New Year’s Food Resolutions 2025

What foods do Sporkful listeners resolve to eat more of in the new year, and why? And what’s Dan’s New Year’s food resolution for 2025? All is revealed in our annual year-end spectacular.

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

• 0:00Dan Pashman?

  Make holiday hosting effortless with Boars Head Sweet Slice Uncured Ham. It's the perfect centerpiece for gathering family and friends around the holiday table. Hand-packed into netting, Sweet Slice Uncured Ham has the look of a traditional holiday ham with rich flavor worth savoring. Slow roasted and delicately smoked, boneless Sweet Slice Uncured Ham delivers classic bone-in flavor made for the moments that bring everyone together. Find Sweet Slice Uncured Ham at your nearest Boars Head deli. And for holiday entertaining inspiration, recipes, and more, visit boarshead.com. My whole extended family and I went to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina this past spring. And I gotta say, I came away feeling like, number one, this is a great family destination. Number two, this is a great place to come all year round.

• 0:42Dan Pashman?

  The mini golf alone is probably worth, it's like the mini golf capital of the country. They have the most incredible elaborate mini golf courses. They also have more than 80 championship full-size golf courses, plus 60 miles of beautiful coastline, all-season sunshine. Of course, you can relax by the beach or the pool. There's also jet skiing, fishing charters, paddle boarding, and of course, food. Oh, man, did we eat well in Myrtle Beach. From fresh local seafood to craft burgers and craft beers to kebabs on the boardwalk. With more than 2,000 restaurants to choose from, from legendary no-frill seafood shacks to chef-driven dining, Myrtle Beach has it all. Plus, live entertainment at the beach, there's always something epic going on. So, summer may be winding down, but in Myrtle Beach, you're gonna find the coastal vacation of your dreams all year long.

• 1:27Dan Pashman?

  Start planning your ultimate beach vacation and visit myrtlebeach.com.

• 1:36Speaker 01

  Hi, Dan and everyone at the Sporkful. My name is Dana and I live in Walla Walla, Washington. In the new year, I resolved to eat more food that touches. I have four kids and they all like their food separate. And this is just no way to live. I am so looking forward to focusing on food that piles and touches and all the mixture of flavors and textures and just taking back control of what I eat and focusing on myself in this way and all the yumminess and crunchiness and flavors that are coming with it. Happy 2025, everyone.

• 2:19Speaker 02

  My name is Verity. I live in Arezzo, Italy. And in the new year, I resolved to eat more chocolate. After years of feeling guilt around eating sweet foods, in 2024, I had a really hard time throughout many points of the year and found myself craving comfort foods, be it grabbing a Twix bar in the grocery store or making a huge batch of chocolate chip cookie dough and freezing it so that I could have a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie anytime I wanted. And instead of feeling guilty about it, I just found myself really enjoying that I was eating chocolate. So I want to bring that energy into 2025 and eat more chocolate.

• 3:01Speaker 03

  Hi, Sporkful. This is Mary Lynn calling from Malibu, California. This year, my New Year's food resolution is to eat more white chocolate. I used to look down upon white chocolate, thinking of dark chocolate and even milk chocolate as far superior. Then I had my daughter, who was born with a rare kidney stone disease. She can't have darker milk chocolate because they have a lot of oxalate, which can cause kidney stones. But she can have as much white chocolate as she wants. This year, I resolved to partake in as much white chocolate as possible with my daughter Madison, two years old. Happy New Year.

• 3:43Dan Pashman?

  This is The Sporkful. It's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, you know what we do. What do we do? We obsess about food to learn more about people. And if I sound like I'm talking a little slowly, if I sound a little punchy, it's because I am. It's because we made it to the end of the year. It's our end of the year episode. My feet are up and I am ready to relax and hang out with you a little bit here. Now, throughout this episode, we will be hearing your 2025 New Year's food resolutions. We're already off to a great start. Dana and Walla Walla talking about food that touches. Look, how many, I wonder how many dishes, how many serving styles have been invented throughout the ages just because people accidentally had two foods on a plate that touched? And they were like, oh.

• 4:27Dan Pashman?

  These should always be together. So yeah, let your foods touch, even if your kids are being annoying about it. As for chocolate and white chocolate, 100% eat more chocolate and white chocolate. I love white chocolate and I'm sick and tired of these of the the the chocolate people. Chocolate people are very militant. Have you noticed this? They're very aggressive. They're like, well, I'm a chocolate person. Where where's the desserts? Are there any chocolate desserts here? I only want dessert of this chocolate ice cream with chocolate fudge with chocolate sprinkles on top of chocolate cake. Otherwise, it's not dessert. What's with these people? And they're white chocolate is not even chocolate. I don't care what you call it. It's delicious. I love white chocolate macadamia cookies and ice cream. If you order the the Tom Cruise coconut cake that they bake in Los Angeles, which has skyrocketed in price and is now outrageously expensive, but still insanely good.

• 5:13Dan Pashman?

  Yes, it's a coconut cake, but there's also white chocolate chips in there, and that's part of what makes it amazing. So yes, down with these chocolate militants, chocolate for all, however you like it. Now, later in the show, I'm going to grade myself on how well I did in fulfilling my 2024 New Year's food resolution, which was to eat more fish. Then I will reveal my own 2025 New Year's food resolution. In between all that, we're going to replay one of the Sporkful team's favorite episodes of the past year. But before we get into that, let's hear some more of your resolutions.

• 5:44Speaker 04

  Hi, this is Kiani from New Jersey and my 2025 food resolution is to eat more artichokes. I recently redid my kitchen and came across two or three unopened jars of marinated artichokes. And I went and opened a newer one and took a bite and realized that I should be doing this more often. Happy New Year.

• 6:07Speaker 05

  Hello, I'm Antonette from Basel, Switzerland. The food that I'd resulted to eat more of next year is cinnamon. In my family, my mom and the three kids don't like cinnamon. And I'm thinking it's just something that we thought not to like. So this is what I want to do. I want to eat more cinnamon, more and more every month. So by the time Christmas comes around 2025, I can eat all the Christmasy cinnamon flavor.

• 6:35Speaker 06

  Hi Dan, this is Amy from Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. In the new year, I resolved to cook and eat more things that take a long time. I had five kids and the youngest is now 16 and dinner was always just what can I get on the table as fast as possible? So now that everyone's older, I want to start cooking and eating differently. I think the first thing I'm going to try is a cassa lay and then we'll see where that takes me.

• 7:05Dan Pashman?

  Well, Amy, first off, congratulations on getting all or most of your kids out of the house and I wish you the best in segue into this new phase of life when you can spend all afternoon cooking to your heart's content and not having anyone bother you or ask for anything or need a ride somewhere. Also, Chiany artichokes, yes, artichokes are amazing and canned or jarred artichokes, that's all I ever have. That's all I call for in my cookbook, anything's possible. I have never prepped a fresh artichoke from scratch. I don't know how to do it. I'm not about to start. But yeah, a sandwich, this is kind of a bastardization of how they would do it in Italy, but this is how I like it. Mortadella, stracciatella, which is the creamy, spreadable insides of a ball of burrata,

• 7:50Dan Pashman?

  artichokes and pistachios. If you can get some fresh focaccia, slice it lengthwise and just put that in the center. Oh, it's gonna be, you could also do arugula instead of artichokes. You could do both, but that might be gilding the lily even for me. Anyway, it is time now to replay one of the Sporkful team's favorite episodes in the past year. We have some specific criteria for how we choose this. First off, we're gonna pick one from the first half of the year, not one we just played. Second of all, it's an episode that we who work on the show really, really loved, but maybe for whatever reason, we just didn't feel like we got as much of a reaction from you all, from our lovely listeners, as we expected or hoped we would get. You know, look, maybe it was a busy week for you.

• 8:32Dan Pashman?

  No hard feelings, but because we want you to appreciate how wonderful this episode is, we're replaying it. And if you heard it the first time, listen again, it's that good because this one really stuck with me. It's a conversation with comedian Gary Gulman that went back and forth between hilarious and heartfelt, which is indicative of Gary's comedy. So here's my conversation with Gary Gulman. Well, let me back up for a second, Gary. This is a food podcast.

• 8:57Speaker 06

  No, I know.

• 8:58Dan Pashman?

  Okay.

• 8:58Speaker 06

  I'm familiar, yeah.

• 8:59Dan Pashman?

  Okay, good, good.

• 9:00Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 9:00Dan Pashman?

  So, you know.

• 9:01Speaker 06

  And I also have a theory on the word spork that I want to put a bookmark in.

• 9:05Dan Pashman?

  Let's do it.

• 9:06Speaker 06

  You want to do that right now?

• 9:07Dan Pashman?

  Yeah, because I don't want to forget.

• 9:08Speaker 06

  Okay. The first time I heard somebody refer to the cafeteria spoon fork as a spork, I thought, wow, that is... I didn't know the word portmanteau.

• 9:19Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 9:20Speaker 06

  Because there weren't that many portmanteaus. So, I found that very clever. I was like, oh, a spoon and fork. And I remember there was something that bugged me about it, and I wasn't able to articulate it. And then I realized it last summer. I said, oh, the reason I never cared for that portmanteau was because it was an inaccurate depiction of the fork's contribution to that utensil.

• 9:46Dan Pashman?

  Okay.

• 9:47Speaker 06

  And so, the fork is not doing half the work. It's not half the utensil. It's mostly spoon. And so, I think if they were to be honest with the contribution of fork to what we know as the spork, it would not be called the spork. It would be called, and I'll need complete silence for this. Okay, it would be called the spoon... Because you cannot gain purchase with the tines of a spork on any food more durable than raviolis.

• 10:31Speaker 06

  Which is the singular form of ravioli that I've just invented. I'm hoping it'll take off like the spork.

• 10:43Dan Pashman?

  Gary Gulman is the kind of comic that other comics love. He's obsessive about language and the craft of comedy. He's been doing stand-up for 30 years. He's one of only a handful of people who've done sets on every single late-night show. Early in his career, Gary did so many bits about food, he jokingly called himself a strictly food-based comic. He did a lot of observational comedy, like in this 2006 bit about fig newtons.

• 11:05Speaker 06

  When I was a-- let me tell you a little story. When I was a kid, you could only get figs in your newtons. And I'm proud of them because they've turned the Newton industry on its ass. I am so proud of them because you could only get figs, which is a pretty-- I give them credit for that. That's a pretty bold move, to dedicate your entire product line to the fig of all fruits. I've never-- a fig? I've never seen a fig outside of a Newton in my life. A fig could walk down those steps right now and I'd be dumbfounded.

• 11:34Dan Pashman?

  About 10 years ago, Gary's comedy started to evolve in a new direction, and the role of food in his act started changing too. Today, we're gonna talk about that evolution. But first, a little backstory. Gary grew up in a Jewish family in Peabody, Massachusetts, in the 70s and 80s. His parents were divorced, and Gary and his two older brothers lived with their mom. She worked at the Hallmark store in the mall, and she sometimes brought Gary along with her.

• 11:57Speaker 06

  I couldn't really hang out in the store because the boss would be there and he'd frown upon the babysitting that was going on. And I was eight or nine years old, and I would wander the mall from Toys R' Us to Music Land to Bookends. And then I made friends with the kids that worked at the Orange Julius. They were teenagers, and they saw me so frequently, and I bought so many hot dogs there that I-- eventually, they gave me an account. And then, if their manager wasn't there, they would give me free hot dogs in Juilliard. And it was just this great-- and pretzels also. It was a great scene, man. It was a good time to eat because I wasn't aware of the detrimental effects of hot dogs on my--

• 12:42Dan Pashman?

  I'm still not aware of them. Are there-- no. I haven't read about that.

• 12:47Speaker 06

  They're pure poison, I think.

• 12:49Dan Pashman?

  I'm still standing.

• 12:50Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 12:52Dan Pashman?

  So for folks of a younger generation, they may not know the Orange Julius. Like, it was sort of like a creamsicle-flavored beverage.

• 12:59Speaker 06

  Yeah. Yeah, but they also had a pineapple version and a strawberry version. They had a powder-- That was proprietary, probably. There was a, there was probably a Coke formula aspect to the,

• 13:12Dan Pashman?

  Well, so.

• 13:13Speaker 06

  To the formulas.

• 13:14Dan Pashman?

  So I was so curious, you know, getting ready to chat with you. I, I went on the website.

• 13:18Speaker 06

  Nice.

• 13:19Dan Pashman?

  And this is the description of the, of how they make an Orange Julius, the ingredients. It says, "Real Orange," this is in capital R, capital O, "Real Orange blended together with a secret ingredient"

• 13:33Dan Pashman?

  "to Orange Julius frothy perfection."

• 13:36Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 13:37Dan Pashman?

  Capitalized.

• 13:38Speaker 06

  Yeah, that's odd.

• 13:39Dan Pashman?

  But there's a, there's a word that you expect to come after "real orange" that is conspicuous.

• 13:43Speaker 06

  Juice. Yes.

• 13:46Dan Pashman?

  Conspicuously absent in the description.

• 13:48Speaker 06

  That's so interesting. Yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a fraud.

• 13:51Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 13:52Speaker 06

  But the thing that I forgot was that it was, it was one of the early blender drink shops. Outside of a bar, you didn't really, you didn't really get a lot of blended drinks. And now, of course, with, with Jamba Juice and, and every store.

• 14:06Dan Pashman?

  And the Frappuccinos.

• 14:07Speaker 06

  Also the Frappuccino. I don't know if you've ever worked in a, in a blended drink.

• 14:11Dan Pashman?

  I have not. I waited tables, but I didn't do that.

• 14:13Speaker 06

  Yeah, I worked at a Starbucks and if there were two or more people who wanted Frappuccino and I was by myself, I would, I would be tempted to close the shop.

• 14:25Speaker 06

  I would get so behind and I, and I was slow to begin with. I hardly ever order any kind of blended drink, but when I do, I, I tip. I leave a 20 because I know, I know how horrific.

• 14:37Dan Pashman?

  Really?

• 14:37Speaker 06

  I know how horrifically arduous that, that position is.

• 14:42Dan Pashman?

  I'm all for a good tipping, but $20 on a Frappuccino is very generous.

• 14:46Speaker 06

  The 20 is a new 5. My dad was very generous with tipping. No matter how broke we were, frequently it was about an $8 meal between me and him at IHOP and he would leave a, a 5. And, and so doing the math, that's the, what I'm valued at is probably a 20 is, is the equivalent nowadays. Yeah.

• 15:07Dan Pashman?

  Money was something Gary noticed a lot when he was a kid because his family didn't have a lot of it. They never went hungry or lost their housing, but they did sometimes struggle to pay their gas or electric bills. They were on food stamps and Gary got free lunch at school. Meanwhile, some of his friends were going out to a nearby restaurant where jackets were required.

• 15:24Speaker 06

  They would go as a, as a family and I, I remember thinking, oh man, that would be so swanky, but not only could we probably not afford the meal, the, the clothing. Required to get in would be cost prohibitive.

• 15:40Dan Pashman?

  In the 90s, Gary got into the Boston comedy scene. Eventually, he moved to LA and in 1999, he did his first set on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Early on, Gary saw an opportunity to make jokes about food.

• 15:51Speaker 06

  There weren't a lot of comedians talking about food who weren't really talking about being overweight. John Panett, who was a legend in Boston, had these great jokes about the buffet and how much he liked to eat, but essentially, they were jokes mocking himself for being so overweight. And then you had Jerry Seinfeld, who talked a little bit about breakfast cereal on The Seinfeld Show and seemed to have some food jokes. But the thing that I insisted on when I first started doing comedy was it was being original. And so I found this was sort of an inefficiency in the market, that there weren't a lot of comedians who were talking about food.

• 16:34Speaker 06

  They were mostly talking about drinking, drugs, sex, dating. I really was able to write a lot of food jokes. Probably my first album, there were probably 20 minutes of jokes. One was like a 10-minute diatribe called "The Hierarchy of Cookies", in which I examined every cookie I could think of. And then there was this other one about my disdain for the grapefruit. So I love grapes, hate grapefruit, hate it. Isn't that interesting? That they have such similar names. No similar properties. Grape, delicious, a masterpiece, way to go, God. Grapefruit, vile, inedible, so bad it should be a vegetable.

• 17:19Speaker 06

  I hate the grapefruit. The only reason the grapefruit was even invented, the only reason was because God wanted us to have something to compare the size of a tumor to. That's the only reason. There's only one fruit that the grapefruit cannot destroy, won't destroy. The grape. Another reason to love the grape, because the grape had the courage, the guts, the balls, if I may, to say to grapefruit, "Hey, stay the hell back. I've got a reputation to uphold, okay? I'm the grape, I'm doing very well for myself and you're not gonna screw it up for me, okay? I'm in everything, I'm in jelly, I'm in jam, I'm in juice, I'm in soda, I'm in gum, I'm in wine. Even when I'm dead, I'm a raisin."

• 18:02Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, I don't go rotten, I go raisin. How's that?

• 18:07Speaker 06

  The default approach for most comedians of that time was to take something and shit on it, whether it be McDonald's or certain ice cream. And I thought, well, I'll be different by saying, I love this. I love this thing. Especially if it's something that's not appreciated. I went on this polemic about the grapefruit. But then I realized what my approach usually was, and I said, well, I can't go all negative. I have to talk about these other fruits that are so much better. And how the grapefruit is...

• 18:45Dan Pashman?

  Also, I mean, how much of a backlash is...

• 18:47Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, I know, I know.

• 18:49Dan Pashman?

  Is an anti-grapefruit screed gonna provoke?

• 18:52Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 18:54Dan Pashman?

  Does anybody... I will enjoy a grapefruit once in a while. I mean, I've acquired more of a taste for tart flavors in my older age. But like, I don't know that I'm ever like, oh, yeah, let's get into this grapefruit.

• 19:07Speaker 06

  I mean, I probably haven't had one, so I've never given myself this opportunity to acquire the taste, but...

• 19:12Dan Pashman?

  Wait, you've never had a grapefruit?

• 19:14Speaker 06

  No, but I...

• 19:15Dan Pashman?

  Wait, whoa, whoa, whoa.

• 19:16Speaker 06

  Well, I've tasted grapefruit juice.

• 19:21Speaker 06

  Yeah, I feel I did enough research to make an informed...

• 19:25Dan Pashman?

  Okay, fair enough, fair enough.

• 19:26Speaker 06

  An informed takedown of the grapefruit.

• 19:32Speaker 06

  I didn't realize this was gonna be a gotcha.

• 19:40Dan Pashman?

  Gary made his name as a comic with jokes like this grapefruit bit, or the one about Fig Newtons. Sharply-written, opinionated, observational comedy. But his work wasn't personal. There wasn't some deeper meaning to the jokes. Then Gary entered what I'll call Act Two of his comedy career, in the 2010s. He'd already been on Last Comic Standing, and he was gaining wider popularity. His jokes started becoming more long-form and elaborate, winding stories with hilarious detours. We started to see more of him in the jokes. There were hints at his own struggles with money, and his indignance at some of the injustices in the world. Here's a clip from his 2012 Comedy Central special called "In This Economy."

• 20:16Speaker 06

  There are some moments in the journey of being broke that suck. They suck. Like, I went on a date to a nice restaurant, a decent restaurant, and...

• 20:30Speaker 06

  The woman ordered something that cost market price.

• 20:39Speaker 06

  You know, when she goes to order, I'm keeping score in my menu.

• 20:43Speaker 06

  When she goes to order, I'm like, "Oh, market price. What could it be?"

• 20:49Speaker 06

  And you cannot ask. Do not, that's a good piece of dating advice. When she orders something that's market price, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's just, let's just check in to see what market price is today because...

• 21:03Speaker 06

  I wanted to say to the waiter, just out of curiosity and not because I can't afford it, "What did lobster close at today?" Just...

• 21:14Speaker 06

  I wasn't able to contact my seafood broker at the end of trading today and I just, I wonder how much it fluctuated because I have a, I have an index fund that is made up heavily of crustaceans and other...

• 21:28Speaker 06

  Some mollusks, I put a lot of shellfish in there, which I know is ironic because I'm a Jew, but still, I mean...

• 21:36Speaker 06

  I've found in my career, the poorer I was, the better jokes I would write about being poor, like, and also the better jokes. Like, I found that my desperation and also the fact that it's such a universally understood, if not universally empathized idea of being broke, people love those, those stories and I think, I think one of the great things that comedy does, for good and bad, is let people off the hook. And I think for a long time, people have felt more comfortable with their own failures financially

• 22:17Speaker 06

  when a comedian they admire admits to, to being broke or, or unwise with, with money. But it's, it's unusual for comedians to talk about being well off until they're celebrities and then there seems to be this thing where, where they tell you about the celebrities and their money management and how much money they have and they... It just seems to be a death knell for creativity, to be that out of touch financially with the average American.

• 22:46Dan Pashman?

  That's interesting. I, I think, I wonder what, how much of it is a matter of being out of touch? And how much of it is, is that desperation is creative fuel?

• 22:58Speaker 06

  Uh huh.

• 23:00Dan Pashman?

  If you're gonna do your best work, you need to feel a little bit like it could all fall apart at any second.

• 23:05Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 23:06Dan Pashman?

  Because you need that pressure. And once you get to a point in your career where there is no pressure.

• 23:11Speaker 06

  I think there's some of that, but I also think that there's a level of pressure that is counterproductive in that it leads to anxiety and depression. So there's probably a sweet spot, but I also know that I've never, I've never been more comfortable in my career in terms of I, I, I used to, every time something would go well, I would think, oh, I'll be able to pay rent for another year. And I feel like I, I'm in a position now where I, I can cover rent for the next four or five years if, if things fall apart. Anyhow, there, there, yeah, I think there's a sweet spot of between desperation and complete fear of an imminent

• 23:56Speaker 06

  demise or tragic bankruptcy.

• 23:59Dan Pashman?

  Yeah.

• 24:01Dan Pashman?

  Coming up, Gary gets very far away from that sweet spot and veers into desperation when his mental health unravels. But that opens the door to a new era of his comedy when he begins using food jokes in a very different way. We'll hear that. Plus, we'll hear more of your 2025 food resolutions and I'll share my own. Stick around.

• 24:23Speaker 02

  Ooh, advertisements. Yummy.

• 24:27Dan Pashman?

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• 25:09Dan Pashman?

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• 25:52Dan Pashman?

  Learn more at USPS.com/holiday. 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. For a long time, I did not understand the point of vests. Like, why not just have a jacket? That covers your arms, too. But something clicked for me. I think I got gifted a vest, and now I am obsessed with vests.

• 26:37Dan Pashman?

  And it just adds that little bit of toastiness, and I got this new Quince Packable Puffer Vest. I love that you can just squish it up and shove it in the bottom of your bag, that way you have it with you all day. If it gets a little chilly, break out the vest. I also got a Quince Down Quilted Vest. It is so soft and cozy. They make them for men and women, and as with everything you get at Quince, they focus on high-quality staples made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, 14-karat gold, and Italian leather. These are all timeless, versatile pieces that feel special to unwrap and become everyday favorites long after the holidays. Give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers, or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns, now available in Canada and the

• 27:22Dan Pashman?

  UK, too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was The Sporkful. It's the best way to support the show.

• 27:31Dan Pashman?

  Welcome back to The Sporkful. I'm Dan Pashman and I am just about to pack my bags and head to the great city of Memphis. On January 16th, I'll be at the Buckman Art Center, live onstage, talking with local restaurateur and artist Karen Lockman Carrier. She is a great storyteller. She is a local legend, and it's gonna be a blast. This is just a few weeks away, so get your tickets now at sporkful.com/events. Thanks. Now, before we get back to Gary Gulman, let's hear a few more of your resolutions.

• 28:04Speaker 06

  Hi, Dan. This is Andrea in Portland, Oregon. I resolved to eat more food out of a food cart this year. You may have heard that Portland is one of America's top food truck cities. We actually have over 500 of them here, and I have eaten my fair share amount of food out of a cart or a truck, but there are so many more to experience that I need to get at it.

• 28:36Speaker 04

  Hi, this is Linda from Massachusetts. In 2025, I resolved to eat more oysters. They're very healthy, lots of protein and many other nutrients. They're good for the environment, and the oyster farming industry has really given many fishermen a new life.

• 28:56Speaker 03

  Hi, Dan. This is Mandy from Brooklyn. My 2025 resolution is to cook more recipes from my large collection of basically new cookbooks. Stop Googling recipes at 4:00 PM out of desperation because I'm surprised I once again have to feed myself and my husband, and start cracking open my shiny, unsplattered books to find my dinner from there. Happy eating.

• 29:19Dan Pashman?

  All right, shout out to my mom. Thanks, Mom. I hope you enjoy your oysters. And Mandy, yeah, cookbooks, crack 'em open. You know, it's like, it feels daunting. It feels daunting, I know. But you can do it. Okay, back to comedian Gary Gulman. And a quick heads up that we dropped a couple of F-bombs in this next segment. We're also gonna talk about mental health and suicide, so please take care when listening. In Act Two of Gary's comedy career, he went from clever observations about the little things to connecting those little things to his personal life, and to larger systemic issues. Act Three would see him moving more in this direction, talking openly for the first time about his struggles with severe clinical depression. Gary believes he's had depression since he was a child. The first time he sought help was when he was in college.

• 30:02Dan Pashman?

  He went on medication and saw professionals in the years that followed. But in 2017, things really cratered. His depression got so bad that he could barely get out of bed. He could no longer work, and he contemplated suicide. At the urging of his psychiatrist, Gary admitted himself to a psychiatric ward. During that time, he received electroconvulsive therapy, among other treatments. He believes it saved his life. A couple of years later, he released a comedy special that details all of this. It's a bracingly funny look at that dark period in his life. But while Gary was going through it, his comedy was full of not-so-subtle hints at his mental state. During our conversation, I played him a clip from a set he did on Colbert just a few months before his hospitalization.

• 30:43Speaker 06

  Why is it so hard to get out of bed? I'll tell you why. Because the thing that they don't tell you growing up about life is this. Life, hm? It's every single day.

• 31:01Speaker 06

  Every single day, you have to wake up and live and go through all the maintenance and the upkeep, and, ugh, I can't wait to have a caregiver.

• 31:14Speaker 06

  The thing that gets me through, though, is donuts and ice cream. I love ice cream, but I have this thing where I have to... I don't want to eat the entire pint, so I say just eat half the pint. But then, when I get halfway through, I have this compulsion where I need to leave a flat surface.

• 31:40Speaker 06

  Who am I leaving the flat... For the day crew?

• 31:47Speaker 06

  But I find myself eating it flat. I eat more, and then I'll come across a chocolate chunk, and I'll have to excavate that.

• 31:57Speaker 06

  Then it starts to melt around the edges, and that's delicious, so I have to eat that.

• 32:03Speaker 06

  And before I know it, I've hit bottom. Literally and figuratively, I've hit bottom. And I just, I finish the ice cream, and I put the fork down.

• 32:19Speaker 06

  More often than not, I use a fork to eat ice cream. And if you eat ice cream with a fork, I know you so well. I know you so well. Because my policy is, I'm not washing a spoon until I'm all out of forks.

• 32:41Speaker 06

  And people say, "Why don't you just wash a spoon?" "Why don't I shower?"

• 32:50Speaker 06

  I probably hadn't listened to that since I... I mean, I don't know that I... I probably watched it that night. I may not have. I'm shocked at how good the audience was. Because I remember it in my head. I remember thinking, "That didn't go very well. I didn't really care for me." And now I realize it was my depressed brain telling me that they hated me. Because it sounds like they were having a good time. But also, I mean, and I'm sure you noticed this, I was ill. I was really sick. That was the only thing I did that day, was go put on a suit and go on the Colbert Show. I was not functioning as an adult, really.

• 33:31Speaker 06

  And yet, did not feel comfortable telling anybody why I couldn't wash a spoon. And it's a dog whistle if you're depressed. You know exactly what I was going through. People have told me that. They were like, "Oh, yeah, we knew something was up." But I wasn't comfortable mentioning that I was depressed.

• 33:52Dan Pashman?

  Yeah, like, watching it now, you're having some small inkling of what you were going through. Like, the whole routine felt almost like a cry for help.

• 34:03Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 34:03Dan Pashman?

  But also incredibly funny.

• 34:05Speaker 06

  I mean, as sad a moment as that was, having that joke was sort of... I wrote the entire Great Depress special around that joke. Because that was the first joke that I had about depression.

• 34:18Dan Pashman?

  That ice cream bit was a very different type of food joke than the ones Gary did earlier in his career. But even though he says it was about depression in that Colbert appearance, Gary never used the word "depressed" or "depression." Two years later, though, after his treatment, that changed. The word was in the name of his special. It's called "The Great Depresh." And for the special, he made some small but important tweaks to the ice cream joke.

• 34:41Speaker 06

  More times than not, I would eat ice cream with a fork. Which is like an unofficial symptom of depression.

• 34:50Speaker 06

  People say, "Well, why does that mean you're depressed?" It may not, but it does mean at least that you did not possess the zest to wash a spoon.

• 35:00Speaker 06

  I just changed it a little bit by saying, "This is what it's like to be depressed. You eat ice cream with a fork, and if you're eating ice cream with a fork, I can pretty much diagnose you." And the context changes when you say, "These are some of the unofficial symptoms of depression." So then the tone becomes a little heavier, a little bit more somber, but when you're able to mix the heavy with the humor, you get some really, really special connections with the audience. I always did meet and greets after my shows, and the meet and greets were much different once I started talking about being hospitalized and my depression. They were much more meaningful and deeper.

• 35:39Speaker 06

  So it was a great way to evolve as an artist, to do something that was personal and also rewarding in that way. There's a version of my career where I just continued to do the very clever observational humor that really didn't hit people in a deeper way, and I'm sure I would have been fine with that, but this, I feel very fortunate, very grateful that I was able to make that, I guess, pivot.

• 36:09Dan Pashman?

  The success of The Great Depress and Gary's deeper connection with his audience gave him confidence to continue to tackle more substantive issues in his work. A few months ago, he released his latest special, Born on Third Base. In it, he talks about growing up poor and makes bigger points about income inequality and class. One bit skewers entitled "Customers at Chipotle," who point aggressively at each ingredient as they tell the worker behind the counter what should go in their burrito.

• 36:32Speaker 06

  Going to Chipotle, you may not have noticed this before tonight, but I assure you, you will never not notice it after tonight. The people in front of you at Chipotle, as they direct the assembly of their burrito, they wag their fingers at other humans. That is staggeringly condescending, also completely unnecessary. They know where the corn is.

• 37:06Speaker 06

  You found it. You don't even work here.

• 37:12Dan Pashman?

  This Chipotle bit, aside from just being on point about the way that people, a lot of people feel entitled to talk to service workers.

• 37:19Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 37:21Dan Pashman?

  The whole sort of assembly line-ification of the dining experience.

• 37:26Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 37:26Dan Pashman?

  I remember when Chipotle first burst on the scene, the whole idea like going down the assembly line, picking your components felt very special. You felt empowered.

• 37:35Speaker 06

  Totally.

• 37:36Dan Pashman?

  But now I sort of feel like there's so many places like that.

• 37:39Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 37:40Dan Pashman?

  To me, I feel like it's kind of degraded the eating experience a little bit.

• 37:43Speaker 06

  Interesting.

• 37:44Dan Pashman?

  Because it just creates this very sort of like, we need to get you your calories so that you can stay alive as fast as possible. And we need to get you out of here as fast as possible. We need to run as many people through this restaurant as we can. It feels a little bit dehumanized to me.

• 38:01Speaker 06

  No, I get it. I understand that totally. And then also, so for instance, when I go to Sweet Green, I always get the shroomami. But it's also like the chef has made these choices. Like, there's never been better chefs or more access to them. And we can't trust them to design our meals for us. And I can see saying, I would like the burrito and please pinto instead of black beans.

• 38:28Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 38:29Speaker 06

  Or something like that.

• 38:29Dan Pashman?

  You're hitting on something. The whole idea of sort of like when you go to a sit-down restaurant, you may have a few small, like maybe you'll say, oh, can you, you know, hold the onions or whatever?

• 38:38Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 38:38Dan Pashman?

  Basically, you're gonna order what the chef.

• 38:40Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 38:41Dan Pashman?

  Like, that's why you go to the restaurant.

• 38:42Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 38:42Dan Pashman?

  And somehow there's this, you know, we've been sold this idea that you want to be empowered to create your own. But in reality, most people don't want that.

• 38:51Speaker 06

  No.

• 38:52Dan Pashman?

  Most, like, most of us.

• 38:53Speaker 06

  I wanna be shoved around.

• 38:54Dan Pashman?

  Yeah. Right. Like, it's stressful to have to make a lot of decisions.

• 38:59Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 38:59Dan Pashman?

  People get flummoxed by the paradox of choice.

• 39:01Speaker 06

  Totally. I have this idea.

• 39:05Speaker 06

  Of what my mentality would be like as a chef. That I would be the type of chef that would look through the double doors out into the dining room. And if somebody was putting salt or pepper or anything, I would fly into a rage and would have to be held back.

• 39:25Dan Pashman?

  But like, that's the equivalent of like, people tell me to listen to my podcast on 1.5 times speed.

• 39:30Speaker 06

  Oh, what an insult!

• 39:32Dan Pashman?

  That's the equivalent of dumping a bunch of salt on the chef's entree. Can you imagine someone put on one of your comedy specials? And was like, "I think it's better if I pause it every 30 seconds." No, like, the timing is part of the thing.

• 39:43Speaker 06

  You're absolutely right. It's the same thing.

• 39:45Dan Pashman?

  If you fast forward or speed up the pauses, you're fucking with our timing!

• 39:50Speaker 06

  Yeah, but you're also fucking with your own enjoyment and your own quality of life. And what are you getting from it? Another second to scroll in your stupid tweet?

• 40:01Dan Pashman?

  That's right.

• 40:09Dan Pashman?

  So Gary's new comedy special takes on entitled Chipotle customers. But his most pointed commentary on class comes in a bit about the free breakfast program he was in at school when he was a kid. Students like Gary were offered a choice between a variety pack sized box of cereal or a Pop-Tart.

• 40:24Speaker 06

  The Pop-Tart was just a complete F-U to the poor kids who were eating it. First of all, it was one Pop-Tart. I knew they came in packs of two.

• 40:38Speaker 06

  I'm poor. I am not stupid.

• 40:43Speaker 06

  And then the other thing about the Pop-Tart, they had enough frosting to spread it all the way to the edge.

• 40:54Speaker 06

  I'm sure there was a person in the factory who said, "Hey, boss, we have we have a lot of extra frosting today. Do you want to spread it all the way to the edge for this next batch?" And he said, "Do you want these kids to ever stop sucking at the government teat?"

• 41:09Speaker 06

  That bitter crust will remind them of what their futures are going to look like.

• 41:16Speaker 06

  I love it when something small can evoke an idea that's bigger than itself. For instance, the latest show, I thought, alright, Pop-Tarts are a very easy target. But the real thing for me with Pop-Tarts is that it's this really interesting, class commentary. Certain jokes have to vie for a roster spot in your act. And so if a joke is just surface, it's probably not gonna make it to the special, because I can write those all day long, they're very easy for me. But when a joke can talk about, okay, the Pop-Tart, but also talk about this thing

• 41:58Speaker 06

  where we've been ignored or slighted in some way, then it earns a roster spot, because it's doing two things.

• 42:07Dan Pashman?

  What is your relationship with Pop-Tarts today, Gary?

• 42:10Speaker 06

  Oh, we don't see each other. We don't have, I mean, this is my, this thing of self-denial. Like, sometimes I think, my life is, and I really believe this, since I've been fulfilling myself for the past six years, I think, man, is life so wonderful. And I have to dial it down a little bit, because if I were able to eat anything I wanted, it would be too pleasant, and I would feel guilty and ashamed. So if I could eat sushi and french fries all the time, it would be decadence. I would be, I would be, I would be like the last days of the Roman Empire.

• 42:53Dan Pashman?

  And do you think that comes from growing up poor?

• 42:55Speaker 06

  Certainly, yeah.

• 42:57Dan Pashman?

  Or battling depression, or both?

• 42:59Speaker 06

  I mean, both. The anxiety of growing up poor lends itself to depression, and there's all these fears, and it's a worry about your security. And capitalism has this great mechanism to keep everybody on their toes, so that you keep having to hoard it, because you don't know if there's going to be a rainy day, or you'll find out that your business has gone obsolete.

• 43:23Dan Pashman?

  If you leave this interview with one feeling, Gary, I wanted it to be the feeling that that you've made it. And so I bought you this box of Pop Tarts.

• 43:35Speaker 06

  Oh, wow. This is awesome.

• 43:36Dan Pashman?

  Now, I'm not going to tell you what to eat and not eat.

• 43:39Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 43:39Dan Pashman?

  But I would like to encourage you to have a Pop Tart.

• 43:43Speaker 06

  No, I will have one of these.

• 43:44Dan Pashman?

  I think you've earned it.

• 43:45Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 43:47Speaker 06

  And I will, I will toast it. I mean, I ate them raw when I was a, when I was a kid.

• 43:52Dan Pashman?

  I want you to toast it and I give you permission to enjoy it.

• 43:54Speaker 06

  I really appreciate it. Thank you.

• 44:03Dan Pashman?

  That, my friends, is the one and only Gary Gulman. His latest special is streaming on Max. It's called Born on Third Base. Max is also where you can find The Great Depress. And starting in just about a week, Gary is doing a one man show off Broadway. It's at the Lucille Lortel Theater. The show is called Grand Iloquent. I already have my tickets. I'm gonna be there. Grand Iloquent is Gary Gulman's hilarious new show about insecurity, empathy, self acceptance, and how a thoughtful boy learned to use humor, reading and writing to cope with the consequences of his parents' blunders. I'm sure it's gonna be great. I can't wait. Get your tickets now at gullmanshow.com.

• 44:38Dan Pashman?

  All right, now, resolution time. So first off, in 2024, I resolved to eat more fish. I will give myself a grade of, I guess I'm going to say B plus. I did eat a good amount of fish. It wasn't all that much more than usual, but like I live on an island. I feel like I should be eating a lot of fish. And yet often the, whatever sort of protein entree is on our plates at dinner is often something that's been in my freezer. And I sort of feel more, I think I have a mental block that like I want to buy fish at the fish market, which requires like a special trip, and it's also expensive and then it's fresh and I have to cook it that night. It's not gonna, you know, sit in the fridge for long. So what I've just started doing here at the very end of the year is buying more fish

• 45:21Dan Pashman?

  frozen, just a good quality fish frozen. Because when it's in the freezer, then it's sort of like last minute, oh, it's two o'clock in the afternoon, what are we gonna have for dinner? Grab some fish, defrost it, cook it. So I give myself a B plus, but I think. I'm gonna be able to do even better in 2025. I will say probably the single best fish dish that I cooked at home this year was I took halibut. I just just olive oil, salt and pepper, broiled it so it was just cooked. And then I made the, so there's a recipe in Anything's Possible for a swordfish pasta dish with a salsa verde. That sauce is insane with any kind of meaty fish. And it's a, it's a no cook sauce. You just pound a bunch of parsley, chives, capers, anchovies, lemon zest.

• 46:01Dan Pashman?

  And it's just so like herbaceous and fresh and bright and briny and acidic and perfectly balanced. Just make the sauce, but use half the olive oil. So it's a little bit thicker. It's almost like an oily pesto. After you've cooked the halibut or any kind of meaty white fish, you drizzle this on top. And it's bright green. It's very colorful. It adds a ton of flavor. It adds color. It was an absolute showstopper. That was then. This is now. Let's look ahead to 2025. So what food do I resolve to eat more of in the new year?

• 46:34Dan Pashman?

  I gave a lot of thought.

• 46:36Dan Pashman?

  You know, sometimes these are based a little bit on like what I'm happening to be craving kind of this week, what's on the brain. But then I kind of think about it, think about it, and I just, I feel like this is, this is an area where I need to dive deeper. And, and that's, that's kind of how I'm feeling right now. So let me reveal it and I'll explain. Okay. In 2025, I resolved to eat more. Now we don't have sound effects. I'm just gonna do a drum roll on the table here. Let me adjust the microphone.

• 47:05Dan Pashman?

  Special sandwiches. All right, let me explain. Let me explain. You're like, what? I, I eat sandwiches. I eat plenty of sandwiches, but I, I feel that too often I'm eating sandwiches like by throwing together what I happen to have in the fridge. I'm not putting enough thought into my sandwiches.

• 47:25Dan Pashman?

  And I have noticed that sandwiches continue to get short shrift in the culinary world. Okay. Think about all the cookbooks there are that tell you that, you know, we're going to teach you to cook. You're not going to need recipes anymore. We're going to teach you. And they have appetizers, entrees, desserts, salads, soups, drinks. I mean, everything you can imagine and no chapter on sandwiches. Does the Culinary Institute of America have a course on sandwiches? I don't think so. And yet they're one of the greatest things in the world. And here's the thing that really bothers me. I don't think we consider making a sandwich to be cooking. And yet it requires more skill than making a plate of pasta, more skill than boiling water, more skill than a lot of other very basic foods. So

• 48:07Dan Pashman?

  I am going to put more thought into my sandwiches this year. Really, I said special sandwiches. I guess I really mean thoughtful sandwiches. I'm gonna, I'm gonna plan to get the fillings. I'm gonna plan to get the bread. I'm gonna think through the condiments and I'm going to take time and I'm gonna take care, not only in the combination of the ingredients, but in thinking through the structural integrity of the sandwich. So that bite force does not cause any of the ingredients to slip out the back, which of course is a very serious issue in today's world. So that is my resolution. In fact, maybe I'll start with that mortadella and stracciatella and pistachio sandwich. Let me tell you, there's this place called Eduardo's Trattoria. If you live anywhere, I shouldn't be talking about on the show because I'll never be able to get in the door. Eduardo's Trattoria in Huntington, one

• 48:52Dan Pashman?

  of my favorite Italian restaurants in the New York metro area, also has great lunch and they do a great mortadella, mozzarella and pistachio sandwich at lunch. Phenomenal. I'm gonna go talk to Eduardo and get, I gotta go talk sandwiches with him. Whatever your resolution is, whatever you're resolving to eat more over the new year, I hope you succeed. I hope you have a wonderful holiday season. I hope you have time with family and/or friends. I hope you spend time with whoever you want to spend time with and that you eat really well along the way. And I want to say thank you so much for listening to this show. I mean, look, we make this podcast every week. We kind of put it out into the void when we hit publish and it means so much to hear from so many of you. And in particular, this year, we did the biggest tour in Sporkful history for my cookbook,

• 49:34Dan Pashman?

  Anything's Possible. And it was really, honestly, the highlight of the year for me was going around the country and Even to Canada and England and meeting Sporkful listeners all over the world and just hearing how much the show means to you and how much you connect with it and just knowing that this show we make and that the work that we do is a part of your lives is very meaningful and we really, really appreciate it. So, thank you so much. Next week on the show, I'm talking with Jamie Oliver, the British celebrity chef. He's written bestselling books even though he's dyslexic. He got into cooking at a young age, working in his parents' pub. We'll talk about that and more, including his secret for a perfect toasted cheese sandwich. Cheese sandwiches! Now I can't stop talking about it. Why wait for that one? Check out last week's Salad Spinner, where we look back at food, news,

• 50:19Dan Pashman?

  and trends from the past year. That one's up now. 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. This episode was produced by me, along with managing producer- Emma Morgenstern- and senior producer- Andres O'Hara- It was edited by- Nora Ritchie- Our engineer is- Jared O'Connell- Music help from Black Label Music. The Sporkful is a production of Stitcher Studios.

• 51:03Dan Pashman?

  Our executive producers are Nora Ritchie and Colin Anderson. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashin. And this is Larkin from Ithaca, New York, reminding you to eat more, eat better, and eat more better.

• 51:27Speaker 04

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