Writer Samantha Irby Is Having Fewer Over-The-Sink Moments (Reheat)

Best-selling author Samantha Irby specializes in wringing comedy out of her own personal tragedies. Among her favorite topics: poop (she’s got Crohn’s disease), depression (which she also has), and sex. Throughout her writing, food is a recurring character.

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

• 0:00Dan Pashman?

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• 0:42Dan Pashman?

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• 1:12Dan Pashman?

  I hope you're ready to laugh because we've got a very fun one for you today. One of my very favorite writers and absolutely hilarious person, Samantha Irby. In this reheat, Sam and I get into everything from why she loves messy eaters, her struggles with Crohn's disease, which she writes about hilariously in her work, and why she no longer eats burritos over the sink. And if you don't believe me that she's a funny writer, well, she's gonna read some excerpts from her book of essays, "Wow, No Thank You." As always, if you have an episode you want us to pull out of the deep freezer, drop me a line, let me know what it is. That could be our next reheat. I'm at [email protected]. Thanks and enjoy Sam Irby.

• 1:50Dan Pashman?

  This episode contains explicit language and mature subject matter. Seriously, like, this is gonna get raunchy. You've been warned.

• 1:59Speaker 01

  So we have different approaches to the way a refrigerator should be stocked. She's gonna get so mad and I'm like frothing with joy about being able to talk about this. Her theory is that condiments are good forever. That's not me. If I can't remember when I bought it, then it goes out.

• 2:26Dan Pashman?

  This is Samantha Irby, author of three bestselling books, including her most recent, Wow, No Thank You. Sam and her wife Kirsten have been happily married for four years, but condiments in the fridge have become a point of contention.

• 2:38Speaker 01

  I'd just like to be able to see what's in there and be confident that I'm not eating antibiotics or whatever, like whatever gross cheese. I just wanna know that I'm not eating that. And she is the total opposite.

• 2:56Dan Pashman?

  You know, I'm listening to you and comparing this to my relationship with my wife. And one of the shelves on the door of my fridge is my hot sauce area.

• 3:04Speaker 01

  Wait a second. You put your hot sauces in the fridge?

• 3:08Dan Pashman?

  I know most of them don't need to be refrigerated.

• 3:13Speaker 01

  Team your wife. I don't care what you say from here on out. Team her. That's a foul on the play.

• 3:25Dan Pashman?

  I know. It's more like that's just where there's space for them. I don't wanna leave them out on the counter and they're like, we don't have a ton of cabinet space. On the other hand, I keep a bottle of Sriracha on my desk at work and that is not refrigerated. And that one does develop a bizarre sort of brown funky discoloration at the sort of top part of the bottle that is exposed to air if you leave it out of the fridge for long enough.

• 3:48Speaker 01

  And you don't think about how it's passing through the oxygenated brown part?

• 3:55Dan Pashman?

  I do think about that. I do, but like I sort of have faith in hot sauce to kill anything.

• 4:03Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 4:04Dan Pashman?

  Maybe they'll be writing that on my tombstone.

• 4:09Speaker 01

  I will come to your funeral and squirt brown Sriracha on your casket.

• 4:20Dan 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. Sam Erby has written three books of essays all about her life and her struggles through it. She finds comedy in her own personal tragedies, sharing details about things that a lot of us wouldn't even mention. Among her favorite topics: poop, since she's got an inflammatory bowel disease, depression, which she also has, and sex and dating. Sam will tell you everything, and she'll make you laugh about it along with her. She's not really a food writer, but food is a supporting character throughout her essays. In fact, you can kind of gauge where she is at any point in her life, how things are going

• 5:03Dan Pashman?

  for her, what she's dealing with, based on what she's eating at the time. Because food matters to her a lot. So in your last book, We're Never Meeting in Real Life, you talked about meeting your wife in one of the early meals you shared together, going out to eat together. You guys had lunch, and you write that she housed a giant plate of huevos, rancheros, and potatoes and sausages in a matter of seconds. You said, "She wolfed down her food with such ferocity that I felt my pants go damp." And then you write in all caps, "I love people who love eating."

• 5:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 5:39Dan Pashman?

  Now, and I do too, I'm with you on that, but I'm curious to hear from you why.

• 5:45Speaker 01

  Okay, so this is unscientific, but people who eat with abandon are just less uptight, less judgmental, less pinched and fastidious. It takes all kinds, but like, I want to be around people who messily, joyfully, enthusiastically consume their food.

• 6:14Dan Pashman?

  Sam's attempts to find some joy in food started when she was young. Her parents divorced when she was a kid and they each had their own afflictions. Her mother had multiple sclerosis, chronic autoimmune disease. By the time Sam was nine, she was her mother's primary caregiver. Her father was an alcoholic. Sam grew up in Evanston, an upscale Chicago suburb, living in Section 8 housing and relying on her mom's disability payments to get by. Other than financial limitations, Sam's parents didn't put restrictions on food.

• 6:43Speaker 01

  They went to the unofficial school of eat to cure your depression. I used to take like boxes of Little Debbie oatmeal pies to my room and eat them when I was happy or sad or bored.

• 7:03Dan Pashman?

  Sam's dad had a different comfort food.

• 7:05Speaker 01

  I don't know if this is tragic or like really great. My dad used to eat black walnut ice cream with frosted flakes on top.

• 7:17Dan Pashman?

  I mean, I would try that.

• 7:19Speaker 01

  I mean, black walnut ice cream is not for everyone. I love it, but you know, be warned.

• 7:27Dan Pashman?

  How is a black walnut different from other walnuts?

• 7:30Speaker 01

  I don't know. You know how like bad coffee tastes, like kind of like dirt?

• 7:35Dan Pashman?

  Like a little burnt?

• 7:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, it's got kind of that like charred taste.

• 7:41Dan Pashman?

  Now I want to try it. Now I'm Googling black walnuts.

• 7:46Dan Pashman?

  Most of the walnuts we eat today are English walnuts, which have a milder taste and broader appeal. Black walnuts, on the other hand, have a bolder, earthier flavor. Earthy, that's probably what you're describing.

• 7:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was my example of how to self-soothe when growing up. I was like, Dad, should we talk about our feelings? And he's like, no, here's some ice cream with sugar cereal on top.

• 8:16Dan Pashman?

  Black walnut ice cream could only do so much in the face of severe depression. At age 13, Sam attempted suicide. Five years later, both her parents died, just a few months apart. Her mother from MS, her father essentially drank himself to death. He froze in the street. Sam quit college. In the following years, she alternated between living in her car and living in what she calls a crack house. She worked odd jobs to support herself.

• 8:42Speaker 01

  I remember when I was like 19, I started working for my friend's dad. And he was super rich and he had lived in Italy. And I used to do like the grocery shopping. They had like vegetables on the list that I had never heard of before. Like, I didn't know what the fuck bok choy was. I had to get some kid at Whole Foods to walk around with me to get everything that was on their list. I was like, I didn't even know you could eat vegetables that didn't come out of a can.

• 9:16Dan Pashman?

  It's interesting, Sam, like in, in, in reading so much of your work, which I, I love so much.

• 9:21Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 9:22Dan Pashman?

  One of the recurring themes that I sort of see is like the ways that we categorize and rank each other.

• 9:29Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 9:30Dan Pashman?

  Like the ways that rich people signal their wealth and superiority, which is often done, not, but not always done through food. Food can be like a status symbol.

• 9:38Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 9:39Dan Pashman?

  So I see, I see this as sort of like an ongoing commentary of yours on like our never ending system of raiding ourselves against others. Why is this something you're especially interested in?

• 9:52Speaker 01

  Uh, I think, like, having grown up fat and black and poor in a suburb that was fairly like well to do. When you grow up feeling less than and understanding that you have to.

• 10:15Speaker 01

  Be extra just to, you know, you have to, you have to be the funniest and the smartest and the this and the that to even to compete with people who aren't even as good as you are. You know what I mean? I think that really sets the tone for your life, at least for me. I don't know that I've ever shaken that feeling and I have never stopped trying to catch up and be good enough and have enough.

• 10:52Dan Pashman?

  Even as she started to get a more solid footing, a job at an animal hospital, enough money to pay rent, Sam struggled in her relationships. She writes about all the shitty people she dated in great detail in her books. There was the guy who judged her for not buying organic bananas, the women who would text her, "Hey, you up?" And then there was the angel hair incident.

• 11:12Speaker 01

  I had made this pasta dish with bow ties and it was a whole thing, right? Like if you're gonna cook for a person, it feels monumental. And he was like, "Oh, I only eat angel hair."

• 11:30Dan Pashman?

  What? Did he have an explanation?

• 11:33Speaker 01

  No, he just kept saying, "I only eat angel hair." And then he went and made a salad and did not eat the food I had cooked. And that's how I knew that we were doomed.

• 11:49Dan Pashman?

  Oh, my God. I mean, there's so many things wrong with this situation to unpack. I mean, first of all, even if you don't like the pasta that's being served, you can't choke down a few bow ties just to be polite?

• 12:02Speaker 01

  That's what I'm saying. And it was like a cream sauce with mushrooms. It was very delicious.

• 12:07Dan Pashman?

  It sounds really good. And that sounds like the right kind of sauce and vegetables to be going with that pasta shape. But on top of all that, Sam, angel hair is the most trash pasta of all time.

• 12:18Speaker 01

  It is disgusting. It feels like weird fibers in your mouth.

• 12:24Dan Pashman?

  And did you learn something about yourself from that specific encounter?

• 12:28Speaker 01

  Well, to never cook for a man again.

• 12:36Speaker 01

  And I didn't, I have not made a meal for a man since.

• 12:42Dan Pashman?

  Of all the bad dating stories Sam has shared over the years, there's one in her new book that tops them all. The beginning refers to her having Crohn's disease, which is an inflammatory bowel disease. I asked her to read it.

• 12:56Speaker 01

  I wrote about the time I wore a diaper to speed dating because I was in the middle of a Crohn's flare up and I pooped in it a little while talking to a gentleman named Terrence. I wrote about the time I started sleeping with this trainer at my gym who was obsessed with watching me eat whole chickens while he jerked off. That kind of shit can really ruin you. You know what I mean? I was having the kinds of dating experiences that if I'd recounted them on a therapist's couch rather than on a free blog, that person would have been like, hold up, have you ever heard of self-esteem? And no, I haven't, which is why I ate a glazed donut off a dude's dick one time.

• 13:40Dan Pashman?

  You, you, you comment on what the therapist would be telling you if you relayed this story to them. What do you think the therapist would be telling these two guys?

• 13:51Speaker 01

  Um, I feel, well, okay. I feel like the therapist would say to them, what are you doing with this person who is so clearly damaged that she's like willing to do these things for you? This is not to say that I don't believe that people can make empowered decisions to do whatever, right? Like if that's your kink, do it. When I was doing all this stuff, it was definitely from a place of like, please like me, which is not

• 14:32Speaker 01

  the healthiest way to get attention or love or whatever it is you're looking for. It's, I certainly wasn't like, yes, I prefer my donuts with dicks.

• 14:47Dan Pashman?

  The other thing that I'll be honest, I was wondering when reading that. And I asked this as a person myself, you know, who likes a whole chicken and a donut now and again. And you strike me as a person who does too.

• 15:01Dan Pashman?

  Is there any way to achieve like any level of deliciousness in this experience? Like, what's the strategy here?

• 15:08Speaker 01

  Oh, well, okay. So now that we're not talking about like the sad part of it. I met this dude who was a trainer at the belly fitness. It was the kind of thing where I was like, oh, this has to be coming from a bad place. It wasn't like we were going to be doing like tandem stretching or whatever, you know, like. And I was this, I was pretty broke at this time. He would like buy groceries and I was like, oh, maybe I am debasing myself, but he's keeping the pantry full. And it required so little of me that it was almost like easy to forget that it was like kind of depraved. I never like ate a whole chicken in one sitting.

• 15:53Speaker 01

  It was actually a pretty good gig. The, the bad.

• 16:02Speaker 01

  The bad part of it is like, I thought like I was having a relationship, you know? Marriage notwithstanding, if someone offered that now, I would be like, okay, cause I know what I'm doing.

• 16:17Speaker 01

  Drop the food off. That's your chair where you sit. This is the table where I sit. Get your pants down. Let's go. And then when it's done, see ya.

• 16:29Dan Pashman?

  Wow, Sam, you've really grown.

• 16:34Dan Pashman?

  All right, now same question, but for the donut guy.

• 16:37Speaker 01

  Let me tell you, nothing is more embarrassing than like watching someone like put their dick through a donut hole. And like the donut is like hanging. Cause like in your fantasy, right? You do that in the donut, like, you know, is snug, but it wasn't.

• 16:59Dan Pashman?

  Now, now I really want to go down this wormhole where it's like, I imagine him like buying other donuts and carving out the interior holes or like wedging them in to make the hole smaller so that it fits.

• 17:09Speaker 01

  And you can buy like a Boston cream and make his own hole. But then I'd be like, uh, what is that, syphilis?

• 17:27Dan Pashman?

  So I think you get the picture of Sam's dating life in her twenties. Coming up, we hear about the diagnosis she got around the same time. It forces her to change the way she eats and she tries to avoid becoming the kind of eater she hates. Stick around.

• 17:55Speaker 02

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• 18:02Dan Pashman?

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• 18:43Dan Pashman?

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• 19:27Dan Pashman?

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• 19:37Dan Pashman?

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• 21:17Dan Pashman?

  Welcome back to another Sporkful Reheat. I'm Dan Pashman. Hey, check out my Instagram when you get a chance. I share what I'm up to, what I'm eating, all of my hot takes that don't always make the cut here on the Sporkful, although I don't know why anybody would want to cut out my rants about the best way to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but the point is that that stuff is on my Instagram and we have a lot of fun there. Also, sometimes I'm like debating, what should we do for this episode? And I'll put up a poll. It gives you a chance to actually have input into the show. So you can do it right now while you're listening. Follow me on Instagram @thesporful. Again, that's @thesporful. Thanks. Now, back to Samantha Erby. She writes a lot about living with Crohn's disease. She thinks it's important to talk about it because so many people live with serious

• 22:00Dan Pashman?

  digestive problems and feel like they can't talk about it. That's one of several health issues Sam's dealing with. I asked her to read another excerpt from her latest book of essays, "Wow, No Thank You."

• 22:10Speaker 01

  I got some blood work done and found out I'm deficient in vitamin D, which I already knew because of extreme depression. Thank you so much. I don't even have time to get into all the shit you need to be doing for your dumb blood and your organs, which you shouldn't even have to worry about since you can't see them. Folic acid, potassium, calcium, turmeric, zinc, B12, sodium, magnesium. There are not enough hours in the day for all the motherfucking beans you need to be eating. The bananas, the kale, the eggs, the oats, the salmon, the broccoli, the plain

• 22:53Speaker 01

  yogurt, the cherries, the Brussels sprouts, the flaxseeds, the 19 cups of unsweetened green tea. I need to know how to get some extra cow stomachs to hold all the shit that's going to keep me alive, plus all the shit I actually want to eat. Loving yourself is a full-time job with shitty benefits. I'm calling in sick.

• 23:17Dan Pashman?

  You talk in the book about your various health issues.

• 23:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:20Dan Pashman?

  Degenerative arthritis, you dealt with major issues with your period to the point that you had a procedure that was like one step short of a hysterectomy. And you have Crohn's disease, which can wreak major havoc on your digestion. Diagnosing it requires like tons and tons of tests over many months. And then when you finally find out you have Crohn's disease, the treatment can be different for everyone.

• 23:42Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 23:43Dan Pashman?

  Tell me about that process.

• 23:45Speaker 01

  So I think my entire life, I had had just like raging bouts of diarrhea. But my parents were like, you just eat the wrong things. They weren't like, oh my God, let's investigate the cause of these problems. They were like, you had too many Oreos today.

• 24:04Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 24:04Speaker 01

  That's it. So then I had like my first big attack where I ended up in the hospital. I was napping. I woke up, my stomach was in blinding pain and it was like distended and red and hot. And I was like, what is happening here? And I went to the emergency room and it turns out my intestines had swelled and twisted, kind of like a pretzel. And they were going to operate. I got a whole bunch of injectable steroids and luckily that took the swelling down enough that they were like, okay, we won't cut you open, but you're going to have to stay in the hospital.

• 24:49Speaker 01

  And I ended up staying there for two weeks. And that's when we kind of started all of the testing to figure out what it was. So that was 2005. I was 25 and I'm 40 now.

• 25:02Dan Pashman?

  Sam says her Crohn's isn't as severe as what some people deal with. She's never had to have a major part of her intestines removed, but it still took her a long time to figure out how to treat it. Early on, she went on an elimination diet, which means you cut out all the possible triggers from your diet to the point that there's only a couple of things left you can eat. Then you slowly add foods back to determine which ones make you sick.

• 25:23Speaker 01

  It really does feel like playing Russian roulette, especially because like some of the things that are the best for you as a human, right? You know, like all the roughage and all the fiber and the this and the that is really hard on a person with digestive issues to eat. I remember once I had eaten two apples in a day and thought that I was like gonna give birth. Like, that's how, that's how severe

• 25:55Dan Pashman?

  Right, right.

• 25:56Speaker 01

  the pain was. And then kind of like trying to work a full-time job while being like, uh-oh, I don't know if this is gonna come out so good.

• 26:06Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 26:07Speaker 01

  That, like, that period of time was really, was really rough.

• 26:11Dan Pashman?

  So if you're a person who sometimes eats to feel better emotionally, what effect does Crohn's disease have on you?

• 26:22Speaker 01

  The worst case scenario is that if I eat something to feel better with, with complete disregard to how it might make my body feel, later, when, you know, it's wreaking havoc on me, I, one, feel worse about the things that I was trying to eat to feel better about, and, two, feel like a bad person for putting my body through, you know, whatever nightmare.

• 26:51Dan Pashman?

  It just feels like a really shitty paradox.

• 26:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I like all the parts of eating. Like, I love to cook, and I love to cook for people, and I love to eat with people. I think anytime you get a diagnosis, it's of whatever kind, it's like, oh, what a relief.

• 27:10Dan Pashman?

  Right. At least you have, you have like an, an answer, an explanation for what's happening.

• 27:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. So like, there's, there's that part of it that's like, oh, thank God. And there's meds for this and procedures for this? Great. I'm insured? Excellent. Thank you. This is great. And then there's the, you know, the sinking feeling of like, it's a disease that messes up my favorite thing. How sad for me.

• 27:34Dan Pashman?

  Was there a specific moment soon after your diagnosis when you realized that this was going to change your relationship with food?

• 27:44Speaker 01

  So one thing... Was I hate to plan. I'm not a planner. It like it fundamentally changed who I was as a person. There's no like casual eating anymore, right? There's like, I can eat this. I need to figure out what my reaction to it is. And who at 25 doesn't want to be anything other than carefree? Right? Because like I said at the beginning, I like, I want to be fun and be around people who are fun. And the least fun thing is the person with all the dietary restrictions and problems. And then I was that person where I had to be.

• 28:27Speaker 01

  So I didn't do anything socially for a long time, at least not where food was concerned.

• 28:36Dan Pashman?

  Sam has been on various medications, but now she's not on any. Her Crohn's has been in remission for a few years. She maintains a gluten free diet, which is a common prescription for Crohn's patients. But Sam is still a sucker for the latest wellness trends, like the time she heard about a footwear designer who swore by alkalizing her body. Here's Sam reading from that story in her new book.

• 28:58Speaker 01

  I go to the doctor every other day and never has one of them told me about alkalization. Alkalizing, alkalization, the need to be alkalized. I'm in awe of people who talk like that with a straight face. And let me tell you, the shit stuck. So now I start my morning by drinking some room temperature water from the pitcher on the counter with a few slices of Meyer lemon from those little bags of them that you can get at Trader Joe's. It has done absolutely nothing for me, from what I can tell. But later on, when I eat an entire jalapeno and pepperoni pizza and feel bad about it,

• 29:41Speaker 01

  I can think to myself, bitch, remember when you alkalized and feel clean?

• 29:50Dan Pashman?

  What's the most extreme wellness routine or product you've ever tried?

• 29:55Speaker 01

  Oh my God, I bought, I know what it is because it mocks me every day. First of all, I will get into any wellness thing that doesn't require like actually changing my life or habits. So like I'll take whatever supplement, whatever powder, I'll do it. And I got from goop.com, um, these, oh, it's a mush, I think it's mushrooms. This mushroom powder called Manuka Purions or something like that.

• 30:36Speaker 01

  I, I can like email you what it's actually called, but for the purposes of this, who, like, who cares? Nobody's going to go buy it because they're all smarter than I am. But I read this, one of these, I'm a sucker for these profiles where like beautiful young women talk about their day and what they consume. And I read this one from a footwear designer and she said that she put some of this powder in her coffee every day and it's like nature's Adderall. It makes me feel so focused and I'm like, you know, I would love to feel focused. And I ordered a $48 tub of powder that I used two times.

• 31:21Dan Pashman?

  And did you feel focused?

• 31:23Speaker 01

  No, I just, you know what I did, speaking of the Crohn's, I spent the whole day worried that whatever was in it was going to give me diarrhea.

• 31:36Dan Pashman?

  And also it's like, you, you want to, you want to know what's actually nature's Adderall? Caffeine, which exists naturally in coffee and tea, which are natural products.

• 31:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. See, I want so much to believe that there is a magic pill or potion that is like the key to happiness and getting work done. That I don't even like logically think about any of this stuff. I don't logically think like, oh, she drank it in coffee. It's the coffee. I think, get me that powder immediately.

• 32:12Dan Pashman?

  You have this line in the book that I thought was really compelling. You write, "I have been stuck with a smelly, actively decaying body that I never asked for, and I'm constantly on the receiving end of confusing, overwhelming messages for how to properly care for and feed it." And this is a theme you touch on a few times in your writing, like at times feeling outside of your body, that being in your body being the sort of incomprehensible machine that you kind of pilot but can't really control.

• 32:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:40Dan Pashman?

  And I would imagine that at times there's sort of a feeling of desperation with that, and that that may also be part of what these sort of magical elixirs, what makes them appealing.

• 32:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, because it's really easy to feel like you're doing something wrong, right? And like you're depressed because you're doing something wrong, or this is happening because you're doing something wrong. And specifically, when it comes to my body, it has helped me to think of it as like, as what it is, like cells and chemicals and hormones that I am absolutely not in control of.

• 33:17Dan Pashman?

  So some of the struggles that Sam wrote about in her earlier books are still struggles, physical health, mental health. But as I said to her, it does sound like some things are better. She's learning how to manage her health issues. The new book is dedicated to the antidepressant Wellbutrin. She now lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan with her wife and stepkids. And she's a New York Times bestselling author, even writing for TV, so her finances are improving. I asked her, "Has any of this changed the way you eat?"

• 33:47Speaker 01

  Yes. I mean, let's be honest, when you live with a person all the time and they see all of the parts of you, it's really hard to keep the bad things hidden. So I try to eat like more salads and try to put things on a plate and sit down.

• 34:15Dan Pashman?

  Wow, Sam, you have really sold out.

• 34:21Speaker 01

  I know, I can't even tell you the last time I ate a burrito over the sink, which is my preferred way of eating a burrito.

• 34:29Dan Pashman?

  I gotta say, Sam, I follow you on Instagram and when you post food, it seems like most of the stuff you post looks pretty nice. I mean, I saw a very lovely frittata there recently.

• 34:40Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. Yeah, I am a, see, that's the thing. I am a good cook and when I have people to cook for who can praise me.

• 34:48Dan Pashman?

  Oh, I got it, got it. Okay.

• 34:50Speaker 01

  That's part of it too, right? It's like now I live with people and I can be like, oh, did you see that thing I made? Delicious, right? So I would say that I cook things that are nicer looking and I try to present them well because they're being served to people and I have fewer over the sink moments.

• 35:23Dan Pashman?

  That's Samantha Irby. Her new book of essays is called Wow, No Thank You. This show is produced by me along with senior producer. Emma Morgenstern. And producer. Andres O'Hara. Additional production by. Julia Shu. Our editor is. Tracy Samuelson. Our engineer is. Jared O'Connell. Music help from Black Label Music. The Sporkful is a production of Stitcher. Our executive producers are Chris Bannon and Daisy Rosario. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.

• 35:49Speaker 04

  And I'm Tim Serantonio from Chicago, Illinois, reminding you to eat more, eat better, and eat more better.

• 36:12Dan Pashman?

  This reheat was produced by. Gianna Palmer. The team that produces The Sporkful today includes me along with managing producer. Emma Morgenstern. And senior producer. Andres O'Hara. Our engineer is. Jared O'Connell. The Sporkful is a production of Stitcher Studios. Our executive producer is Camille Stanley. And hey, did you know you can listen to The Sporkful? On the Sirius XM app? Yes, the Sirius XM 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 Sirius XM app by going to siriusxm.com/sporkful. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.

• 37:00Speaker 05

  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,

• 37:45Speaker 05

  or color changes in fingers and toes. Common side effect is nausea. For full prescribing information, call 1-833-4-NUR-TAC or visit Nurtac.com. All right, back to your podcast, playlist, or whatever's keeping you going today.

• 38:00Speaker 06

  Time for a quick break to talk about McDonald's. It's the tangiest time of the year. For a limited time, head to McDonald's and get a McRib sandwich. Make it a meal by adding a medium fries and a soft drink like an ice cold Diet Dr. Pepper. So grab a McRib sandwich and embrace the tang. Save time by ordering ahead on the app. At participating McDonald's for a limited time. Dr. Pepper is a registered trademark of Dr. Pepper, 7-Up, Inc.