Stow, MA -- which led to a surprising development.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dan Pashman?

  As we turn to fall and the weather starts to cool down, I think of things like crunching leaves. I think of sharing from the sidelines of a soccer game, walking the dog in the woods. And when I think of doing all those things, I'm usually wearing something from LL Bean. Whether it's my puffer vest, my puffer coat, my scarf, whatever you're doing outside this year, you probably need something from LL Bean. Whether it's their boots, their Scotch plaid flannel, their rugged field coat, or more. Grab the layers and people you love and get outside. Visit llbean.com to shop the fall collection. LL Bean, be an outsider. As someone who has been lucky enough to go to Napa Valley, I can tell you, it's everything people say it is. Beautiful scenery, quaint, beautiful towns, and phenomenal food and

• 0:44Dan Pashman?

  drink everywhere you go. I don't even know that much about wine, but I know that every glass of wine I had in Napa Valley was excellent. I mean, there's no bad glass of wine and no bad meal. Choose between hundreds of wineries, tasting rooms, and chef-led restaurants from a low-key lunch on a vineyard terrace to a full tasting menu paired by the winemaker. Plan your trip at visitnapavalley.com.

• 1:16Dan Pashman?

  Chocolate chip cookies were invented in Massachusetts.

• 1:19Speaker 01

  They were, yes.

• 1:21Dan Pashman?

  At the Toll House Inn.

• 1:22Speaker 01

  You're right, at the Toll House Inn. Ruth Graves Wakefield is her name. One day, she didn't have the ingredients she needed for the cookie she wanted to make, so she said, "I'm gonna try this thing." And it worked, and now it's like the greatest cookie in the world, and now that location is a Wendy's.

• 1:41Dan Pashman?

  This is the Sporkful. It's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people, and we're coming to you live from WBUR City's basin, Boston!

• 2:05Dan Pashman?

  Tonight, we're welcoming three very special guests to the stage. I'm gonna talk with each of them individually, and then all four of us are gonna tackle some hot takes. So, get ready for that. My first guest is a social media sensation. He's a reporter for WBZ News Radio here in Boston. You may have seen his viral videos that cover all things Massachusetts, from the tragic closing of both Dunkin's in Stowe, Mass., to a wedding at Chuck E. Cheese in Everett, to the grumpy donut man who operates out of a laundromat in Brockton. You know him as reporter Matt. Please welcome the pride of Acton, Matt Shearer.

• 2:44Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 2:45Dan Pashman?

  Matt, it's great to have you here.

• 2:46Speaker 01

  Pride of Acton.

• 2:47Dan Pashman?

  That's you.

• 2:48Speaker 01

  Stiff competition, by the way. Is Acton in the house tonight? Yep. You are? This is rules. Did you know Acton has Big Bird, Steve Carell?

• 2:56Dan Pashman?

  What do you mean you have Big Bird?

• 2:57Speaker 01

  Big Bird is Carol Spinney, the guy in the Big Bird costume is from Acton.

• 3:01Dan Pashman?

  Oh, that's too really impressive, yeah. For folks who aren't familiar with your work, I wanna set you up a little bit, Matt.

• 3:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:07Dan Pashman?

  And we're gonna play one of your stories that you've done to kinda illustrate your work. This one is gonna be about the 99 Restaurant. Before we play this clip, for folks who maybe around the country don't know, just briefly set up the 99 Restaurant.

• 3:20Speaker 01

  The 99 is like a classy night out for me. And hearing people's laugh should tell you what everything you need to know about the quality of the 99. It's great. No, I love it. It's just one of those hometown chains, you know? Go in for good burgers and steak tips. And it's really good. Yeah, we love the 99 here.

• 3:39Dan Pashman?

  All right, so let's go ahead and hear this clip.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  This story has a happy ending. Rather, this story is the happy ending. I recently reported on the 99 being without potato skins for nearly a year, and the outrage that ensued.

• 3:53Speaker 02

  I've been going to the 99 40 years. I don't go anymore. And I have gift cards.

• 3:58Speaker 01

  As a server, Pino was tired of hearing about it.

• 4:00Speaker 02

  Over and over and over and over again. 20 times a day at least.

• 4:05Speaker 01

  But today's visit was different. Yes. We made our voices heard, and corporate America listened. Oh, I miss that smell.

• 4:14Dan Pashman?

  They're back, right? Yes, dude, finally.

• 4:18Speaker 03

  They were actually mad good. I used to buy them every single time I went with. With the cheese on, sorry? Yes. I love you, potato skins.

• 4:28Speaker 01

  Skins are back. Matt, we've had a miracle. Remember Kevin? He's the one that originally brought this to my attention.

• 4:34Speaker 04

  Somebody needs to dig into this and get some answers.

• 4:37Speaker 01

  Not only did we get answers, but we got action. People need to know about the skins. People need to buy the skins. And we can't risk letting them go away again. Fight for change is the lesson. From the 99s, I'm Matt Sheer. There we go. We're celebrating. All right. You're welcome.

• 4:57Dan Pashman?

  What makes the 99s potato skins so good? Cause they look really good.

• 5:01Speaker 01

  They are good.

• 5:02Dan Pashman?

  They got a really nice charred perimeter. I bet there's some crisp on that edge.

• 5:06Speaker 01

  There is, yeah, for sure. And it's just the right cheese to bacon ratio. You know, sometimes we go to a restaurant and it's like all cheese on one and all bacon on the other. No, they balance it out really well.

• 5:16Dan Pashman?

  Also, it's cubed bacon, which is far superior. You don't want strips because you bite in and you pull the whole piece of bacon off.

• 5:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:21Dan Pashman?

  You want a little bacon in every bite. So they do look like good potato skins.

• 5:24Speaker 01

  They're good potato skins and clearly people were very upset. Not just the fact that they were taken off the menu, but they hadn't come back in months. As you saw in that guy's DM, he said to me, why is the mainstream media not talking about this? And I'm like, well, I'm the mainstream media.

• 5:39Dan Pashman?

  Yeah, right.

• 5:40Speaker 01

  I should do something about this.

• 5:41Dan Pashman?

  There's nothing else going on for them to cover.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  No, no, I knocked on their door at 99 corporate headquarters, which they-

• 5:47Dan Pashman?

  And what was their explanation?

• 5:48Speaker 01

  They said that their potato farmer that they had a signed contract with, the farm burned down. And because of that, they, the fact that they were under contract, they couldn't buy potatoes from another vendor. And everyone at the 99s was just like, I will literally go to Market Basket right now, get you some potatoes and you can make me some skins. And they're like, we're not going to do that.

• 6:08Dan Pashman?

  This smells funny to me, Matt.

• 6:09Speaker 01

  Welcome to Massachusetts.

• 6:14Dan Pashman?

  Um, I want to play one more short clip, not a whole story, but just this will sort of further illustrate the types of characters that you highlight in your work. This is, uh, the beginning of a feature you did on Anthony, the politically incorrect food tour guide.

• 6:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 6:28Speaker 05

  I smoke, I come late, I don't follow traffic lights. I got a couple of little comments that are kind of controversial.

• 6:35Speaker 01

  And he has a food tour.

• 6:36Speaker 05

  You want a cannoli, you buy your own damn cannoli.

• 6:39Speaker 01

  This is Anthony Jezewaldi. He runs Boston's Politically Incorrect Food Tours with a strict set of rules.

• 6:44Speaker 05

  Number three, don't be a know-it-all. That's just for New Yorkers. New Yorkers suck when they come on a tour. You show them a bakery and they can't wait to tell you about a bakery in Long Island. Like, I give a shit about a bakery in Long Island.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  That's, that's the Boston experience.

• 7:03Dan Pashman?

  Yeah.

• 7:03Speaker 01

  You know, people come here thinking like, oh, I'm gonna take a tour and they go to Faneuil Hall and they see shirts that say things like wicked piss up, but like, that is what they should be doing. Hanging out with Anthony, just walking around and talking crap.

• 7:14Dan Pashman?

  So, where do you find these people, Matt?

• 7:18Speaker 01

  Well, Anthony's pretty hard to miss.

• 7:21Dan Pashman?

  But I mean, a lot of these, like, are you just like wandering the streets chatting people up all day?

• 7:25Speaker 01

  You know what it is? I think a microphone is a magnet for people who have something to say. You know, like, I'll be out there on the street and they'll be, they'll come up to me, like, just recently, I was out there and I was talking to some guy, it was literally mid-interview, and a guy pulled up from the car and he's like, "Hey, I got something to say." I'm like, "What?" He's like, "The Subway sandwiches, they're not 12 inches. A foot long, I measured them, they were 11 inches." I'm like, this guy has been waiting his whole life to see a reporter on the street to break this news to me.

• 7:53Dan Pashman?

  But are you like naturally sort of a chatty person?

• 7:56Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, 100%. I'm the guy that's making friends with everyone in the grocery store and my wife's like, "Can we leave, please?" For sure. But I think that's good. I, I mean, I hope more people will feel encouraged to talk to strangers every once in a while. Like, we're all taught, we're brought up to not talk to strangers, not get in strangers' vans, but I've made a career out of doing both those things.

• 8:16Speaker 01

  So just, you know, no, be, be aware of your surroundings and of course, but talk to people. I think that's gonna help to bridge the divide in this nation.

• 8:24Dan Pashman?

  What's the craziest tip for a potential story that you ever got?

• 8:28Speaker 01

  Someone hit me up recently and was like, "Oh, there's a guy who collects the fake IDs. He runs a liquor shop and he collects fake IDs from students that come in and try to buy booze and like, he calls them his Pokemon cards and like, he has hundreds and thousands of them and like, I was like, I gotta meet this guy and sure enough, he's like, "Check it out, man. I got the same chick twice in one night, like, here's her two."

• 8:50Speaker 01

  I just, and I love that. These people that just, you know, other news outlets might just overlook.

• 8:55Dan Pashman?

  You do seem to have a high percentage of stories about food, and I'm counting Duncan as being food-related. Why do you think that is? What is it about food that sort of like hits a sweet spot for you and the types of stories you want to tell?

• 9:08Speaker 01

  I think it's just a universal experience, eating, right? And everywhere we go, and especially in New England, I mean, we got places, we got, we got Market Basket here. Do you know? There are parts, there are parts of this country where you can't get a room full of people cheering for a grocery store.

• 9:23Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 9:24Speaker 01

  There's people that go on strike because the CEO of the grocery store got ousted by the board and win that strike. Clap it up for yourselves.

• 9:34Speaker 01

  I don't know if you know about this.

• 9:35Dan Pashman?

  I, I missed this one.

• 9:36Speaker 01

  I'll give you the background. So the CEO of Market Basket, it was run by this family, the Demoulis family, for a long time. RDT and RDS were the two guys in charge. RDT was the man of the people. He always wanted to keep prices low and customers happy. RDS was the guy who wanted to keep shareholders happy and raise prices. They pushed out RDT. Customers lost their minds, boycotted Market Basket for like months, and then they eventually brought RDT back. It was just an amazing story. People were taping their receipts from like Hannafords to the window of Market Basket to be like, "I shop elsewhere now, bring back RDT." When has that ever happened for a CEO of a business? Like, it's a cult.

• 10:18Speaker 01

  And I love it.

• 10:19Dan Pashman?

  What's the familial relationship between the two Ardis?

• 10:22Speaker 01

  They're cousins.

• 10:23Dan Pashman?

  And what's their relationship now that RDT is back?

• 10:26Speaker 01

  Uh, cousins who don't talk.

• 10:30Speaker 01

  But actually, RDT recently got pushed out again, and nobody protested. They're like, "Yeah, we did. We had enough protests."

• 10:36Dan Pashman?

  I feel like because of social media and technology connecting everyone everywhere all the time, regional cultures are slowly disappearing because, you know, everything is the same. So like, my kids, who are, you know, teenagers outside New York City, speak the same slang as kids their age everywhere else in America. Like, when I was a kid, you'd meet someone from California, and they'd have all these words you didn't know.

• 10:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:58Dan Pashman?

  But like, I do feel like Massachusetts- New England is still a little bit apart.

• 11:02Speaker 01

  Oh, for sure. I learned recently that calling something a room is a regional thing. Like it's room in the rest of the country, but rum here in Massachusetts. I learned that you don't call them rotaries in the rest of the country.

• 11:15Dan Pashman?

  No.

• 11:15Speaker 01

  You call them roundabouts.

• 11:16Dan Pashman?

  No, the roundabouts is in England. Rest of the country, it's a traffic circle.

• 11:20Speaker 01

  Traffic circle?

• 11:21Dan Pashman?

  Yeah.

• 11:21Speaker 01

  That's too many words.

• 11:24Speaker 01

  Rotary.

• 11:25Dan Pashman?

  So as we said, Matt, a lot of your most memorable stories involve a beloved place or menu item. Go away. We talked about the potato skins at the 99.

• 11:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:32Dan Pashman?

  And then there was the whole Dunkin's, two Dunkin's in Stowe, Mass. They lost both of their Dunkin's. Now, like on a surface level, the idea that both Dunkin's in a small town closed and people got upset is sort of like a, oh, that's funny, silly locals.

• 11:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 11:47Dan Pashman?

  But your style is different. Like you go in there, you're not making fun of them.

• 11:51Speaker 01

  I sympathize. I would, I would be heartbroken.

• 11:53Dan Pashman?

  But like, why is that story important?

• 11:57Speaker 01

  It's an individual thing that might not sound important to everybody, but, but the, but the people there in Stowe, like Dunkin', when you live here, it's like an extension of your kitchen, right? Like you go downstairs every day and then you put on clothes or whatever, you walk out, you go to Dunkin' and you don't even look at the menu when you walk in. That's how you can tell if someone's local. If someone's looking up when they walk into a Dunkin', they're not from here. You just, you walk in, you know what you're getting. And then imagine somebody just took your kitchen away. That's what it's like to lose both your Dunkin's. It's just a part of your routine, a part of your everyday. A little something that brought you comfort.

• 12:31Dan Pashman?

  When they closed those two Dunkin's in Stowe, you did a story about it. And we're going to play one more clip here. There was a grand reopening.

• 12:39Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 12:40Dan Pashman?

  When they opened the new one, uh, no more Dunkin' desert in Stowe. And I just want to show this clip of two women who are, just to describe for people who are going to hear this, they are decked out, head to toe in Dunkin' paraphernalia. They have glasses that the rims of the glasses are donuts. They have a hat with donuts sticking out of it. Uh, and this is these two women that, that Matt talked to.

• 13:03Speaker 03

  Do we even have a song? Do you want to hear it?

• 13:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 13:05Speaker 03

  Okay, here we go. Okay, ready? We're from Stowe. We couldn't be any fatter.

• 13:11Speaker 01

  That's Ronnie and Kim.

• 13:12Speaker 03

  Today is Dunkin' Day.

• 13:14Speaker 01

  A little louder. Have you been inside yet?

• 13:18Speaker 03

  No. Oh my goodness. It's so beautiful. Oh, it's so beautiful. Are there any famous people here?

• 13:32Dan Pashman?

  So, so that campaign to bring back that Duncan was so successful that your picture's on the wall there.

• 13:38Speaker 01

  My picture is on the wall there. I didn't tell my kids about it when we walked in and they were just like, Daddy. Like, what? That was cool, but no, they went all out. They like, on the wall, it has like, references to the video where you mentioned Duncan Desert. That was a line from my video. They have now, you know, Desert No More on the wall and they have a specialty donut that's only available there called The Stonut, which has little like sprinkle cactuses on it and stuff because it's a desert. Yeah, I mean, it was the most exciting thing to happen in Stow since the Revolutionary War.

• 14:12Dan Pashman?

  Is there like an overarching theme or like goal to your work? Like, how do you think about it collectively?

• 14:20Speaker 01

  Everyone out here is human with a story and we walk by these people and sometimes, you know, we judge people, you know, but once you actually talk to them, you know, you find out they're a human, they've got lives, things they care about, things they love, people who love them, people that they love. And I just want to bring that to the world.

• 14:35Dan Pashman?

  Can I pitch you a story, Matt?

• 14:36Speaker 01

  Please.

• 14:37Dan Pashman?

  So I went to school at Tufts, just outside Boston. That's where I first started drinking coffee, at the Duncan on Boston Ave in Medford.

• 14:45Speaker 01

  Amazing.

• 14:46Dan Pashman?

  And my order was initially, now I drink black coffee, but back then it was a medium iced hazelnut coffee with milk and six sugars.

• 14:56Dan Pashman?

  And that's the gateway drug. That's the gateway drug. So, and for a long time, there was a guy who worked there, whose name tag read Mr. Fresh.

• 15:07Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 15:08Dan Pashman?

  And you would walk in and he would greet you by saying, "What fresh delicious product may I serve you today?" And you would get whatever you're getting, you would pay, and as you left, he would say, "Have a fresh one."

• 15:20Speaker 01

  I'm sold.

• 15:21Dan Pashman?

  So of course, of course, my friends and I who go to this Dunkin', we all know Mr. Fresh. We all talk about Mr. Fresh. At a certain point, everyone starts to notice that we haven't seen Mr. Fresh in a while.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 15:32Dan Pashman?

  Months go by, and we're really like, "Where's Mr. Fresh?" We're getting upset. I go in there one day, months after he'd been gone, and he's there. But there was no, "Hello, what fresh delicious product may I serve you?"

• 15:46Speaker 01

  No.

• 15:46Dan Pashman?

  I get up to the counter, and now his name tag just says Damon.

• 15:50Speaker 01

  No, he got micromanaged.

• 15:53Dan Pashman?

  He seemed a little sad.

• 15:54Speaker 01

  Big way he stepped in.

• 15:56Dan Pashman?

  And he didn't say, "Have a fresh one," like, it felt a little bit like a piece of him had been taken away.

• 16:00Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 16:01Dan Pashman?

  So my initial assignment to you was, find Mr. Fresh.

• 16:06Speaker 01

  I think I can.

• 16:06Dan Pashman?

  I want to know where he is. I want to know if he's okay.

• 16:09Speaker 01

  Does anyone here know Mr. Fresh? No?

• 16:11Dan Pashman?

  No, that was a good start.

• 16:12Speaker 01

  I have a lead. I think I know the GM of that Dunkin' you're talking about.

• 16:15Dan Pashman?

  Really? Yeah. I should say. This is why he's good. But this was the late 90s.

• 16:20Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 16:20Dan Pashman?

  I'm old.

• 16:21Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 16:21Dan Pashman?

  So this was the late 90s.

• 16:23Speaker 01

  This GM I'm talking has been there for 40 years.

• 16:25Dan Pashman?

  Oh, my God, this is phenomenal.

• 16:26Speaker 01

  I think I may have a connection.

• 16:27Dan Pashman?

  Oh, awesome, awesome. All right. Well, will you take on this project?

• 16:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm sold. No, this is fantastic.

• 16:33Dan Pashman?

  Okay.

• 16:33Speaker 01

  And you are all going to be the first ones to know about Mr. Fresh.

• 16:36Dan Pashman?

  All right.

• 16:37Speaker 01

  I love this.

• 16:38Dan Pashman?

  We're searching for Mr. Fresh.

• 16:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:42Dan Pashman?

  Well, Matt, you're going to stick around as we bring on our next guest, but big hand for Matt Shearer.

• 16:49Dan Pashman?

  Coming up, Omi Hopper joins me to talk about going from a career as a makeup artist to the author of a forthcoming book about Puerto Rican food. Then reporter Ian Kost joins us to share a surprising story about monkfish. Stick around.

• 17:05Dan Pashman?

  Advertisements. Yummy. As we turn to fall and the weather starts to cool down, I think of things like crunching leaves. I think of sharing from the sidelines of a soccer game, walking the dog in the woods. And when I think of doing all those things, I'm usually wearing something from LL Bean. Whether it's my puffer vest, my puffer coat, my scarf, whatever you're doing outside this year, you probably need something from LL Bean. Whether it's their boots, their Scotch plaid flannel, their rugged field coat, or more. Grab the layers and people you love and get outside. Visit llbean.com to shop the fall collection. LL Bean, be an outsider. Start the day strong with Quaker protein products. Quaker makes it easy and delicious

• 17:47Dan Pashman?

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• 18:09Dan Pashman?

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• 18:44Dan Pashman?

  Welcome back to The Sporkful. I'm Dan Pashman. Last week on the show, I talked with writer Katie Weaver about her quest to find the best free restaurant bread in America. She traveled 13,000 miles in search of an answer to her question. And she started off with a bang at a fancy place in Vegas where dinner costs more than $500 a person.

• 19:02Speaker 03

  They bring out a beautiful, overflowing bread cart that has 16 varieties of bread. It was absolutely humiliating to have to say to these people, I would like one of each, because some of the breads are really quite similar. But they didn't blink it that they said, no problem at all.

• 19:23Dan Pashman?

  But it's not all fancy. Katie also visits several chains. She goes to a restaurant deep in the woods of Appalachia. She even disqualifies a strong contender because of its Diet Coke policy. So in the end, what restaurant is the winner? Well, of course, you're gonna have to listen to find out. I'm not giving away answers for free here. That one's up now. Check it out. All right, we're back at WBUR City Space in Boston. Our next guest comes to us from the great state of Rhode Island. In fact, she might be our first ever guest from Rhode Island. I mean, that, I, it's hard for me to believe. We'll fact check it. She was a runner up on Gordon Ramsay's cooking competition show Next Level Chef. She's got a cookbook coming out this August called Cooking con Omi.

• 20:08Dan Pashman?

  It's Omi Hopper. Welcome, Omi. It's great to have you here.

• 20:24Speaker 03

  It's great to be here.

• 20:25Dan Pashman?

  So you were born in Puerto Rico, moved to Rhode Island when you were 11. What are some misconceptions that people have about Rhode Island?

• 20:35Speaker 03

  You know, we, we are very small. We're obviously the smallest state, but we have a very big heart. We have got great food. Obviously, we've got all the universities between Johnson, Wales, RISD, Brown, URI. We are, we've got it all. And a lot of the students from Johnson, Wales end up staying.

• 20:53Dan Pashman?

  Well, there's a cooking school there.

• 20:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:55Dan Pashman?

  One of the best in the country.

• 20:56Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 20:56Dan Pashman?

  But also, like, I think that people from around the country here, Rhode Island, and they think of, like, Newport. You know, they think of, like, old money, rich, white people.

• 21:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, until they go to Broad Street in Providence.

• 21:08Dan Pashman?

  But, but Rhode Island is, is more diverse and there's a lot more variety to the food there than I think people understand.

• 21:13Speaker 03

  Yes, absolutely. We have food from all over the world. I mean, you can get anything you want.

• 21:19Dan Pashman?

  So like, growing up in Rhode Island, like, what were some of the things you were eating?

• 21:22Speaker 03

  At home, it's all Puerto Rican food. Arroz con gandules, pollo guisado, yobite en cebollado. These are like, house favorites.

• 21:33Dan Pashman?

  And what about other stuff you're eating outside the house?

• 21:35Speaker 03

  I absolutely love the fact that in Rhode Island, you can travel all of Latin America, Dominican food, Guatemalan, Mexican, Peruvian. We've got amazing flavors.

• 21:45Dan Pashman?

  When was the first time you had coffee milk?

• 21:49Speaker 03

  Dan, I've had coffee since I was five years old, so.

• 21:52Dan Pashman?

  But isn't coffee milk is a Rhode Island thing, right? It's like, it's like a chocolate milk, but instead of it being chocolate syrup, it's coffee syrup.

• 21:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, I can't do that.

• 22:02Speaker 03

  I can't do it. I'm all for clam cakes and chowder and all the things. I love that, but I stop at coffee milk. I've got limits.

• 22:11Dan Pashman?

  Reporter Matt, have you ever had coffee milk?

• 22:13Speaker 01

  I've honestly never heard of it. That's terrifying. I don't like coffee. I'm not a coffee guy.

• 22:17Dan Pashman?

  What's terrifying about it? Like, everyone loves chocolate milk, chocolate syrup with milk, coffee flavored. It's like, I mean, I haven't had it, but it doesn't, it sounds good to me. Like, you combo the coffee syrup and the chocolate syrup, you'd have a mocha milk.

• 22:31Speaker 01

  That's true. Yeah.

• 22:32Dan Pashman?

  What's, like, have you ever had a Manhattan special?

• 22:35Speaker 01

  No, what's a Manhattan special?

• 22:36Dan Pashman?

  It's like a New York thing. It's like a very sweet coffee flavored soda.

• 22:39Speaker 01

  I don't touch anything that has anything New York in the title.

• 22:43Speaker 01

  Stay away from any of that.

• 22:44Dan Pashman?

  Do you cross state lines, Matt? Are you allowed to leave the state?

• 22:47Speaker 01

  Why would I leave Massachusetts? We don't eat Florida, we have Cape Cod. We don't eat Europe, we have Provincetown. We got it all here.

• 22:57Dan Pashman?

  So, Omi, back to you. How much, I mean, I know that you said that a lot of the food growing up in your house was Puerto Rican classics. How much did you feel like Puerto Rico came with you?

• 23:07Speaker 03

  I came here at the age of 11, not wanting to move out of Puerto Rico. I remember being so homesick that my mom knew she needed to send me back to Puerto Rico every summer. And so every summer, religiously, I would go back to Puerto Rico and stay the entire three months with my grandmother, who was the biggest influence for me for cooking and wanting to learn all things in the kitchen. She grew a lot of her own stuff, so I would go down, you know, to the farm with her and pick out ingredients and come back to the kitchen and cook it with her. So it was that which kept me so enthusiastic about food.

• 23:44Dan Pashman?

  Is there a specific dish that you remember cooking with her?

• 23:47Speaker 03

  Um, her sofrito, mi sofrito fresquecito, which I call it now. It's a blend of peppers and garlic, onions, cilantro, coulantro, and it's the base of Puerto Rican food. All of our flavor revolves around sofrito.

• 24:02Dan Pashman?

  You grew up in Rhode Island, you went out into the world and you started a career doing makeup.

• 24:06Speaker 03

  And then COVID happened.

• 24:07Dan Pashman?

  So no one needed any makeup during COVID?

• 24:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:10Dan Pashman?

  So you start posting videos of your cooking?

• 24:12Speaker 03

  Like a true extrovert. I love people and I just wanted to connect with the outside world. So I, I wanted to record myself doing what I was actually doing, which was cooking.

• 24:24Dan Pashman?

  And one of the things that you did pretty early on in your videos, you really kind of incorporated music into your cooking videos in a much more intentional way.

• 24:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:33Dan Pashman?

  Tell me about that.

• 24:34Speaker 03

  It was like a calling card. The music that my grandmother would listen to while she was cooking in the kitchen, to me was like the inspiration. And I knew that if I was feeling so homesick, which I was, I was feeling so homesick, I knew other people probably felt the same way. So I started listening to the music that I knew was going to get people to listen in and started cooking the foods that I also knew people were missing at home.

• 25:00Dan Pashman?

  And what happened as you started posting these videos?

• 25:02Speaker 03

  Oh my gosh. I first started posting the videos on my Instagram that was makeup related. And then very quickly, the page started to turn from makeup to food. And I'm like, wait a minute, the food was just for fun until COVID was done and over with. But then it turned out that once COVID restrictions were lifted, when people were making appointments for makeup, they were coming from here, from Boston. They were coming from New York, from Connecticut. And I'm like, are there no makeup artists anywhere else? What's happening? No, they were booking with me because they wanted to meet Cooking Colomi.

• 25:33Dan Pashman?

  Oh.

• 25:34Speaker 03

  The video started going viral. The numbers were insane. I would wake up, notifications back then were ridiculous. Like in one week, I would grow 10,000 followers.

• 25:45Dan Pashman?

  Eventually you get a next level chef. We have a clip of a moment that one of the secret ingredients you would have to cook with was revealed. Let's take a look at this.

• 25:54Speaker 03

  Plantains.

• 25:57Speaker 03

  Grab your plantains.

• 26:01Speaker 03

  It felt so good to just be able to grab plantains. I'm from Puerto Rico and I felt like I was home.

• 26:12Dan Pashman?

  So you were excited about the plantains.

• 26:14Speaker 03

  You want to know what's funny about that episode? When you get called to the show, they tell you, prepare yourself to be there a week, or you could be there four weeks, right? By that point, it was like two and a half weeks. And I was homesick. And I'm in London. We were recording this in London.

• 26:30Dan Pashman?

  Oh, jeez.

• 26:31Speaker 03

  So I had no, none of my like familiar foods. So I see plantains coming down the platform and I grabbed way more than what I was supposed to. And I kid you not, I cooked what I knew I was gonna plate and then I cooked extra for me to have on the side.

• 26:50Dan Pashman?

  Like, I may not win this challenge, but I'm gonna eat some plantains.

• 26:53Speaker 03

  I'm gonna eat some plantains, that's for sure.

• 26:56Dan Pashman?

  So in August, you're releasing your first ever cookbook, Cooking Con Omie: A Love Letter to Puerto Rican Home Cooking. What can we expect from the book?

• 27:03Speaker 03

  I really want to take people on a journey. One of the things that I really pride myself in is that I'm not a chef. I'm a home cook, just like everyone else. And anyone watching me at home, I want to encourage them to be playful in their kitchen, to explore, experiment. I, there's a phrase I say, "Lo que te diga tu corazón," whatever your heart tells you. "Y en tu cocina tu mandas," which is, "In your kitchen, you're your own boss." And so I really want to take people on a journey. If you have never tried Puerto Rican food, this is gonna be your gateway to trying it in a very easy and approachable way. If you are in the diaspora from Puerto Rico and maybe your grandmother or aunt or uncles

• 27:46Speaker 03

  never got to teach you this recipe, you're gonna learn. And if you are in Puerto Rico, you're just gonna be proud to be home.

• 27:54Dan Pashman?

  Omie, you're gonna stick around?

• 27:55Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 27:56Dan Pashman?

  All right, big hand for Omie Hopper.

• 28:06Dan Pashman?

  Now it's time to welcome our third guest. He's an audio producer, host, and musician. He's the host and creator of The Big Dig Podcast from GBH News. The latest season is called Catching the Codfather. It's a sweeping story about the downfall of a Massachusetts fishing tycoon. We played part of it on the Sporkful, so I'll bet you're familiar. Please welcome to the stage Ian Coss.

• 28:32Speaker 01

  Hey, Dan.

• 28:33Dan Pashman?

  So Ian, you've been doing a series of sort of deep dive, long-form stories. It started with The Big Dig. The first one was on The Big Dig. Now, I was obsessed with The Big Dig. I lived here when it was happening. For our listeners who may not know, it was this gigantic construction project in Boston that went on for decades and cost, I think, $84 trillion. But it was well worth it. Basically, there was an elevated highway that tore right through the center of the city, tore the city in half. It was outdated the second that it opened. And this project was to tear that down, make it a tunnel, and replace it with a park.

• 29:06Speaker 01

  Great. What do you need in a nine-episode podcast? Let me cover that.

• 29:09Dan Pashman?

  No, there's so much drama to it. I mean, I had multiple coffee table books about The Big Dig.

• 29:14Speaker 01

  Did you have the History Channel VHS?

• 29:16Dan Pashman?

  VHS, yes, I did. I own four copies. I used to give them out as gifts.

• 29:22Dan Pashman?

  All this to say that I could easily take up the rest of this podcast taping, chatting with you about slurry wall construction.

• 29:31Dan Pashman?

  So, tell me one thing that you learned about The Big Dig, working on that series, that most surprised you.

• 29:37Speaker 01

  That it wasn't as bad as I thought it was.

• 29:39Dan Pashman?

  What specifically wasn't as bad?

• 29:41Speaker 01

  So, I grew up in Massachusetts. I grew up in western Massachusetts, sort of the hill country, far west. And out in western Mass, people hated The Big Dig. Not because we didn't deal with the construction. We didn't deal with the cones or the traffic or anything. But we were paying for it and getting nothing for it. And I don't think I even really understood what the project was until I moved to Boston as an adult and I started walking around and seeing, oh, that bridge, that is the big dig. And oh, that tunnel on this park. And realizing that it did actually deliver something real for the city, that it was a little more complicated than just the boondoggle.

• 30:24Dan Pashman?

  Um, well, I love it. All right. Anyway, to the matter at hand.

• 30:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:27Dan Pashman?

  Catching the Codfather, your latest series, which is so excellent. Give us the outline of that story.

• 30:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. So Carlos Rafael, AKA The Codfather, once owned this massive fishing fleet of about 40 boats in New Bedford, Massachusetts. For folks who are not here in the room and don't know, New Bedford is the number one commercial fishing port in the United States by value. It's a port that inspired the book Moby Dick. It is a storied legendary port. And Carlos dominated this port for years until one day in 2016, federal agents showed up and arrested him. And it turned out that they had been monitoring him in an undercover sting operation for about a year at that point. And that it turns out his whole operation was built on an elaborate fishing fraud.

• 31:18Dan Pashman?

  First off, when you say he like ran this port, like, what does that mean exactly?

• 31:23Speaker 01

  The secret of his business was vertical integration. All right. So some people, they might own some boats, or they might own a plant, or they might own a wholesale business. Carlos owned the entire supply chain. But I also say, he's just ubiquitous. Like, you walk, to this day, you walk around and you see Carlos Rafael.

• 31:43Dan Pashman?

  What do you mean? Literally, you see him? Like?

• 31:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I would run it. I was sitting in the Dunkin' Donuts parking lot. Here's, here's a Massachusetts location for it. There's this bridge called the Fairhaven Bridge. There's a Dunkin' on the Fairhaven Bridge. And so I was interviewing somebody in the parking lot, like I was sitting in this guy's truck and like, blue pickup truck goes by and the guy I'm talking to is like, "There goes Carlos right there."

• 32:09Dan Pashman?

  I think one of the things that's interesting about the series is that you can't help but love him.

• 32:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. For me, going into, there were a number of pieces that had been done about Carlos after he was arrested. And they kind of, I felt like, took on this sort of cartoonish villain narrative around him, which, to be fair, he does to himself. I mean, if you listen to him talk, he swears constantly, he's constantly bad-mouthing other people, he refers to himself as an asshole. His office is covered in posters and images from the movie Scarface.

• 32:47Speaker 01

  What was interesting is you talked to people around town about Carlos and you'd find that a lot of people loved him, like even some people in government loved him. So I got interested in that. And yes, he is a crook, yes, he exploited the oceans, yes, he broke the rules, caught fish he was not supposed to catch. But I also found him very interesting. He's complicated.

• 33:10Dan Pashman?

  So one of the stories that you had worked on as part of this, but it got cut, am I right?

• 33:16Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 33:17Dan Pashman?

  Was all about Monkfish.

• 33:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:20Dan Pashman?

  So now we're gonna hear the story of Monkfish.

• 33:22Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 33:23Dan Pashman?

  So, the story starts with Roger Berkowitz.

• 33:26Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 33:26Dan Pashman?

  Who was, his father founded Legal Seafood, although Roger really was the one who took it over and grew it into the, he sold it a few years back, but he grew it into the enterprise that we know today.

• 33:36Speaker 01

  In every terminal of Logan Airport.

• 33:40Dan Pashman?

  But way back when, as a young man, he was working in his father's fish shop.

• 33:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:44Dan Pashman?

  And what happened?

• 33:46Speaker 01

  So, this is the story, as told to me by Roger Berkowitz. Also have to shout out, Roger's Fish Company is a sponsor of our podcast.

• 33:52Dan Pashman?

  Also, I used to wait tables at Legal Seafood, full disclosure.

• 33:55Speaker 01

  Okay, glad we got all our disclosures out there.

• 33:58Dan Pashman?

  Yeah.

• 33:59Speaker 01

  So Roger was working at Legal Seafood, which was in Cambridge, right across the river from you.

• 34:04Dan Pashman?

  The original one.

• 34:05Speaker 01

  The original one. So he would go out to the docks to buy fish, okay? And one day, he's down at the docks and he sees this crate that just says "Monkey Tails." And so he sees this, he has no idea what it is, he asks the person at the fish market, and the guy's like, "Oh, you don't want this shit. We send this to France, apparently they eat it over there."

• 34:26Speaker 01

  It was at that time considered, in his words, a trash fish. It was bycatch. It's, you know, it was a bottom fish that would come up in the nets with the cod and the haddock, but there was no market for it here, so they would just freeze it and send it over to France. So he says, "Give me 10 pounds of it and I'll take it back to the market and see what we can do with it." He takes it back to the market. In Min Square in Cambridge, where the original legal seafood was, was also the neighborhood of one Julia Child.

• 34:59Dan Pashman?

  So this was like her local fish market?

• 35:01Speaker 01

  This was her local fish market. So she comes in that day and she sees the monkfish tails, the monkey tails, as they were calling them, and she immediately breaks out and goes, "Lot, lot!"

• 35:17Speaker 01

  Which is my impersonation of Roger Berkowitz's impersonation of Julia Child.

• 35:23Speaker 01

  Lot, I don't speak French, is apparently the French word for monkfish. So she's all excited. She says, "I love it. I want to do this on the show. Can you get me a whole one?"

• 35:36Dan Pashman?

  So what did Roger Berkowitz have to do to get the monkfish? The whole monkfish?

• 35:39Speaker 01

  He went back to the market and said, he thought it would be easy, you know, he figured that they'd just bring the whole fish ashore and then they carve it up. And they're like, "What do you mean? We can't get you a monkfish." And I've seen this to this day, when the fishing boats come in in New Bedford, they just have the tails. They just, they cut the tail off and they throw the rest of the fish back in the water because truly, it's all mouth.

• 36:04Speaker 01

  So he had to put in like a special request, wait, it said it took two weeks for a boat to go out, get a monkfish, hold on to the whole monkfish, bring it in, and that is the monkfish that you see in that clip on Julia Child, filmed at WGBH in Boston where I work.

• 36:26Dan Pashman?

  So we have a clip.

• 36:27Speaker 01

  Okay, great.

• 36:28Dan Pashman?

  We have a clip here. This is Julia Child on her show with a monkfish.

• 36:33Speaker 05

  Under this couverture is one of the great fish of all time. Woo, look at that. This, this is a monkfish or anglerfish. And it's, look at that, look at that great big mouth. Look at those teeth, their teeth on the lower part, very sharp teeth up here. If you're way down in here, their teeth down in the middle bottom. And he's even got some teeth under the eyes, if you can believe that. And somebody described this fish as a great big mouth and a small tail surrounding a stomach. And this is a North Atlantic fish, and it also has various other names.

• 37:14Speaker 05

  Goosefish, bellowsfish, all mouth, that's a good name. Fishing frog, devilfish, mulligut, and anglerfish. But what's interesting about it is it looks so big, this weighs about 20 pounds. But all you eat is the tail.

• 37:34Speaker 01

  See, it was, it was a big deal to get the whole monkfish because people never see the whole monkfish. All you ever see is that tail.

• 37:40Dan Pashman?

  I was here in Boston just a few weeks ago. I was meeting up with an old friend and he gave me a couple of choices of where we should eat. And I was looking at the menus and I picked Row 34, which is a few of those around.

• 37:50Speaker 01

  I had lunch there on Monday.

• 37:51Dan Pashman?

  Okay, because the menu had monkfish on it and I knew I was going to be talking with you about it. I said, let me do some research.

• 37:57Speaker 01

  Chef Jeremy Sewell, friend of the show.

• 37:59Dan Pashman?

  Well, tell Jeremy they were out of monkfish that night.

• 38:01Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 38:03Speaker 01

  Wow, I really set him up and then you just burn.

• 38:07Dan Pashman?

  So what's the deal? Like, why does anyone want monkfishy and what's so great about it?

• 38:10Speaker 01

  Let me tell you the first great thing about monkfish. It's about $10 a pound.

• 38:14Dan Pashman?

  Okay, which, yeah, that's.

• 38:15Speaker 01

  So compared to, you know, if you're buying cod or salmon, you're going to pay like maybe double that. All right, so it is so much cheaper and it's really good. It's sometimes called poor man's lobster because.

• 38:28Dan Pashman?

  That sounds like a stretch.

• 38:30Speaker 01

  Give me a chance.

• 38:32Dan Pashman?

  All right, all right.

• 38:33Speaker 01

  It has, you know, the cod and the haddock have this sort of like flaky kind of fall apart texture.

• 38:38Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 38:39Speaker 01

  Monkfish has a very firm, almost chewy texture, like a lobster tail. You can grill it whole, you can broil it, you can pan fry it. I'll tell you where in my mind it really shines, which is in a chowder. I don't know if you know Eventide Oyster, they're from Portland, or, um, sorry, wow, Portland, Maine.

• 38:59Speaker 01

  Wow, I'm gonna get hate for that.

• 39:01Dan Pashman?

  Yeah, really.

• 39:03Speaker 01

  They're up in Portland, Maine. Eventide has a great fish chowder recipe. It's for cod, but if you substitute monkfish for cod, it'll cost you half as much, and it'll be twice as good in the Eventide fish chowder recipe. It just holds together, it's chewy, it like carries the flavor, it's really, really good.

• 39:22Dan Pashman?

  Well, it sounds very good. And am I right, there's also a good environmental reason to eat monkfish?

• 39:26Speaker 01

  Well, like I said, I mean, to this day, there's not a huge market for it, and it is caught alongside these other bottom dwelling fish. And that was, back to Julia Child, I mean, that was the reason, part of the reason, she would champion a lot of different seafood. She would champion things like skate and mackerel, things that there weren't developed commercial markets for, because these things all come up in the net. So, yeah, there really is, like, as eaters, it is a great choice to try different species. Here's my fun fact for you is that Americans, if you look at all the seafood we eat, 86% of all the seafood is 10 species. Out of truly thousands and thousands and thousands of species in the ocean, we basically eat 10 things.

• 40:11Speaker 01

  So it's like tuna, shrimp, et cetera.

• 40:13Dan Pashman?

  So we gotta mix it up.

• 40:14Speaker 01

  Mix it up, get monkfish in the rotation.

• 40:17Dan Pashman?

  All right, big hand for monkfish and for Ian.

• 40:23Dan Pashman?

  We're gonna take one more quick break. When we come back, Matt, Omi and Ian are gonna share hot takes. We're gonna have some hot debates, it's gonna be great, stick around.

• 40:42Speaker 06

  It's time to open up a can of advertisements.

• 40:48Dan Pashman?

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• 41:29Dan Pashman?

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• 42:16Dan Pashman?

  I grew up on Lando Lakes cheese. I still remember going to the supermarket deli counter with my mom and her ordering Lando Lakes American Cheese. And now, Lando Lakes Cheese and Butter are a huge part of my home. There are so many easy weeknight recipes using Lando Lakes Cheese and Butter that bring delicious restaurant taste right to your table. From chicken parm to weeknight shrimp pad Thai, Lando Lakes has plenty of quick dishes that'll have the whole dinner table talking. Visit landolakes.com/reцепes/collection for easy weeknight dinners.

• 42:48Dan Pashman?

  All right, we're back now live at WBUR City Space in Boston.

• 42:54Dan Pashman?

  And I'm joined once again by Matt Shearer, AKA Reporter Matt of WBZ. Omi Hopper, whose forthcoming cookbook is Cooking Con Omi. And reporter Ian Kos, host of the Big Dick Podcast at GBH.

• 43:10Dan Pashman?

  All right, we've had some time to meet each of you, which has been lovely. Now it's time for the free-for-all.

• 43:15Speaker 04

  Whoa.

• 43:16Dan Pashman?

  I asked each of you to bring a hot take. Omi, let me start with you. What do you got?

• 43:22Speaker 03

  I love fancy plating. I'm all about fancy plating. Not really. But can we leave street food be street food? Can we stop trying to make it fancy? It bothers me. It also bothers me while we're at it, deconstructed everything. Why are we deconstructing lasagna? I get it. It's a lot of work.

• 43:43Dan Pashman?

  The whole point of it is that it's constructed.

• 43:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. That's what makes it fun, is what makes it look pretty. If you want the flavor, it makes spaghetti. It makes something else. It just, it bothers me.

• 43:56Dan Pashman?

  Matt, thoughts on this?

• 43:58Speaker 04

  Uh, yeah, I mean, I agree. I like deconstructed cereal, which is just dry cereal. I don't put the milk in. It's pretty good. You should try it.

• 44:07Dan Pashman?

  That's just cereal without milk.

• 44:09Speaker 04

  Right.

• 44:09Dan Pashman?

  It would be deconstructed cereal if you ate the cereal dry and then drank a glass of milk.

• 44:14Speaker 04

  Well, sometimes I just eat marshmallows, which is deconstructed Lucky Charms. That's pretty good.

• 44:20Dan Pashman?

  Again, I take issue with your use of the term "deconstructed," but we'll have to keep moving.

• 44:24Speaker 04

  I'm pretty sure.

• 44:25Dan Pashman?

  Okay, Ian, hot take.

• 44:27Speaker 01

  My hot take is that any ice cream flavor would be better if it had chocolate chips in it.

• 44:35Speaker 01

  I always, always order a flavor that has chips in it.

• 44:40Dan Pashman?

  Matt, response?

• 44:41Speaker 04

  I kind of like it. I mean, have you ever had orange sherbet with chocolate chips?

• 44:44Speaker 01

  Try me.

• 44:44Speaker 04

  Or purple cow, which is black raspberry ice cream with chocolate chips?

• 44:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 44:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, and white chocolate chips. Oh.

• 44:50Dan Pashman?

  Did you say orange sherbet with chocolate chips?

• 44:52Speaker 04

  Yes. Orange sherbet with chocolate chips is fantastic.

• 44:54Speaker 01

  Come on, try me.

• 44:55Speaker 04

  I'm on board.

• 44:56Speaker 01

  I don't know why they don't have strawberry chip. I wish there was strawberry chip.

• 44:59Dan Pashman?

  But like, most places have, like...

• 45:01Speaker 01

  Peanut butter chip.

• 45:02Dan Pashman?

  If they have chocolate chips as a topping, would you get that on some other flavor?

• 45:05Speaker 01

  It's not the same. It's got to be mixed in.

• 45:07Speaker 03

  I don't know about that.

• 45:08Speaker 01

  No?

• 45:08Speaker 03

  I'm-

• 45:09Speaker 01

  Try me.

• 45:10Dan Pashman?

  What's... Are you just not as big into chocolate, Omi?

• 45:13Speaker 03

  No, I love chocolate. I'm all about the chocolate. It's just not on everything. For every ice cream flavor?

• 45:18Speaker 01

  What's an ice cream flavor that you would not want chocolate chips in?

• 45:21Speaker 03

  Orange sherbet for one is definitely not one.

• 45:23Speaker 01

  Try it.

• 45:24Speaker 03

  Not one. I mean, for that, I'll try the coffee milk.

• 45:31Dan Pashman?

  But this is... I think there's a deeper question here that I have, Ian. I don't know if you all encountered Ian's type. No offense, Ian, but...

• 45:40Speaker 01

  Am I a type? Are there others of this type?

• 45:43Dan Pashman?

  I feel like-

• 45:43Speaker 01

  I heard a lot of boos.

• 45:44Dan Pashman?

  I feel like people... People who like chocolate are very aggressive about chocolate. They're like, "Oh, where's the dessert? Is there any chocolate here? If there's not chocolate here, it's not dessert. I want chocolate chips in everything." I'm a lover, not a fighter, and I want toffee and caramel and butterscotch and coconut.

• 46:06Speaker 01

  I'm not a big caramel, I'm not a big spice, I'm not a big-

• 46:07Dan Pashman?

  I don't need spice in my desserts, but like, I want... I'm fine with chocolate, but why are chocolate people so like aggressive about it? I covered a chocolate convention once and I- Perfect. I mean, I'm a chocolate guy, so I was among my people, but the first guy I talked to, he goes, "You could put chocolate on rocks and I need it."

• 46:28Dan Pashman?

  So, we've established that Ian wants chocolate chips in every single ice cream, but Matt, you have a related take.

• 46:34Speaker 04

  I do. I think that sprinkles ruin everything that they are in.

• 46:39Speaker 03

  It's 100% true.

• 46:40Speaker 04

  Yes. They add nothing except like a waxy flavor that ruins the texture. Like, literally, they taste like wax. When have you ever like put rainbow sprinkles and thought, "Oh, this tastes like rainbow"? You never. You are not tasting the rainbow with rainbow sprinkles. I'm sorry, and like, yeah, you put-

• 46:58Speaker 05

  People put them on cookies. My wife always buys the chocolate chip cookies from Market Baskets that have the sprinkles on them. And like, we are very close to divorce. Like, it's bad. It's bad. Like, on chocolate chip cookies, like, they do not belong there.

• 47:11Dan Pashman?

  Omi, you're nodding.

• 47:12Speaker 03

  No, because it's true. They add no value whatsoever.

• 47:15Speaker 05

  Yeah, nothing.

• 47:17Dan Pashman?

  My thanks to my guest tonight. Matt Shearer is a reporter for WBZ News Radio in Boston. You can find him on Instagram, @reporter matt. Keep it going for Omi Hopper. Her new book, Cooking Con Omi, is coming out in August. You can preorder it now and find her at cooking underscore con underscore omi at Instagram. And then, of course, Ian Cosse is the host and creator of the Big D Podcast at GBH News. Find him on Instagram, @iancosse. We'll link to all my guest work in the show description. Wired following people on Instagram. Follow me. I am at the Sporkful. My thanks to Stephen Davy and everyone at WBUR City Space. Big hand for WBUR City Space and for yourselves. Thank you all for coming out. Good night.

• 48:04Dan Pashman?

  Next week on the show, the annual Taco Bell 50K race. Yes, people run 50 kilometers. That's about 30 miles. That's more than a marathon while stopping to eat at nine different Taco Bells along the way. Who in their right mind would take on such a challenge? Well, my guest in this episode, for one. That one's coming up next week. While you're waiting for that one, check out last week's show, where writer Katie Weaver goes in search of the best free restaurant bread in America. And hey, did you know you can listen to the Sporkful on the SiriusXM app? Yes, the SiriusXM app, it has all your favorite podcasts, plus over 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, plus live sports coverage. Does your podcasting app have that? And there's interviews with A-list stars and so much

• 48:46Dan Pashman?

  more. It's everything you want in a podcast app and music app all rolled into one. And right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to siriusxm.com/sporkful. This episode was produced by me along with managing producer Emma Morgenstern. and senior producer O'Hara. It was edited by?

• 49:05Speaker 06

  Camille Stanley.

• 49:06Dan Pashman?

  Our engineer is? Jared O'Connell. Music help from Black Label Music. The Sporkful is a production of SiriusXM Podcasts. Our executive producer is Camille Stanley. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.

• 49:16Speaker 01

  And I'm Lisa Kinbi from Stonem, Massachusetts, reminding you to eat more, eat better, and eat more better.

• 49:37Dan Pashman?

  Hey, it's Dan here. Thank you so much, first of all, for tuning into The Sporkful every week. We really appreciate it. And I want to let you know, if you want to hear new episodes ad-free, subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts Plus on Apple Podcasts or visit siriusxm.com/podcastsplus to listen with Spotify or another app of your choice. Thanks.