Pod Insights The Sporkful Tom Papa Quit Vegetarianism After One Visit To An Italian Deli About this episode Veteran comic Tom Papa’s love of food began as a kid, when his dad recruited him for over-the-top food challenges — including eating a massive steak that won Tom a t-shirt. As an adult he became obsessed with bread baking after his daughter gave him a sourdough starter for Christmas. Tom explains how baking bread is like comedy, and what his fridge says about his current stage of life.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Dan Pashman? If you're the kind of person who plans vacations around where you're gonna eat, Scottsdale belongs on your list. And look, whenever I go somewhere, my priority is on eating things that are the specialties of that region, eating things that I can't get at home. So when I'm in that area, I'm looking for the specialties of the region, like authentic southwestern and Native American flavors, modern Mexican cuisine, and as basic as it sounds, homemade, fresh flour tortillas. There's nothing like it, and you can't get them like that in the Northeast. And there is such a farm-to-table culture in Scottsdale, inspired by the Sonoran Desert. Everything is so fresh, the peppers, the spices, it is so vibrant. And Scottsdale's just got a great vibe. It's one of those places where breakfast becomes brunch, happy hour turns into dinner, and every patio has another amazing view.
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1:46 Dan Pashman? Tom, you've written that there are sandwiches from your past that you carry with you as if they were memories of lovers.
1:54 Dan Pashman? Is there one specific sandwich that comes to mind when I read that line to you?
1:56 Speaker 01 Yeah, the Casa del Sol Italian Special. I grew up like, you know, in New Jersey and there was this place Casa del Sol. And they had the Italian Special, which was like a traditional Italian hero kind of a thing. As soon as you said it, it popped into my head. And I, they're still there and they still make it. We would save up money and we would get those sandwiches and we would just take them to the train tracks or the school on a weekend and sit there and eat that sandwich. And it was, oh my God, mind blowing.
2:28 Dan Pashman? You going off to the train tracks with your sandwich, it's almost like taking a significant other to the beach for the sunset.
2:34 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or, yeah, you just, and you remember them. Like, you know what I mean? Like, if I could go on Facebook and instead of looking up old girlfriends, just look up Casa del Sol. The picture of that sandwich would make me just as happy.
2:50 Dan Pashman? I won't tell your wife.
2:51 Speaker 01 Yeah. Keep it quiet.
2:58 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. Quick note, that tickets are selling fast for our two big upcoming live shows. March 19th in Brooklyn with special guest Kenji Lopez Alt and May 1st in Boston with guest TBD. Get all the details and tickets at sporkful.com/events. All right, let's get into it. This week, I'm talking with comic Tom Papa. He's been doing stand-up for more than 30 years. He got his big break when he toured with Jerry Seinfeld in the mid 90s. Since then, he's put out six comedy specials, including his most recent one, Home Free.
3:37 Speaker 01 Sometimes I really think my whole emotional makeup is completely dependent on what I ate that day. You ever had one of those days? You're like, Cool Ranch Doritos? I haven't had those in a while.
3:50 Speaker 01 And a half hour later, I'm like, I think I'm gonna kill myself.
3:57 Speaker 01 Why are my eyes hot? I feel weird.
4:01 Dan Pashman? When Home Free came out last year, the New York Times called Tom "a sensible optimist who thinks you're too hard on yourself." He comes off as a fun dad, sometimes with a darker edge. And he often talks about food. Food became an even bigger part of what Tom does when he started baking bread about a decade ago, which was long before the pandemic. He was ahead of his time. To this day, he still posts videos about baking bread and also about the different ways he uses the bread.
4:26 Speaker 01 Today, we are making peanut butter and pickle sandwiches. We have blueberries and cottage cheese toast. So today, we're making grilled cheese again. BLT. Today, we whipped ricotta toast with jam.
4:42 Dan Pashman? Tom's bread baking obsession eventually led to a Food Network series called Baked. His podcast is even called Breaking Bread with Tom Papa. And now, the stand-up tour he's in the middle of is called, wait for it, The Grateful Bread Tour. We'll get more into Tom's baking later. First, I wanted to talk with him about eating. In a recent interview with the Delish Podcast Snacks, he said that eating potato chips while drinking red wine can change the whole experience of the wine. Now, I'm not a big wine drinker, and potato chips actually aren't my favorite snack. So I was curious about this combo. But first, I asked him, how did he get into it?
5:16 Speaker 01 I have a good friend, Anthony Gilio, who is a sommelier and a writer of food and all this stuff. He goes, "Try red wine and a potato chip in between, and tell me what happens." And when I did it, it was just, I couldn't believe how perfect it was.
5:36 Dan Pashman? So this is not something I've tried, Tom.
5:37 Speaker 01 Okay.
5:38 Dan Pashman? But I'm excited to try it, and we prepared a little presentation for you.
5:41 Speaker 01 Hmm.
5:42 Dan Pashman? Sporkful engineer Jared O'Connell doubles as our resident sommelier.
5:46 Speaker 01 Oh, really?
5:46 Dan Pashman? Yes, his boyfriend Corey Hilsy owns a wine shop in Financial District here in Manhattan.
5:51 Speaker 01 No way.
5:51 Dan Pashman? Called Simply Wine. So if you're anywhere in the Financial District, go to Simply Wine for all your wine needs. I explained to Tom that Jared sometimes leads tastings at Simply Wine, too. So Jared and Corey picked three wines, each one to pair with a different flavor of potato chip. Oh, and by the way, did I mention that we taped this at 11 a.m.?
6:08 Speaker 01 Okay, what do you got?
6:09 Dan Pashman? Jared, what is our first pairing?
6:11 Speaker 02 First pairing is Violet Hill Pinot Noir from Oregon. The thinking here was balanced, straightforward, delicious red wine to go with a classic salted potato chip.
6:24 Dan Pashman? Classic kettle chip kind of wine.
6:26 Speaker 02 Balanced on.
6:26 Speaker 01 Balanced.
6:27 Dan Pashman? And this, this is just the wine, we're just tasting the wine now.
6:31 Speaker 01 It's nice.
6:32 Dan Pashman? How would you describe this wine, Tom?
6:33 Speaker 01 It's got a nice, um, fruit to it, but a little leathery also, which is always nice, but light.
6:39 Dan Pashman? Okay, now you have a chip.
6:43 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
6:44 Dan Pashman? Just one chip?
6:45 Speaker 01 Just one chip.
6:46 Dan Pashman? Okay.
6:47 Speaker 01 And then.
6:48 Dan Pashman? Maybe one more.
6:48 Speaker 01 Take another sip and see how the sip changes.
6:56 Speaker 01 And it did. Right?
6:58 Speaker 02 Oh, yeah.
6:58 Speaker 01 It cut the acidity off a little bit.
7:00 Dan Pashman? Mmm. It's like it turned it into grape juice.
7:03 Speaker 01 Isn't that nice?
7:04 Dan Pashman? Wow.
7:05 Speaker 01 It's all of a sudden a little smoother, a little lighter.
7:06 Dan Pashman? Yeah. All right, that was very enjoyable.
7:08 Speaker 01 That's really nice. It's amazing how you break out wine, it's in the morning, and you're thinking, oh, boy. I don't know if we should be doing this. And then one sip, and you're like, let's keep going.
7:22 Speaker 02 Number two, we're gonna do salt and vinegar with a Bola Rosa Lambrusco from Italy.
7:28 Speaker 01 Sparkly.
7:29 Dan Pashman? This is a sparkling red wine.
7:31 Speaker 02 Sparkling red wine, slightly lower alcohol at 11%.
7:34 Speaker 01 All right, here comes the festivities.
7:35 Dan Pashman? I'm popping this one.
7:36 Speaker 01 Okay.
7:39 Speaker 01 Yeah!
7:40 Speaker 02 Nice.
7:40 Speaker 01 There you go. Now it's a party.
7:42 Dan Pashman? All right.
7:44 Speaker 01 It was a pretty good pop.
7:45 Dan Pashman? Tom, I'll pour you first here.
7:46 Speaker 01 Okay.
7:47 Dan Pashman? It's winter time, and this almost is giving me like, like the red wine with like the.
7:52 Speaker 01 Like a spices, yeah.
7:54 Speaker 02 Wildflowers, herbaceous.
7:55 Dan Pashman? Yeah.
7:57 Speaker 01 Ooh, that's really nice.
7:58 Dan Pashman? Mmm, this wine's going down a little too easy.
8:00 Speaker 01 That's really nice.
8:01 Dan Pashman? All right.
8:01 Speaker 01 Now, I'm leary, now I'm a little leery. I feel like salt and vinegar chip might ruin this.
8:07 Dan Pashman? Oh.
8:07 Speaker 01 Cause I don't know how you, I don't know how you upgrade this. Okay, now salt and vinegar.
8:14 Speaker 01 Mmm, I do love a salt and vinegar.
8:16 Dan Pashman? Mmm.
8:16 Speaker 01 Just on its own.
8:17 Dan Pashman? I don't love a salt and vinegar. And these, now I'm loving it. I feel like this is working for me in the opposite direction, which is the wine is making the chips better.
8:26 Speaker 01 Oh, you might be right.
8:27 Dan Pashman? Oh, man. After the chip, you go back to the Lambrusco. What do you think, Tom?
8:31 Speaker 01 Yeah. It was, I was loving it before. It does like cut out the acidity, I guess. The salt probably works on that.
8:38 Dan Pashman? All right, let's do one more. Jared, what's the last pairing?
8:40 Speaker 02 The last one is a 2015. So this is
8:43 Dan Pashman? 2015?
8:44 Speaker 02 A 10-year-old wine.
8:44 Speaker 01 Whoa, 10-year-old.
8:45 Speaker 02 So you're gonna get some more of that like, uh, a little smokier flavor.
8:49 Dan Pashman? Is this a fancy bottle we're opening here, Jared?
8:51 Speaker 02 It's, it's an excellent value.
8:55 Speaker 01 Um, all right. I love this already, just the smell.
9:00 Dan Pashman? Oh, wow. All right, I'm having, I'm having a barbecue chip.
9:04 Speaker 01 Mmm. This is a really interesting wine.
9:07 Speaker 02 Yeah, this wine's great. It's like, there's some like leather and
9:10 Speaker 01 Yeah.
9:11 Speaker 02 Uh, tobacco kind of thing. With, uh, and then still some lifted florals.
9:16 Speaker 01 Yeah, and some plum.
9:18 Dan Pashman? Mmm.
9:20 Speaker 01 I think it's doing what you said with the other one. It's making the chip better.
9:27 Speaker 01 That's a strangely
9:29 Speaker 02 Yeah, something
9:30 Speaker 01 great pairing.
9:31 Dan Pashman? Tom looks a little bit taken aback.
9:33 Speaker 01 Yeah, because barbecue, that was like when we started talking, I'm like, you don't want to go too heavy flavor, but this has actually made both more fun. Can I taste the original chip?
9:44 Dan Pashman? With our bellies full of wine and potato chips, it was time for us to get more into Tom's work. In addition to his stand-up, he's written a few books, including one from 2020 entitled, "You're Doing Great." I asked him to read from an essay in that book called, "Shut Up and Eat."
9:59 Speaker 01 "I could be so fat. I'm a little overweight, I'd say happily overweight, not health problem overweight, but technically, according to my doctor, I could lose a few. Here's the real reason why I won't take my doctor's advice. I love eating too much. Eating is my life. There's too much happiness in history to put an end to it. I tried to clean up my diet and become a vegetarian and I lasted a while, but eventually broke, not for any other reason than that I walked into an Italian deli." I know I'm not alone in this food passion. It's really our duty to eat and enjoy ourselves. Who cares if you're a little fat? We're all fat. You're either really fat, kind of fat, or trying not to be fat. Either way, fat's coming.
10:43 Speaker 01 So enjoy yourself. More wine, more bread, more cheese. Do it for you. Do it for your ancestors. Do it for me.
10:54 Speaker 01 It's true.
10:55 Dan Pashman? It sounds like what you're saying is you realized when you walked into that deli, not only that you wanted to eat the delicious food that was in there, but by becoming vegetarian and making such a big change to your diet that you had lost a piece of yourself.
11:10 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's the big thing. You know, when I brought my, my wife was a vegetarian. And when we first started dating, she was really pretty hardcore, close to vegan. And I brought her home and everybody loved her. Everyone adored her. She fit in perfectly.
11:26 Dan Pashman? In your big Italian family.
11:27 Speaker 01 Right. Until we let them know she doesn't eat meat. And my mother was just like confused, like, how's she gonna eat the sauce?
11:41 Speaker 01 And, and it wasn't like being mean to her. It was, but how are we gonna take this relationship to the next place? How, how are we gonna share?
11:52 Dan Pashman? What are we gonna do together?
11:53 Speaker 01 Show that we love you if we don't give you prosciutto wrapped in mozzarella and all of it. And to walk into like anybody in my family's house and say that I'm no longer eating that, they feel like you've left them in some way. So I just felt like it was more important than good health or whatever it's doing to the environment. It was more important for me to still be able to sit across from you and celebrate. And, uh, yeah, I went back.
12:26 Dan Pashman? And it sounds like you don't regret that decision.
12:29 Speaker 01 No, not at all, not at all.
12:32 Dan Pashman? This is one of the things that I really appreciate about your work, especially in the last few years of your career, because you're not saying in this excerpt that you just read, like, eat all the most decadent foods all the time. What I hear you saying is, don't be so hard on yourself.
12:47 Speaker 01 Right, yeah, be kind to yourself. This idea that we have to be like this disciplinarian about every aspect of our life and act like a, like a mean third grade teacher, it's like, nah, there's room, there's room. If you don't abuse it, you can enjoy it.
13:05 Dan Pashman? Right.
13:06 Speaker 01 And I do kind of carry that as a, as a philosophy. So if you can keep some kind of balance, you can have a chip at a, like, I mean, literally what we just did.
13:14 Dan Pashman? Right, we're literally drinking wine.
13:15 Speaker 01 We're drinking wine and potato chips at 11:00 in the morning when I know we both have stuff to do the rest of the day into the evening.
13:22 Dan Pashman? Right.
13:23 Speaker 01 If we were to keep going, it's a problem.
13:25 Dan Pashman? Right.
13:25 Speaker 01 We had a couple sips and a couple chips and you feel satisfied.
13:28 Dan Pashman? Right. It's hard for some people to stop.
13:31 Speaker 01 For all of us.
13:31 Dan Pashman? So, right, right. So harder for some than others.
13:33 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
13:34 Dan Pashman? You've written that your dad was a big fan of food challenges.
13:37 Speaker 01 Yes.
13:38 Dan Pashman? You guys would go to White Castle, down a bunch of burgers.
13:41 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah.
13:42 Dan Pashman? He took you to all you can eat sushi.
13:43 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm. You know, my father was, he would challenge us on like, on his own, like, you'd go to like, an Italian restaurant and if they had like, a sheep's head, he would eat it, like, eat the eyeball in front of us. And they had these lobsters, every summer we'd get lobsters. Having this friend would try and get the biggest lobster they could find. It'd be like, you know, 12-pound lobsters and eating that. And it was just, it was so decadent and crazy.
14:08 Dan Pashman? Tell me about Joe McDonald's Steakhouse.
14:11 Speaker 01 Mmm. This was a beautiful, beautiful place. I grew up in Park Ridge and Woodcliff Lake in New Jersey, which is northern New Jersey.
14:21 Dan Pashman? Right near where I grew up.
14:22 Speaker 01 And there was this old little roadhouse looking establishment called McDonald's. And it was great on so many levels. It was filled with World War II memorabilia. Like packed, just bullets and guns and posters and uniforms and just packed in this place. They had wings that were deep fried and crunchy. And then the sauce was on the side and the sauce was just like this beautiful, like light, not like the syrupy, thick sauce.
14:55 Dan Pashman? That's a quick side note. I always order buffalo wings with the sauce on the sides that they stay crispy.
14:59 Speaker 01 Yeah. They had a steak challenge. This was bonding with my father. Any challenge he was, he was up for. And I forget the weight of the, it was like 32 ounce steak?
15:11 Dan Pashman? I think you wrote in the book that it was like 72 ounces.
15:14 Speaker 01 I mean, it was big. The challenge was if you eat the steak, you didn't have to eat the sides, but I did. If you ate the steak, you got a T-shirt that said like, I completed the Joe McDonald's challenge with a cow on it. And they put your name in a little brass trophy plate on the wall of fame.
15:33 Dan Pashman? Right. And especially on these wall, these, these are iconic walls.
15:36 Speaker 01 Exactly.
15:37 Dan Pashman? So like to get your name on the wall at Joe McDonald's, I'm sure it was no small feat.
15:40 Speaker 01 It was very exciting, very motivating.
15:43 Dan Pashman? Had you seen other people try to do it before?
15:46 Speaker 01 I did see people fail. I did see people.
15:49 Dan Pashman? And you had seen the steak, like you knew the size of the steak?
15:51 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah.
15:52 Dan Pashman? Now I'm picturing you walking in there, Tom. Like I'm imagining like saloon style swinging doors.
15:57 Speaker 01 Yeah.
15:58 Dan Pashman? And you like, kind of like burst through the doors and the music stops.
16:02 Speaker 01 Yep.
16:02 Dan Pashman? And, and you step in and they're like, it's the Papa game.
16:05 Speaker 01 We're here for the challenge. And you know, the staff always, whenever there's a challenge, like that kind of a thing, the staff is always very unhappy that this is happening. They've seen other people do it, probably throw up. They didn't realize we were professionals. Like we were going to be gentlemen and we were going to, we were going to kick its ass. You know, you sat down, I'm like, oh, this is no problem. And plowed through it and then started eating the big giant baked potato and the broccoli and the stuff next to it. And the, the server came up, an older woman, and she's like, you know, you don't have to eat those. You already did it. I'm like, I'm doing it.
16:46 Dan Pashman? What happened in the restaurant? Was there commotion? Was there hubbub?
16:50 Speaker 01 No, nobody cared. We were so proud. We thought they'd be lifting us on their shoulders, but we were very happy like we had won something.
17:01 Dan Pashman? Coming up after the break, Tom takes us inside his fridge, which has undergone some major changes since he became an empty nester. Then later, he reveals how comedy can be like baking bread. Stick around.
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19:00 Dan Pashman? Last year, right around this time, I got a new jacket from Quince, a lightweight fall jacket, and it has turned into my favorite jacket. And this is why you need a lightweight jacket, and probably a new one, because it's time to freshen up your look. You need a lightweight jacket from Quince, because the beauty of a lightweight jacket is you can wear in the early fall, you can wear it in the early spring, but also it goes over a sweater, over a sweatshirt. And then suddenly, your lightweight jacket is a great accessory for pretty much the whole winter. Bottom line, when the temperatures start to drop, Quince makes it easy to build on those everyday staples with versatile layers designed to keep you warm and comfortable all season long. They make elevated everyday essentials using premium materials and designs that are timeless, thoughtfully crafted, and made to be worn again and again. So find
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20:35 Dan Pashman? Welcome back to The Sporkful. I'm Dan Pashman, and I want to make sure you know about our Friday reheats. You know, we've been doing this show for 16 years, since the Stone Ages of podcasting, and we have a tremendously huge back catalog of great episodes, many of which you probably haven't heard, some of which you might have heard and forgotten. And that's why every Friday, we pull one of our all time favorite episodes out of the deep freezer and defrost it for a Friday reheat. Last week, we reheated an interview with Elle Simone Scott. She was a host at America's Test Kitchen, who sadly passed away a few weeks ago. We talked with her about her path from social Worker to chef and she lets us in on some of her best food styling tricks. Another recent reheat was about popcorn. We paired that one with our new episode about popcorn.
21:18 Dan Pashman? It was popcorn week here on the Sporkful. We even replayed one of my all time favorite Sporkful episodes, a parody of the podcast Serial. It's a true crime story about a series of office fridge lunch thefts. One more I'll tell you about, an episode in which I try to go viral on TikTok. These episodes are going up every Friday and I sure hope you'll check them out. Now, back to comedian Tom Papa. As you heard, Tom grew up with a tradition of food challenges, taking them on at his dad's urging. But when Tom became a dad, he didn't pass that on to his two daughters. He says they eat a lot more sensibly than he does. And that's mostly because his wife was vegetarian when their daughters were growing up. So the girls decided to be vegetarian too, which changed the way Tom ate.
21:58 Speaker 01 They made me eat like a normal person.
22:03 Dan Pashman? And that sounds very traumatic.
22:05 Speaker 01 It was time. It was time.
22:10 Dan Pashman? I feel like I've gotten to the point where I, yes, I also can like eat in moderation and once in a while you go a little crazy and it hasn't been really delicious and eat a little too much of it because you can. But that is a harder lesson sometimes for kids to grasp. How did you handle sort of like the tension between wanting to enjoy food as much as you do and wanting to set a good example?
22:30 Speaker 01 I wasn't trying to set a good example.
22:34 Speaker 01 I really wasn't. It just kind of naturally happened. My wife would stop or be like, that doesn't look good. I'm not eating it. And I would eat everything that came to the table and eat a lot of it and just enjoy it. I think the lesson was have a good time and especially when we're together. You know, a lot as being a parent is you think you should impart all these lessons and you should teach them these certain things like you're saying. But when you try and do that, they don't listen to you. They really just learn by example. So I probably taught them not to be aggressive because dad looks like a pig right now. You know what I mean?
23:12 Dan Pashman? So you did teach them by example?
23:13 Speaker 01 Right.
23:14 Dan Pashman? Just sort of like, here's what not to do.
23:15 Speaker 01 Yeah.
23:16 Dan Pashman? If you don't want to look like me.
23:17 Speaker 01 Yeah. I had no idea what I was teaching them at the time. But as they looked over at me with like sauce on my chin and too much wine, they were like, I don't think I'm gonna do that.
23:28 Dan Pashman? Um, now your kids are out of the house.
23:31 Speaker 01 Pretty much.
23:32 Dan Pashman? How has this affected your eating and drinking?
23:34 Speaker 01 My wife and I have been just trying to, you know, you're at an age where it's, it's not about how you look, but it's about how your heart is and how your levels are and all that kind of stuff. So we've been really kind of trying to just eat healthier and lose weight and be good. And I looked in my refrigerator the other day and I was like, oh no. We're the older people who have nothing in their refrigerator. Like when I would shop, I do all the shopping. It would be bags and bags and stuff in the pantry and stuff in the fridge. And I got all these people to feed and their friends are coming over. Now it's just my wife and I. And I, I remember like seeing my grandparents, they would have like a, they'd have milk, but it was a little, like a half a quart of milk and they'd have butter, but one stick of butter.
24:18 Speaker 01 And it was always like, oh, it's so weird. It's just the two of them living this old person life. That's what my fridge looks like right now.
24:25 Dan Pashman? And how did you feel when you had that realization?
24:27 Speaker 01 I didn't like it. I didn't like it. When, when my kids came home for Thanksgiving, I was really happier buying all the stuff that we had, that their lunches and their breakfasts and like, I like that more than just being like, we don't really need cookies in the house, so I'm not going to buy them. You know what I mean?
24:51 Dan Pashman? You didn't like it because it was an indication of the fact that like you, you weren't able to enjoy the foods you like as much? Or also because it was sort of like an indication that your kids aren't around anymore? And you're like moving into like a quieter phase of life?
25:03 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's all gets smaller. Yeah, things just get smaller when you don't have kids around. When kids are around, everything's big. The food bill is big. The stuff you have in the pantry and the snack, that secret snack drawer is big. You have a family.
25:18 Dan Pashman? The schedule is big also, like the days are jam packed.
25:22 Speaker 01 Right, right, right. And now it's quiet and it's smaller.
25:26 Dan Pashman? As I told Tom, I also have two daughters. My older one will go off to college in a few years. The younger one will go a few years after that. And the craziness of the day to day can be a real grind. Getting food on the table, driving the kids all over. It can be hard sometimes to enjoy it when you're in the middle of it, even if you know someday you'll miss it. Tom knows this all too well.
25:47 Speaker 01 There is an appreciation that we got through it. And life is such a fire hose.
25:55 Speaker 01 Blast of experiences and pickups and friends and all end grades and the holidays. And it's so intense and so, I mean, you have your moments when you're exhausted and you're like, whoo, I don't know if I can keep this up. And you have those little moments where you're like, this is so great. The kids were great today. But it's all life. It all just kind of like happens. And when your 15 year old goes to graduate, it's going to feel like time. Then when they move out of the house, it's going to feel like time, like they don't fit in the house any longer. And you, as a parent, have put in all those years and it's time to not shop as big and just sit with your wife and have those moments you haven't had since you were dating before the kids showed up.
26:41 Speaker 01 The hardest part is that you can't pretend that it's not happening. They've been with you for all this time and now they're leaving. No rationalization is going to candy coat. You are now at this part of life. You are this age. They are that age and there's no going back. It's pretty heavy and that's why you're going to cry a lot when they go.
27:07 Dan Pashman? Right.
27:08 Speaker 01 It's not just for them. It's for you. It's for life. It's for it all going quickly.
27:13 Dan Pashman? Well, you have that joke in Home Free that I love, that I've been quoting to all of my friends who have kids around the same age about.
27:20 Speaker 01 Yeah, my kids are gone. They're all leaving and nobody tells you how hard it's going to be pretending to be sad.
27:34 Dan Pashman? Let's talk a bit about bread baking.
27:35 Speaker 01 Sure.
27:36 Dan Pashman? Your obsession with bread baking predates COVID.
27:40 Speaker 01 Thank you.
27:43 Speaker 01 Thank you for saying that. Yeah, it's like when you're into a band and you like love this band and then all of a sudden they become popular and everyone loves this band and you're like, no, I was there in the beginning when they had one album.
27:54 Dan Pashman? So this was not a COVID phase?
27:56 Speaker 01 It was not a COVID phase.
27:57 Dan Pashman? Tom first got into bread when one of his friends told him about sourdough and how it works with the starter. You get a mixed flour and water and leave it on the counter where it naturally gathers wild yeast from the environment and it turns into a starter that becomes the base of your bread. Tom shared what he'd learned with his family and that Christmas, his daughter presented him with a sourdough starter that she'd made for him. From the first time he made his own bread, he was hooked.
28:21 Speaker 01 I love the pacing of it. I love, like, when I'm writing, you know, it takes like three days essentially to, from the time you take the starter out of the fridge and feed it and start getting into it. It's about three days before you have bread you can eat or give to somebody. And I just love that pacing, you know, I'm on the road a lot. So when I'm home, which is where I really want to be, the idea that I'm there long enough to be baking this bread and fitting it into my writing schedule and it fits my life really well. And there's nothing better in the world than filling a house with the smell of fresh baked bread.
29:03 Dan Pashman? As I said, Tom posts on Instagram all the time about baking bread. So now, in addition to comedy, it's become the other thing he's famous for. One of the things that I know some people like about bread baking is this, is the feeling that like, you're pursuing the perfect loaf, knowing that you're never gonna get there. Is that something you've felt?
29:23 Speaker 01 Nah.
29:25 Dan Pashman? You, you wouldn't mind getting there?
29:26 Speaker 01 I think I do get there.
29:27 Dan Pashman? Okay, alright.
29:28 Speaker 01 I think I do get there.
29:29 Dan Pashman? I like that. I feel like, I like a baker who's not afraid to say that they've made some perfect loaves.
29:33 Speaker 01 Yeah, the funny thing is that I'm still excited about it, like, you know, I do two loaves at a time. And when I break them out and put them on the cooling rack and they're just big and beautiful, I still get very excited that like, wow, look at that, these are nice. I'll say to my wife or my daughters, like, "Do you see the breads?" They're like, "Yeah, they look good."
29:56 Dan Pashman? Right.
29:57 Speaker 01 They're not as excited.
29:58 Dan Pashman? Come closer, admire my bread.
29:59 Speaker 01 Yeah, exactly. There is that thing that is very similar to stand-up where, as good as you get at it, you can fail at any moment. It is humbling. You could be a really great stand-up comedian and just have an off night. And bread baking's the same way, it does humble you. It keeps a desire to try and be better.
30:20 Dan Pashman? If you know that perfectly 100% of the time, it would get boring.
30:23 Speaker 01 Yeah, right, exactly. There's so many factors.
30:25 Dan Pashman? It has to still feel like a challenge for it to be compelling.
30:28 Speaker 01 Right. Another way to do it is to change it up, go after different things. Like now I'm trying to do babka and they're dense. They're like, I haven't gotten the fluffy, good babka yet. I haven't perfected that dough. It's challenging, for sure.
30:44 Dan Pashman? I'm not a bread baker, but it is something like on the days when I fantasize about my kids being out of the house, one of the things that I think is like, oh, like, it'll be so great, like on a cold day and it's like Sunday and the house is quiet and like put football on the TV and I'm just gonna like be in the kitchen, I'm just gonna like bake bread and like make some soup or something.
31:00 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah.
31:01 Dan Pashman? I'm gonna have fresh bread and soup. It's like such an iconic old person meal. That's when I feel like I might get into baking bread.
31:08 Speaker 01 It sounds perfect. That picture you paint is like my perfect Sunday. You totally should do it.
31:17 Dan Pashman? Tom, I would love to wrap up with a lightning round.
31:19 Speaker 01 Okay.
31:20 Dan Pashman? You ready for a lightning round?
31:21 Speaker 01 Love lightning rounds.
31:22 Dan Pashman? You've said that your emotional state is dependent on what you ate that day.
31:26 Speaker 01 Yes.
31:27 Dan Pashman? I'm gonna give you a food.
31:28 Speaker 01 Okay.
31:29 Dan Pashman? You tell me what your emotional state would be if you ate it.
31:32 Speaker 01 Oh, okay.
31:33 Dan Pashman? Ready?
31:33 Speaker 01 Yes, sir.
31:34 Dan Pashman? Number one, loaded nachos.
31:37 Speaker 01 Celebrating. Whenever I would achieve something like be on the Tonight Show or whatever, that was my.
31:44 Dan Pashman? Loaded nachos.
31:44 Speaker 01 We're going out for loaded nachos.
31:46 Dan Pashman? Oh, okay. Next one, protein balls.
31:50 Speaker 01 Tired, weary.
31:52 Dan Pashman? Yeah. They're just like so functional, like, oh, you need to stay alive, shove this in your gullet.
31:57 Speaker 01 I know what you're saying. It's like one step away from a pill.
32:00 Dan Pashman? Right, right, right.
32:01 Speaker 01 Are we just gonna be spacemen who just eat a pill for their meal?
32:05 Dan Pashman? Next one, what is your emotional state if you were eating grilled wild salmon over a bed of massaged organic kale?
32:13 Speaker 01 A peaceful state. That's something that is great for me. I am happy to eat it. When I'm on the road especially, that is a go-to, like a salmon with a salad kind of a thing. So it's not decadent and going crazy, it's not depressed, it's at ease.
32:32 Dan Pashman? Right. And now I'm curious, what would you be eating if you were feeling depressed?
32:35 Speaker 01 Like a burger or like fries. A lot of fries show up when I'm not great.
32:41 Dan Pashman? Right.
32:42 Speaker 01 Yeah.
32:43 Dan Pashman? Next one on the lightning round. What is your emotional state when you eat two and a half slices of pizza?
32:50 Speaker 01 Mmm. Joyful.
32:53 Dan Pashman? I said two and a half because to me, I feel like two is probably the number of slices I should eat.
32:58 Speaker 01 Yeah.
32:58 Dan Pashman? But it's really never enough for me.
33:00 Speaker 01 Yeah.
33:00 Dan Pashman? And so, but like three feels like probably more than I should eat. So I kind of try to compromise with myself at two and a half.
33:07 Speaker 01 Well, I was, I was just being kind by answering your question, but I've never had a half a piece of pizza.
33:15 Dan Pashman? Well, usually what happens is I eat my first slice, then I eat my second slice. And I'm like, well, I shouldn't have a whole other third slice.
33:21 Speaker 01 Yeah.
33:21 Dan Pashman? Let me cut this slice in half and I eat the other half a slice. Then I'm like cleaning up or whatever. And then I'm like, well, all right, let me just eat this last half slice.
33:28 Speaker 01 All right, good. Now I know you're normal.
33:34 Dan Pashman? All right, last one.
33:35 Speaker 01 Okay.
33:35 Dan Pashman? What's your emotional state when you eat an entire loaf of your own sourdough bread?
33:39 Speaker 01 This is gonna be over days.
33:41 Dan Pashman? Okay.
33:41 Speaker 01 They're big.
33:41 Dan Pashman? Well, what if you ate like a big, like a half a loaf in a day?
33:44 Speaker 01 Like if I eat like, right, if I have like two big pieces of toast in the morning and then tuna sandwich with it later and then like at dinner have another one.
33:54 Dan Pashman? Right.
33:55 Speaker 01 Uh, my emotional state is I would say pretty happy.
34:16 Dan Pashman? That's Tom Papa. You can find him on Instagram, baking bread and being funny at Tom Papa. You can also visit tom papa dot com for all the dates of his Grateful Bread standup tour. And catch him on his Sirius XM radio show, What a Joke with Papa and Fortune, co-hosted by a comedian that we love here on the Spork Bowl, past guest Fortune Feimster. Also, check this out. Tom has partnered with design brand Nambe on an all new breaking bread collection and they have specially designed bread baking tools like measuring spoons, serrated knives, a cutting board that catches crumbs. I mean, they have thought of it all. Go to nambe dot com slash Tom Papa. That's N A M B E dot com slash Tom Papa to check it out.
34:58 Dan Pashman? One more quick note, Simply Wine, the shop that provided the wines that Tom and I tried, owned by Jared's boyfriend Cory, they're having a tasting inspired by this very episode. They're gonna be featuring wines that would pair very well with specific kinds of potato chips. It's gonna be a blast. That's this Friday, January 30th, from 5 to 7 PM at Simply Wine in Manhattan. Check out their Instagram, @simplywinedNYC for more. Next week on the show, I eat snacks with two legends of comedy, Michael Ian Black and Tom Kavanaugh. They started a podcast called Mike and Tom Eat Snacks a million years ago, around the time I started The Sporkful, and everyone was always like, "You guys should do something together." They nerd out and talk about snacks in ridiculous detail, and
35:41 Dan Pashman? then they stopped doing their podcast a few years later, and now they are back doing it again. Next week, ahead of the Super Bowl, we are teaming up for a Mike and Tom Eat Snacks Times Sporkful, very special crossover edition episode, and it's gonna be a lot of fun. While you wait for that, check out my conversation with Jacques Papin in honor of his 90th birthday. I drink wine with Jacques Papin. Plus, he walks me through all of the menus of all the dinner parties that he's ever hosted, which he keeps a collection of. It's actually really beautiful and very moving. That episode is 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? Then there's
36:26 Dan Pashman? 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-
36:43 Speaker 05 Emma Morgenstern-
36:44 Dan Pashman? and senior producer- Andres O'Hara- It was edited by-
36:47 Speaker 05 Camille Stanley-
36:47 Dan Pashman? Our engineer is-
36:48 Speaker 02 Jared O'Connell-
36:49 Dan Pashman? Music help from Black Label Music. The Sporkful is a production of SiriusXM Podcasts. Our executive producer is Camille Stanley. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman-
36:58 Speaker 05 And I'm Brittany from Rahway, New Jersey, reminding you to eat more, eat better, eat more better.
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38:15 Speaker 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.
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