Pod Insights The Sporkful What’s It Like To Cook With A Brain Injury? About this episode How does a traumatic brain injury affect the way you cook and eat? Filmmaker Cheryl Green, who has a brain injury, satirizes her own experiences in the kitchen in a short video called “Cooking With Brain Injury.”
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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1:41 Dan Pashman? This episode contains explicit language.
1:46 Speaker 01 Hi, everyone. Welcome to Cooking with Brain Injury. Today, we'll be cooking with brain injury. I mean, cooking salmon with brain injury.
1:56 Speaker 01 No, the salmon doesn't have a brain injury? Well, I don't have its head anymore. I just mean that we have a brain injury. Bill and me, we're brain injured. How about that?
2:13 Dan 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 have I got a holiday shopping tip for you, my friends. I know the season's kicking off. Well, guess what? Sfolini, who make all of my fantastic pastas, is having a huge Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale. It kicks off today, and it's going for the next week. It's 20% off site-wide, no code needed. You can stock up on my cascatelli, vesuvio, and quattratini. You can also pick up our limited-edition Sporkful pack, just for the holidays. There's Calabrian Chili Cascatelli, Safran Vesuvio, and Garlic Quattratini. We've never made these shapes with these special flavors before. Limited time only,
2:56 Dan Pashman? only for the holidays. You can get these, or the classic original flavor, pastas. 20% off through December 1st, no code needed. Discount automatically applied at checkout. So head over now to sfolini.com. That's S-F-O-G-L-I-N-I.com. One more quick thing. As we get closer to the end of the year, it's time for our very special tradition. I want to hear your New Year's food resolutions. I'm also thinking about my own. What food will I resolve to eat more of in the new year? What food will you resolve to eat more of in the new year, and why? Send me an email or voice memo to [email protected] . Tell me your first name, location, what food you resolve to eat more of in the new year, and why. And you might hear yourself right here on The Sporkful.
3:39 Dan Pashman? All right, enough preamble. Let's get to the show. The person you heard at the start of this episode is Cheryl Green. She's a multimedia artist in Portland, Oregon. She makes documentary films, videos, and podcasts that focus on how people with disabilities live their lives day-to-day. Cheryl's own experience informs her work, because she has a traumatic brain injury, or TBI. The CDC defines a TBI as "a disruption in the normal function of the brain that can be caused by a bump, blow, jolt to the head, or penetrating head injury." How did you come to have a traumatic brain injury?
4:14 Speaker 01 Um... I'm gonna see if it's okay with you if I don't answer that question. This is, this is a really tough one because part of the brain injury culture is to tell that story with a lot of detail. And I, I work really hard to not tell that story unless it's actually relevant to the other parts of the conversation. And I totally respect where the question's coming from, but what you have, Dan, is the opportunity to show people that a brain injury story can be complete without hearing the trauma part of the story?
4:47 Dan Pashman? Cheryl's response to my question is very much in line with the way she approaches her work. She's less interested in how people got their disabilities, much more interested in how they live their lives today. Of course, eating is a big part of anyone's day to day. After a TBI, a person may have to relearn how to cook and eat, or adapt to doing it with certain accommodations. In that video you heard at the start of our show, Cooking with Brain Injury, Cheryl gives a taste of what it's like to cook while living with a disability. And she does it with a heavy dose of satire and deadpan humor. The whole video parodies traditional cooking shows, with Cheryl and her friend Bill standing behind a kitchen counter, ingredients in front of them, looking into the camera.
5:27 Speaker 01 Okay, Bill, tell you what. Why don't we start by seasoning the fish on both sides?
5:32 Dan Pashman? Bill starts looking for the salt, but then he notices Cheryl hasn't moved. She's talking silently to herself, like she's trying to figure something out.
5:39 Speaker 01 Great. That was the planning phase. We mentally rehearsed the steps to seasoning the fish, and now we're ready to do it. Don't worry, a qualified speech-language pathologist-
5:49 Dan Pashman? The video is packed with these kinds of inside jokes for people living with traumatic brain injuries.
5:54 Speaker 01 And an occupational therapist can help you learn how to cook in a simulated kitchen just like this one.
6:01 Speaker 02 But this is a real kitchen. It's, it's not simulated. I did the simulated kitchen as an outpatient, and this isn't one of those. I mean, there's no one-way mirror.
6:11 Speaker 01 I gotta say, I hate those mirrors. People always think they're hiding back there, but you can hear them coughing and clearing their throat. Ugh.
6:19 Dan Pashman? Eventually, it's time to cook. Cheryl starts salting the salmon.
6:23 Speaker 01 Oh, but in summary, salt and pepper. You can always find them easily, they're always fresh, and they're always in season.
6:40 Dan Pashman? Get it? Salt and pepper are in season, like seasoning. Cheryl's reaction to this line may seem to some to be outsized. But this kind of uncontrollable laughter is not uncommon for people with a TBI, who may struggle to regulate emotions. For people watching this video who have similar experiences, this laughter will feel familiar.
7:05 Speaker 01 Oh my god. That was a joke. That was hilarious. I didn't even see that one coming.
7:13 Dan Pashman? Then things take a kind of dark turn. Cheryl's looking at the fish, and you just see in her face, she's not sure what to do next. She can't find the pepper, so she just keeps adding more salt, not knowing what else to do. Then she just kind of loses it.
7:28 Speaker 02 Cheryl?
7:29 Speaker 01 What?
7:30 Speaker 02 What are you doing?
7:31 Speaker 01 Doing the salt. Know what? I am out of my ears with this fucking salt, if you want to know the truth.
7:40 Speaker 01 And I hate salt. I hate fish. And my stomach hurts, and I'm not eating.
7:47 Speaker 02 Oh, well, um, I'm allergic to seafood.
7:52 Dan Pashman? And that's when the most surprising thing of all happens. Bill takes control. He's been aloof for most of the video, hasn't said much. He even went out for a cigarette in the middle of filming. But now, it's his time to shine.
8:03 Speaker 02 From here, folks, you want to cook it five minutes per side, per inch of thickness. Don't flip too soon. This takes patience. The fish should lift easily from the pan when you flip it. You can test to be sure it's done by poking it with a fork. If it's flaky and doesn't look raw anymore, then it's done. It's ready to eat. Just season with salt and pepper to taste.
8:26 Dan Pashman? So is the salmon a success? No. Even though Bill gives a perfect description of how to cook the salmon, he doesn't actually finish the job. Instead, he reaches into the oven, hoping to find an already cooked version, like they do on TV, and, well, instead, he finds a cake.
8:42 Speaker 01 Thanks so much for joining us on Cooking with Brain Injury.
8:45 Speaker 02 And tune in next week. We'll give other helpful and exciting tips to all you bait.
8:51 Speaker 02 Brain injured folks out there. You don't have to give up cooking after a brain injury, but you may have to give up eating if you cook like this.
8:59 Dan Pashman? Bill and Cheryl poke fun at themselves, but in a way that feels full of self-acceptance and love. Cheryl says that video was based on her own experiences in the kitchen. I wanted to get a better sense of what cooking is really like for her today, and how it's changed. Did you used to get more pleasure from food?
9:18 Speaker 01 Oh, I did. It used to be much more enjoyable to eat good food. And now I just, I kinda don't care. I just want hungry feelings to be replaced with not hungry feelings, because it is too hard to cook myself a beautiful meal.
9:32 Dan Pashman? To see how Cheryl's disability affects her relationship with food today, I asked her to record herself cooking a meal.
9:41 Speaker 01 All right, I'm here in my little kitchenette, and I'm just gonna make kind of a typical dinner for myself, which is whatever I can find in the fridge or hovering around on the counter. Just start with the basics. Chop an onion. Can't get any more basic than that. I should probably heat up the pan first. I can't tell which is the front burner and which is the back burner from the pictures on there. So usually just turn one on, and then I put my hand on the burner to see which one is hot. Try to do it really fast, because otherwise you burn your hand if you don't do it fast.
10:18 Dan Pashman? Cheryl's difficulty matching the knob on the stove to the burner stems from the fact that she lost her mind's eye. That means she has trouble picturing things in her head. So like for me, when I look at the diagram on the front of the stove, I picture it laid over the top of the stove. In a split second, I lift up that diagram in my mind and lay it over the stove to see what knob matches what burner. Cheryl struggles with that.
10:42 Speaker 01 My mind's eye went completely blank for a couple of years. If I wasn't looking at it, it did not exist, and I couldn't tell you how to do it. If somebody says something like, "Picture your happy place", there's literally nothing. Or... Give me directions from this bus stop to your house. I can't because I can't see the road in my head. I can't see the bus stop. I can't, there's nothing there. It is mostly back. It's a lot better, but just the ability to visualize things that I'm not actually looking at was gone for quite some time.
11:18 Dan Pashman? Cheryl's difficulty picturing things often creates frustration in the kitchen, like when a recipe told her to flip a piece of salmon to salt the other side. That instruction, flip the salmon, just didn't register for her because she couldn't picture it. She parodied that moment in Cooking with Brain Injury, but when it happened in real life, it wasn't so funny.
11:38 Speaker 01 I had five forks lined up on the counter. I got salt and pepper on one side of the fish. How do you get it on the other? I can't, the other side is down. How do you get so? And I start taking all these forks and knives and laying them out and I'm crying and I'm sobbing. It took 45 minutes to make that one piece of salmon. And I couldn't just piece it together that if you just stab it with a fork and flip it, then it's flipped.
12:00 Dan Pashman? What were you gonna do with the forks?
12:02 Speaker 01 That was just desperation. I gotta, I gotta pull out the big guns here. What can I do? I couldn't come up with any solutions to finding the bottom of the fish. And so all I could think to do was just get more forks to see if some idea would come to me. And then at some point, 30 minutes into it, I did pick up the fish and flip it over. And then I started laughing because, oh my God, there's the other side of the fish. It was there the whole time. I didn't know. Surprise.
12:35 Dan Pashman? Losing your mind's eye, not being able to flip a piece of fish or figure out the burners, these are all aspects of Cheryl's disability that aren't immediately obvious to others. Some people have disabilities that are easily visible, like if a person uses a wheelchair, for instance. But as Cheryl says, her disabilities are invisible. You might not know from looking at her or talking to her that she has a traumatic brain injury. Ben Drew, who runs a company that creates online resources for disability support staff, explains it this way. When a disability is visible, some people may try too hard to help. They'll help when they're not asked to and maybe even keep helping when asked to stop. People with invisible disabilities often experience the opposite. They find that others are oblivious to the need to make accommodations,
13:20 Dan Pashman? and sometimes struggle to grasp that the disability is real. When Cheryl would go to restaurants, she often couldn't understand what a server was saying over loud music and dishes clanking. She had to ask them to repeat it.
13:31 Speaker 01 Universally, I get this eat shit look from them. Sometimes they won't repeat it, or sometimes they will, but they don't raise their voice, or they say it really fast. And I struggle keeping up with fast language. Even in a quiet place, I don't think as fast as I used to. So that's hard. It's awful. I cry sometimes with the waitstaff, who won't just, you know, just say it again, but a little louder. That happens all the time. I don't go out to eat very much. That's one of the reasons.
14:00 Dan Pashman? Did you used to go out to eat more?
14:02 Speaker 01 Yeah, oh yeah, I used to go out to eat pretty regularly. But just the noise of restaurants, there's music playing, dishes clanging, people at the next table are talking, the person next to you is talking. It's so overwhelming. I can do it, but you can't expect me to do something else important that same day.
14:24 Dan Pashman? Back in the kitchen where Cheryl is cooking, she says this feeling can also be an issue at the supermarket.
14:30 Speaker 01 I just got this spray oil because it was cheap.
14:34 Speaker 01 I don't like spray oil, but sometimes I just get overwhelmed at the store. And if I see something that looks vaguely like I want it, I'll just buy it instead of go look for the thing that I do want, like regular oil, because grocery stores are really crowded and full of colors and overwhelming. And, okay, that burner's cold, so it must be the other burner that's on. Yeah, oh, the pan is hot. Okay, it's that one. Okay, the oil heats up, then you cut the onion.
15:05 Speaker 01 Oh my god, I don't know why I did that.
15:09 Speaker 01 That's a completely raw onion, but it's cool and refreshing. Probably shouldn't eat that. Mmm. It's tangy.
15:20 Dan Pashman? So why did you bite into that raw onion?
15:23 Speaker 01 It's, it's lack of impulse control. Not all brain injuries, but people who end up with disabilities from brain injury, lack of impulse control. You will almost always see that. And people think that the, the cortex, the big advanced outside layer of your brain makes you smart. It doesn't, it's just a giant brake. It's a brake system. Everything under the cortex is like, ooh, I want to eat. Ooh, I want to do this. I gotta do this. I'm gonna punch this person. Whatever impulses. And your cortex stops you. But when you injure it, your, your brakes have worn down or your brakes disengage sometimes and you just eat raw onions, even though you know they're gonna taste gross. You can't help it.
16:05 Dan Pashman? I could definitely relate to the taking a piece of food off the counter impulsively without thinking through whether or not it was gonna taste good. Like, I actually once picked a crumb off my floor, the tile floor in the kitchen. And I was, I was like, I just put it in my mouth without thinking about it to, to just to eat it off the floor. And it turned out that it was, it was a loose piece of tile grout.
16:31 Speaker 01 That's the best story I've heard all day.
16:33 Dan Pashman? I was like, this is not delicious at all.
16:36 Speaker 01 Yeah, and I do that.
16:37 Dan Pashman? Why did I do that?
16:38 Speaker 01 Right? Guess you were focused on something else. Oh, I like, yeah, it's awful when it turns out to be grout.
16:52 Dan Pashman? Coming up, Cheryl talks about how her friendships changed after her traumatic brain injury. Then she finishes cooking her meal and tells us how it tastes. Stick around.
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20:54 Dan Pashman? Welcome back to The Sporkful. I'm Dan Pashman. Last week on the show, I sat down with Roy Wood Jr., whose comedy I have loved for many years. Now he has a new memoir out called The Man of Many Fathers, about his complicated relationship with his father and how it affects his own approach to parenting his son. Food played an important part of Roy's life in many different ways. One of his earliest memories, where he really thought about food, was when he would eat breakfast with his mom in the car.
21:17 Speaker 05 There's certain stuff that you think you can't eat while you drive, but the secret is prep.
21:23 Speaker 05 And so you do the Eggo waffles, you butter and syrup them up. And my mom usually do three waffles, I do two. And you you put five waffles on a plate, prep them, chop them up real good, transfer it to a paper plate, two forks. I am the center console. And keep in mind, we're violating probably every child seatbelt law, like every motor vehicle. You're too young to be up front, hey. Me and my wife's gotta eat, bro.
21:54 Dan Pashman? Roy also tells me about the final meal he made for his father, which left Roy with more questions than answers. That one's up now, check it out. And make sure you stick around to the end of this episode. I'm gonna tell you about a super easy way to maximize delicious for Thanksgiving. You know, everyone wants to talk about how you're gonna cook the turkey. What about the seasoning? At the end of this episode, we'll discuss how you can season your turkey using better than bouillon. All right, back now to my conversation with Cheryl Green.
22:26 Speaker 01 Oh, the tortilla. Oops. Well, that's burnt.
22:32 Dan Pashman? We're back in the kitchen with Cheryl Green, who's in the middle of cooking a meal at home. She's not following a recipe, just improvising based on what she has in the kitchen.
22:40 Speaker 01 Okay, so the tortilla's burnt. It is completely, um, like a big chip.
22:49 Speaker 01 Let's see what else I can add. Oh, oh, isn't taco seasoning? I didn't even remember I had that. There is corn.
23:00 Speaker 01 Fake meat, fake chicken.
23:04 Speaker 01 Can add that in there. Oops, don't put the plastic bag on the cooktop because the cooktop is hot.
23:12 Speaker 01 Some corn in there.
23:16 Speaker 01 I ate it too early. The onions are not even cooked. Okay, well, timing is not my strong suit.
23:24 Dan Pashman? When you're cooking and things don't go the way you planned, sometimes it's frustrating, sometimes you laugh about it. I would think that you have to learn to let yourself off the hook, like not be too hard on yourself.
23:38 Speaker 01 Absolutely, that's a huge part of it, yeah. So, part of that, letting yourself off the hook, is saying, you know what, my vision actually is distorted. Of course I'm having trouble seeing what this is. So that's part of why I eat so much frozen food. I'm not gonna cook today because I don't wanna screw it up, and I know I'm going to. Almost all my friends are disabled people, and I had the most wonderful models from these friends and people who I work with of what it means to live a disabled life and an accommodated life. They provided the model of how to just go about your life with an accommodation, or go about your life, you know, needing somebody to help you with something. I believe there should be nothing embarrassing about using an accommodation for anything.
24:22 Speaker 01 There should be nothing embarrassing about saying, you know, because of my disability, I just can't do this thing. Uh, do it for me, please. That's great, I think that's beautiful.
24:33 Speaker 01 It says to brown the meat first. Then you put the seasoning mix together with water, and then you bring it to a boil. So I have basically raw onions, frozen fake chicken, and it's now all, it's now all covered in this, um,
24:52 Speaker 01 taco seasoning mixed powder. It is lumpy and disgusting. And it's all, it doesn't really, okay. Well, let me add water now. It can't be that bad, can it?
25:06 Dan Pashman? Instructions on something like a packet of taco seasoning? That's another thing that can give Cheryl trouble.
25:12 Speaker 01 I do struggle with reading and especially if there's a sentence that has letters and numbers in it, oh my goodness. And if people like write out a date in words, you know, like the 21st instead of in numbers, I can't find it. And I was trying to schedule a meeting with somebody over email and she was doing like 3pm, but three and then capital PM. There was no colon, zero, zero, space, PM. And I didn't see it. And I, I met at the wrong hour, a week early. And I called her, where are you? She's like, well, I said in the email, we're meeting at 3 o'clock on such and such day. And I told her, but I can't, I can't see that.
25:53 Speaker 01 I've told you before, I need you to write it out super clear and put three colon, zero, zero, space. And she said, I know, I just feel embarrassed, you know, helping you because it means that you're weak and, and I don't want to think that, but when you ask for help, I, I, I'm afraid that you'll think that you feel weak. I'm like, oh my God, this is twisted. No, I'm not weak. I just can't read. So write the numbers out. And I've even had people tell me, I just don't believe you. I, I just really think, go ahead and push a little more. You can do it. You can do it. And it's this implicit bias that if you're disabled and you need help, it's because you're 100% incapacitated.
26:36 Dan Pashman? What happened to your friendships with non-disabled people when you acquired your disabilities?
26:42 Speaker 01 Oh, I'm glad you asked that. I lost most of my friends after the brain injury. Some of it was, um, I, so I have a ton of communication privilege. You know, I, I communicate in a pretty standard way. And, um, I didn't for a while at the beginning. And a lot of people were really turned off by spending time with me because my communication was impaired.
27:05 Dan Pashman? Can you explain that a little bit more?
27:07 Speaker 01 Yeah, now I can. I couldn't back then. Early on, it would be things like, I would go to say something and I would accidentally say the wrong thing, which, which is fine, but I would stop and think, oh, no, that's not what I want to say. And so I'd go to say the correct thing, but I would say the wrong thing again, verbatim, like a broken record. It's called perseveration. I would end up actually self-harming. I, I couldn't get out of this feedback loop. And I would, you know, like hit my head on the wall or bite my hand or anything to try to stop this. Um, and sometimes I couldn't stop it. Um, somebody would have to say, stop, stop talking.
27:46 Speaker 01 And then the other thing, just really to be fair, is my impulsivity and my rage issues and my anxiety and paranoia that were part of the early days, I think I pushed a lot of people away. And people get scared when they see brain injury because you look the same, your face looks the same, your body looks the same, but you say really weird stuff. Some people can't wait it out. Or because they've been so segregated from disabled people, they don't realize that they could make some modifications in how they communicate and still get along with you. It's because you haven't had the gift of being together.
28:36 Dan Pashman? Back in the kitchen, Cheryl is realizing that adding the water to the pan after adding the taco seasoning isn't going to do the trick. She was supposed to mix that powder with water before dumping it into the pan.
28:48 Speaker 01 Oh, it is way too much powder.
28:52 Speaker 01 I hit the powder in my nose. This is why you mix it with water. It's disgusting. Oh, God.
28:59 Speaker 01 Did I not clean this pan? I guess I didn't clean this pan. There's spinach. There's spinach in here now. I didn't put spinach in here. This is the kind of thing that you basically are glad that you're cooking for one. Because if you gave this to somebody else, I probably would not get a second date. I mean, it's going to be edible. I'm sure of that because it's made of food products, but.
29:24 Speaker 01 But it is edible. Only the tortilla is burnt. The onions are about halfway cooked. And the frozen stuff is no longer frozen anymore. So I would consider this a successful meal.
29:38 Dan Pashman? What's a failure?
29:40 Speaker 01 My life.
29:44 Speaker 01 A failed meal?
29:45 Dan Pashman? Yeah. I mean, you're, as you're cooking this meal on this tape, every time you look at it, you're like, ooh, this looks pretty gross. And, you know, you don't sound especially excited to eat it. And yet, when you do taste it, you say, I would consider this meal a success.
30:03 Speaker 01 Yeah, I was lying. I was trying to show off for you. I thought it was a total failure. It was revolting. It was so disgusting. But I didn't have the fortitude to make something else. So I ate it for like two or three days. It was, it was a total failure.
30:18 Dan Pashman? Hearing all this, you can probably understand why Cheryl sees food less as a source of pleasure, more as a thing she has to do to make the hungry feelings go away, as she put it. But a while back, when she ended up at a friend's house and they happened to be cooking.
30:32 Speaker 01 I got to eat dinner with them and I loved it. And I thanked them and they thanked me for being served their food and for eating with them. So that pleasure is still there, yes. If somebody else will do the cooking. And if you know anybody, Dan, I'm looking. Somebody to come over and make me dinner.
30:52 Speaker 01 Just putting it, I know you've got a national audience, just in case.
30:57 Dan Pashman? When's the last time someone cooked you dinner?
31:00 Speaker 01 Really long time.
31:03 Speaker 01 I don't know.
31:06 Speaker 01 Because my relationship just ended like three and a half months ago. So, but when you ask when's the last time someone cooked me dinner? And you want to know why my relationship ended? I don't know when the hell that guy cooked me dinner last. I don't know.
31:19 Dan Pashman? So he wasn't cooking you dinner anyway?
31:20 Speaker 01 He wasn't.
31:21 Dan Pashman? Well, screw that guy.
31:22 Speaker 01 Seriously.
31:34 Speaker 01 You took a risk with that one, but it worked.
31:44 Dan Pashman? I'm pleased to report that a few months after we recorded this interview, Cheryl met someone new. His name is Oliver, and he loves to cook. One of his specialties, according to Cheryl, is salmon. He cooks dinner for her every night. My thanks to Cheryl Green, who continues to make documentaries. You can find more of her work at whoamitostopit.com. That's the name of her first documentary as well, Who Am I to Stop It? She's also the co-founder of Pod Access, whose mission is to support deaf and disabled podcasters. And one more thing about Cheryl, she also makes the podcast Pigeon Hole, which features stories about the disability community. One of her episodes is about how this very episode with The Sporkful came to be. And in that one, she also talks about Alice Wong, an incredibly important writer and activist in the disability community who recently died. We'll have a link to that podcast episode,
32:29 Dan Pashman? as well as links to Pod Access and Cheryl's short film, Cooking with Brain Injury, with its audio description in our show notes and on our website. My thanks also to Ben Drew, founder of Open Future Learning, an online resource for disability support staff. Find more at openfuturelearning.org. Next week on the show, for more than 100 years, Americans have been debating what the right cooking fat to use is. And in every generation, there's a couple fats that are considered the good ones, the virtuous ones, and others that are out of fashion, undesirable. And yet, as the generations go on, it seems some fats go from good to bad to good again. So what's going on here? Why can't we make up our minds? And what does it say about American food culture?
33:13 Dan Pashman? We dig into it next week. While you wait for that one, check out last week's episode with comedian Roy Wood Jr. We talk about his new memoir, his childhood, and the role food played in crucial moments growing up. Roy is incredibly funny, but he's also super thoughtful, and I really enjoyed this conversation. I hope you'll check it out. 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 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.
33:59 Dan Pashman? This episode was produced by me along with managing producer.
34:01 Speaker 04 Emma Morgenstern.
34:02 Dan Pashman? And senior producer. Andres O'Hara. It was edited by.
34:05 Speaker 04 Tracy Samuelson.
34:06 Dan Pashman? Our engineer is. Jared O'Connell. Our interns are. Morgan Johnson. And. Jasmine Sutherland. Music help from Black Label Music. The Sporkful is a production of Sirius XM Podcasts. Our executive producer is Camille Stanley. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman. And I'm David from Buffalo, New York, reminding you to eat more, eat better, and eat more better.
34:37 Dan Pashman? This segment is brought to you by our friends Better Than Bullion. It is almost Thanksgiving. I'm actually in my kitchen getting ready to roast a turkey, you know, for practice.
34:47 Dan Pashman? Getting warmed up. Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday. I love the anticipation. I love the idea that it's this one day that is so devoted to food. I love that the turkey is the centerpiece of this meal. And it's like, there's so much ceremony around it. It goes in the oven. It cooks for a long time. It's the centerpiece of this giant feast. And your family gathers around. It's a special memory. The kids are there. Hopefully the whole, you have a whole extended family there. Maybe it's friends, whatever it is, people who you care about. We're all together and we're all here to enjoy a turkey. But there are some issues because I gotta say, every year around this time, you hear all these articles, everything's coming out about how to cook the turkey. What's the hot new thing this year? Should you spatchcock the turkey?
35:29 Dan Pashman? Should you dry brine it, wet brine it, to baste or not to baste? What's the right temperature? Do you cover it or not cover it? Cover it partway? When do you uncover it? When do you cover it on a rack, not on a rack to stuff or to have the stuffing on the side? It's endless. And yet there's one really, really important part of cooking the turkey that nobody talks about, and that is the seasoning. Look, just get an instant read thermometer and cook your turkey to the right internal temperature, and it'll be juicy and good, but you have to season it properly. You know, whatever talks about this. And that is why when I cook a turkey for Thanksgiving, I follow the best turkey ever recipe on betterthanbullion.com. The whole prep time is 15 minutes, and the key ingredient is Better Than Bullion Roasted Chicken Base. All of these Better Than Bullion products are.
36:14 Dan Pashman? The most concentrated flavor. It's like a tiny little jar. It's a tiny little jar full of magic and also really good flavor. You just mix up some butter, the Better Than Bouillon roasted chicken base, a little garlic, a couple of seasonings, rub it all over the turkey and cook it.
36:31 Dan Pashman? And if you take it out when the internal temp reaches 165, you will have a phenomenally flavorful turkey, thanks to Better Than Bouillon. Add instant flavor to your holiday favorites with this secret ingredient. Better Than Bouillon is a paste, a base, a flavor enhancer, a kitchen shortcut, a secret seasoning, and pretty much whatever you want it to be. Unlike blocks or cubes, Better Than Bouillon makes it easy to add just the right amount of flavor so you can be more confident and creative with your dish. And also unlike blocks or cubes, Better Than Bouillon has a depth of flavor that you just don't get with those powdery things. With only premium ingredients across a full range of bases, you can trust that meals will be more complex and memorable. And they have so many different flavors, even vegetarian ones.
37:14 Dan Pashman? Seasoned vegetable base, roasted garlic base, sauteed onions base, like all the flavors already in the jar. Whether it's a weeknight stir fry, a slow simmer Sunday roast, or a holiday spread packed with family favorites, one simple scoop of Better Than Bouillon transforms an everyday dish into something extraordinary. Everything is better with Better Than Bouillon. For more recipe inspiration or to learn more, visit betterthanbouillon.com.
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38:41 Speaker 04 This podcast is supported by Nurtac ODT. Remedy Pant. We know you didn't ask for an interruption, but migraine doesn't wait for the right moment to interrupt either. It just barges in, takes your time, and throws everything off. So when migraine takes your time, take Nurtac. It's for the acute treatment of migraine with or without aura in adults. Nurtac can provide pain relief in two hours, which can last up to two days. Ask your healthcare provider if Nurtac is right for you, because your time is for you, not migraine. Don't take if allergic to Nurtac ODT. Allergic reactions can occur even days after use. Get help right away for trouble breathing, rash, swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or throat. High blood pressure and Raynaud's syndrome can occur. Get help for high blood pressure, numbness, coolness, pain, or color changes in fingers
39:26 Speaker 04 and toes. Common side effect is nausea. For full prescribing information, call 1-833-4-NURTC or visit Nurtac.com. All right, back to your podcast, playlist, or whatever's keeping you going today.
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