475: Yakisoba
Molly:
I'm Molly.
Matthew:
And I'm Matthew.
Molly:
And this is Spilled Milk, the show where we cook something delicious, eat it all, and you can't have any.
Matthew:
And today we're talking yakisoba.
Molly:
Woo-hoo.
Matthew:
You want to peel back the curtain and explain what just happened to the people? The people love a peek behind the curtain.
Molly:
The people love it when we reveal the great and all powerful Oz. So what just happened is we just recorded this episode-
Matthew:
No, we didn't.
Molly:
We just didn't record 25 minutes of what we thought was this episode, but we had not hit the record button, so we are doing take two.
Matthew:
That was so generous of you to say, "We had not hit the record button," since it is strictly my job to do that.
Molly:
Oh, Matthew, we're a team.
Matthew:
Yeah.
Molly:
We're a team. I think we're going to be so much funnier this time around. It's all for the best.
Matthew:
And we're going to be tight, we're going to be thick, like the thickest frozen noodles. It's all good.
Molly:
It's great. And we have a special guest today who we will reveal momentarily.
Matthew:
Yes. All right.
Molly:
And who's patient enough with us to stick around and say all of this again.
Matthew:
Yes. Yeah, last time, it was her first appearance on Spilled Milk and now, 26 minutes later, it will be her second appearance. All right.
Molly:
Okay. Okay, so-
Matthew:
Let's go down memory lane. We're just going to zoom down memory lane in a rented Ferrari.
Molly:
I'll go first.
Matthew:
Go first.
Molly:
And I'm going to begin by, just for the listeners who have never had yakisoba, I can say that it's a Japanese stir fried noodle dish, usually with pork, cabbage, and onions, although there are lots of variations, and it's flavored with a sweet fruity sauce that's similar to tonkatsu sauce. Did I get that right?
Matthew:
Yeah, absolutely.
Molly:
Okay. Okay, so my memory lane is not long. My first and probably second time having yakisoba, it was with you when you first took me to Tokyo in 2017, and you took me to your favorite neighborhood place for Okonomiyaki called Penguin Village in the Nakano neighborhood of Tokyo. And Penguin Village has these low tables. What are they called, Matthew? These...
Matthew:
I'm not sure.
Molly:
Is it teppanyaki? Is that it?
Matthew:
Oh, teppanyaki is the grill that's on the table.
Molly:
Oh, okay. Okay, so they're these low tables with this grill, this griddle, fitted into them and you make your Okonomiyaki right on the table. Well, as you can imagine, this griddle is also a fantastic place to make stir fried noodles. And so I had my first yakisoba with you at Penguin Village and it was delicious, except I think you put too much pickled ginger in it.
Matthew:
That does sound like something I would do. My first yakisoba experience was at a place on Broadway that closed years ago. And it's one of these restaurants that's closed, and because it no longer exists, it takes on an outsized footprint in your memory lane. It was called EZO Noodle Cafe. I don't think it even said yakisoba on the English menu. I think it just said stir fried noodles, but it was clearly yakisoba in retrospect. And it was a ramen restaurant, but they served yakisoba and it became my favorite thing on the menu and I would order it all the time. And then I don't know if I really encountered it again until Penguin Village years later.
Molly:
Nice. Okay. So would you have said... Do you think, looking back, that the one at EZO Noodle Cafe was good in retrospect?
Matthew:
I think it was probably pretty good. And yakisoba is one of those things that it's pretty hard to mess up, I think.
Molly:
Yeah. Okay. All right. I'll go with that.
Matthew:
All right. So you want to... Unless it's someone like me is involved and puts into much pickled ginger. Other than that, if you keep me away from your yakisoba, it's going to be good.
Molly:
Yes. Okay. Well, let's bring in our listener, who-
Matthew:
Or our guest even, who is listener.
Molly:
Who is a listener. Let's bring in our special guest. Matthew, bring her in.
Matthew:
Oh, I'm the special guest? Oh. Our special guest is long time listener and writer for our favorite Japanese food website justonecookbook.com. It's Kayoko Paku Hirata. Kayoko, welcome to Spilled Milk.
Kayako Paku Hirata:
Hello.
Matthew:
Welcome back to Spilled Milk.
Molly:
We are going to have even more fun the second time we say all the same things we said the first time.
Matthew:
That's right. No, no. Let's stipulate that everything we said the first time is off limits, and this time, it's going to be all lies.
Molly:
Oh, I was thinking that you were going to make us find synonyms for everything that we had said the first time. It's going to be like, "Kayoko, I hope that you've got an English language thesaurus near you because you can't use any of the same words again."
Matthew:
Yes, exactly.
Molly:
This is this new special game we play.
Matthew:
Yes. All right. Kayoko, did you eat yakisoba growing up? And if so, how often, and how was it made, and was it something you would eat at home, or at a restaurant, or both?
Kayako Paku Hirata:
Yeah, so I grew up eating yakisoba. It was something that my mom would make during the weekend when she didn't feel like cooking. She would use up leftover scraps of veggies and protein in the fridge and fill our stomachs up.
Matthew:
Yeah. It's really that kind of dish, but for being that kind of sloppy Joe sort of dish, it's incredibly good.
Molly:
I can't believe you just used the word sloppy Joe anywhere near it. It has nothing to do with sloppy Joes, Matthew. People are going to be-
Matthew:
I don't know.
Molly:
People are going to be picturing noodles with chunked up saucy beef on top.
Matthew:
It's not like sloppy Joes, but Kayoko, when you were talking about that, what jumped to mind was, "What did my mom make to fill up three hungry kids when she didn't feel like cooking?" It was canned sloppy Joe mix. I'm not saying that that's good.
Molly:
I get it now. I get it. Okay.
Matthew:
Okay.
Molly:
So okay, hold on. When I first encountered the word yakisoba, I only knew soba in the context of buckwheat noodles. Can we talk about the word itself?
Kayako Paku Hirata:
So when people think of soba, they usually think of the grayish buckwheat noodle, but soba actually encompasses all noodles. So the word yaki means cooked, and soba is the noodles, so yakisoba meaning fried noodles, stir fried noodles. There's also yaki udon, which is fried udon noodles-
Matthew:
Yeah, that's really good too.
Kayako Paku Hirata:
... prepared similarly, the same way as yakisoba, brown sauce, veggies, stir fry.
Molly:
In the case of yakisoba, So the noodles, they're actually ramen noodles. It's a wheat flour noodle that's more yellowish in color.
Kayako Paku Hirata:
The wheat noodles are... Kansui is added to the noodles, a chemical reaction occurs to the noodles, so it has a yellowish tinge.
Matthew:
And a springy texture, I would say, like ramen noodles, especially like fresh ramen noodles that you can boil them, and then stir fry them, but they're not going to get mushy unless you really over boil them.
Molly:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Kayako Paku Hirata:
I think they're a little bit more thicker than ramen noodles, so it holds up even when stir fried.
Matthew:
So let's talk about how this dish comes together because we mentioned sauce, but it's not really a saucy dish. Kayoko, when you make yakisoba now, how do you make it, and what do you like to put in, and what do you like to garnish it with?
Kayako Paku Hirata:
So whenever I make yakisoba, I do the same with my mom. It's also, I can clean up the fridge with leftover scraps. I like adding whatever sturdy vegetables, bell peppers, leeks, scallions. And for protein, besides sliced meat, I like adding fried tofu, [inaudible 00:08:01], frozen seafood mixes and ground beet. And sometimes if I'm feeling fancy, I might add a fried egg on top.
Matthew:
Oh, I didn't know you could do that.
Kayako Paku Hirata:
Yeah.
Matthew:
That sounds very good.
Molly:
I also love the idea of leeks in there. I hadn't thought about that, but I bet they would caramelize a tiny bit. I don't know. Oh, my gosh. That sounds so good.
Matthew:
Yeah. Probably my favorite thing about yakisoba is how, if you're using sauce, whether you're using sauce or a seasoning packet, it's not a wet dish. You cook it down, so that the noodles themselves caramelize a little bit against the pan. I love that.
Molly:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Kayako Paku Hirata:
Yeah. Besides the Brown sauce, I like using fish sauce for a lighter version, lime salt, and if I want a little bit of spice, I get a little bit of gochujang, the Korean spicy paste, or rayu which is chili oil, or shumai, a little bit of shumai on top.
Matthew:
Oh, yeah. I will often put homemade... I love making homemade chili oil and I will often add that just before serving, toss that with the yakisoba.
Molly:
Matthew, what do you usually season yours with at home?
Matthew:
So, okay. So the one I make at home is vaguely inspired by this one that we had at Penguin Village, which was called their barbecue yakisoba. Basically, I think about Penguin Village pretty much every day. It's the restaurant where at, I know we've told this story on the show before, after we ate there the first time, I wrote about them in my book Pretty Good Number One, and I described one of the owners as looking like a Japanese Patrick Swayze, which is true. And then we went back after my book had been translated into Japanese and the guy called me aside and said, "You think I look like Patrick Swayze?" And he was kind of insulted by this and I, to this day, I've never been more perplexed by anything than how someone could be insulted by being compared to Patrick Swayze.
Matthew:
Oh. So yeah, so we were talking about food. That's right. So they have this dish on the menu called barbecue yakisoba where the meat is ground beef or ground pork, and then the sauce, rather than being the tonkatsu style sauce, its more like yakiniku sauce, so sugar, mirin, soy sauce, and maybe sake also. So it doesn't have that fruitiness to it, but it still has the sweetness and it cooks down and caramelizes really well because of the sugar, so that's how I do it at home. Often, not always ground meat, sometimes no meat, sometimes sliced pork belly, whatever I've got.
Molly:
I have been making mine seasoned with soy sauce and mirin in equal parts and then a good spoonful of chili crisp. I don't love the sweetness of that one that I had at penguin village, and I wanted one that, yeah, that didn't have as much sweetness. So this one that I've been making with soy sauce, and mirin, and chili crisp is just right for me. I love it. And I usually use bacon in mine. I'll start out by cooking some chopped bacon and then use the bacon fat, or at least some of it, to cook the vegetables and the noodles too. And so I think that the smoky flavor of that with the soy sauce, and mirin, and chili crisp, it really does it.
Matthew:
Do you do any... Either of you, do you do any toppings or garnishes?
Kayako Paku Hirata:
I don't like the red pickled ginger, beni shoga. I find it a little bit too sweet and a little bit artificial flavoring. And I end up never using up the package that I buy at the supermarket. I put a lot of aonori, which is a seaweed flake, which most of it sticks to your teeth anyways, and bonito flakes as well.
Matthew:
Yeah. I feel like it's those two garnishes that really give it a Japanese flavor to me, as opposed to... I assume it probably derives from a Chinese stir fried noodle dish. Kayoko, do you know?
Kayako Paku Hirata:
Yes. So I looked up the history of yakisoba and actually, it's from chow mein, which is a Chinese stir fry, noodle stir fry. The difference between chow mein noodles and yakisoba noodles is that chow mein noodles have egg in it and it has a distinctively yellow color to it. The origins of the yakisoba is from chow mein. It was brought to Japan in the post-war period, most likely from soldiers and families who were living in Northern China when Japan occupied Northern China during the war, and brought over by the returnees who felt nostalgic of the food there. So yakisoba, I guess people think of it as Japanese, and maybe it fits in the category of Chuka Ryori, which is the Japanese Chinese cuisine, but most people associate it as Japanese food.
Matthew:
So it's not a dish that goes back a hundred years in Japan. It's relatively new to Japan. Right?
Molly:
I almost wonder if the version that I make maybe tastes more like lo mein because I don't usually put any garnishes on top. I can absolutely see how, if I were to put aonori, or bonito flakes, or the pickled ginger on top, it would turn it more toward Japan.
Matthew:
Yeah. So Kayoko, we've noticed that typically, you will get yakisoba at an Okonomiyaki restaurant where there's already a teppanyaki grill on the table, and those are both foods that are served at Japanese festivals, and so they're thought of together. Are there restaurants that specialize in yakisoba? Or is it only something that is a side dish at a restaurant that does something else?
Kayako Paku Hirata:
There's been a yakisoba boom here in Tokyo and other places as well. There is a lot of yakisoba specialty shops that had opened up. There are some that are very high end, uses really high quality ingredients, and there's also low end, very old school, nostalgic yakisoba shops as well.
Matthew:
Wow. I didn't know this at all before you mentioned it, and I really hope this boom is still going on the next time we're allowed to go to Tokyo.
Kayako Paku Hirata:
Most likely. Yeah, it should be around.
Matthew:
Are there regional differences in yakisoba? This is something that I have never really thought about until you said, "You should put regional differences on the agenda." That's another peek behind the curtain. I think of it as always being cut from a similar cloth, but there's lots of regional dishes in Japan. Is yakisoba one of them?
Kayako Paku Hirata:
Yes. There's a lot of regional differences from Northern Japan up to the South. Each region, it seems like, has their own distinctive way of preparing it, whether they source local ingredients, how it's cooked and served, toppings. There was one that would have a side of curry, or mapo tofu, or somewhere in soup, and the noodles, some of the noodles were really thin, and some were really thick.
Matthew:
You know what I realized now, actually? I did not actually eat this regional variation, but one time when I was in Tokyo, I took the train out to Higashimurayama, which is way out on the western fringe of Tokyo. It's not even quite the western fringe, but it's way out to the west, and it's a small town, but still within the city of Tokyo because that's how Tokyo rolls. I was going to this tea shop, and I got some tea, and I talked to the nice people who owned the tea shop.
Matthew:
The guy who owned the tea shop, the pop of the mom and pop, was like, "Oh, while you're in Higashimurayama, you should try some of our local foods, including our local yakisoba," which I believe was called Higashimurayama kuro yakisoba, so black yakisoba. And he had a magazine about stuff you should do when you're in Higashimurayama, and I think it was made with squid ink, and a spice blend, and I did not get to try it. Although, after I had tea at the tea place, the guy insisted on walking me the 20 minutes back to the train station, and checked on the way to see if one of the kuro yakisoba places was open so we could try it, but it was 9:15 in the morning, so of course it wasn't.
Molly:
That is delightful.
Matthew:
Yeah.
Kayako Paku Hirata:
Next time.
Molly:
I see this thing on the menu. On the menu? Wow. I wish there were a menu in front of me. I see this thing on the agenda, yakisoba pan. What is that?
Kayako Paku Hirata:
Yes, for people who love carbs, yakisoba pan is yakisoba basically on a hot dog bun. So it's a pretty popular offering at Japanese bakeries, maybe in the States as well. It's very cheap. It fills you up because of the double carbs.
Molly:
So is it yakisoba in a bun?
Kayako Paku Hirata:
Yes.
Molly:
Amazing.
Kayako Paku Hirata:
So portable yakisoba.
Molly:
Wow.
Matthew:
I've had it. It's very good.
Molly:
I can't... It doesn't seem like something that I would be drawn to, but I don't know why because I love yakisoba. The next time I run across one, I will buy it.
Matthew:
Yeah. I think they might sell it at Uwajimaya actually.
Molly:
Really?
Kayako Paku Hirata:
Oh.
Molly:
Oh, this is exciting.
Matthew:
What about omusoba? What's that?
Kayako Paku Hirata:
Omusoba, I think this is more of an offering that you would see at Okonomiyaki places, but it's egg crepe, omelet, over yakisoba.
Matthew:
That sounds good.
Molly:
Nice.
Matthew:
I once had pad thai served that way, which was very tasty.
Kayako Paku Hirata:
Oh.
Molly:
That sounds delicious.
Matthew:
Is there anything you could wrap in an omelet that wouldn't be good?
Molly:
No. Well, we can come up with something here.
Matthew:
Next week, we're doing M&M's as our episode, so maybe not that.
Molly:
Maybe not that. Maybe not a donut from Mr. Donut. I don't think I want a donut inside an omelet.
Matthew:
Inside an omelet? Probably not. Oh, speaking of Mr. Donut, Kayoko, right now, it's my favorite season in Japan, even though I've never been to Japan in late January, early February, and it's the time of year when Mr. Donut releases its special Valentine's Day chocolate donuts series. So if you happen to get to a Mr. Donut and want to try the Pierre Marcolini branded chocolate donuts series for us, we would love to hear about it.
Kayako Paku Hirata:
I will definitely check it out. But yeah, it's a nice time of year to visit Tokyo. It's dry, it's not that cold, and it doesn't rain that much.
Molly:
Oh, I would love to be there.
Matthew:
Yeah, we're lonely. [crosstalk 00:18:49]. Can we please come visit?
Molly:
Yeah. We should mention that the three of us have actually met in person before.
Matthew:
Yes.
Molly:
Back in 2017, we all had fruit parfaits at Takana together. Right? Is that where we were?
Matthew:
Yeah.
Molly:
And we should do it again sometime.
Matthew:
I think we'll be able to someday.
Molly:
Someday.
Matthew:
Kayoko, anything else about yakisoba that we didn't get to that you feel like we left out?
Kayako Paku Hirata:
If I can plug Just One Cookbook.
Matthew:
Yes, please.
Kayako Paku Hirata:
Yeah. I'm a writer for Just One Cookbook. It's a very big recipe site that specializes in Japanese home cooking. It's operated by Nami and her husband, Mr. JOC. And she has a bunch of recipes for yakisoba, as well as yakisoba pan, and she also has a video of how to make yakisoba. So if readers would be interested in checking out her videos and her recipes, we would appreciate it very much.
Matthew:
Yeah, we will link to that in the show notes for sure. Molly and I, like we've said this over and over, and it remains true, and will always be true, anytime we want to know how to make a Japanese dish, we always go to Just One Cookbook. It's always our first and only stop. There's always an easy recipe there that comes out great.
Molly:
I co-sign on all of that.
Matthew:
All right. Well, Kayoko, thank you so much for joining us on Spilled Milk. It was a pleasure and we must do it again.
Kayako Paku Hirata:
Thank you so much for having me.
Molly:
Okay. Matthew, it's time for some segments.
Matthew:
Yes.
Molly:
It sounds like, "It's time to cut open a citrus fruit."
Matthew:
Yeah, I've been eating some orange... This is our citrus segment segment. It's a new segment that's debuting right now. Wife of the show, Laurie, got a bag of oranges from Trader Joe's and we were surprised that they were not seedless oranges. They were seedful oranges.
Molly:
God, that is so distressing. I hate that.
Matthew:
But you know what? You've seen me eat oranges, right? It's absolutely revolting.
Molly:
No, I don't think I have.
Matthew:
I have this way of eating oranges that means it doesn't matter whether there are seeds because I'm going to spit most of it out anyway. I cut the orange into wedges, and then I put the wedge in my mouth and suck some of the juice out, and then put it in the compost.
Molly:
Oh, so you don't eat any of the solids?
Matthew:
No.
Molly:
Are you serious? You're a monster.
Matthew:
Well, okay, but think about it this way. If I took that orange and made fresh squeezed orange juice with it, would I be a monster? Because I'm just doing that segment by segment.
Molly:
I don't like our citrus segment segment.
Matthew:
All right. This segment is never going to happen again. It's a one time segment.
Molly:
Okay.
Matthew:
That's one of many reasons this episode is going to be a collector's item.
Molly:
Do we have any spilled mail today?
Matthew:
Oh, thanks for using the name of the segment. No, we don't.
Molly:
Oh, cool. Okay. I don't have anything for my quilting segment, but I'm thinking that the past couple of nights, Ash and I have been too tired to even watch a show at night. We've just gotten into bed and stared into space. But I'm thinking that tonight, we might watch a show, and if we watch a show, I think I might be able to finish the hand quilting of my quilt. And then I move on to the last step, which is the worst step, which is sewing on the binding.
Matthew:
Why is that the worst? Because it's tedious, or difficult, or dangerous?
Molly:
Well, I've only done it once before because this is only my second quilt, but it's a little... The way that I did it the first time worked really well, but it was nerve wracking because of the way that I had to make things line up, and then the way that you fold the corners to make them really beautiful and crisp, like as you turn the corner from one side-
Matthew:
Love crisp corners. We did a whole episode about it, Crusty Corners.
Molly:
We did. We did. Anyway, I'll report back when I'm working on the binding. And also, I should say that the last time I made a quilt has gone down in history within our household because when I was... So when I'm stitching on the binding, I machine stitch one side of it, and then fold it to the back of the quilt, and then hand stitch the second side of the binding. I know this makes-
Matthew:
Yeah. I and everyone else knows exactly what you're talking about and can visualize what you're saying perfectly.
Molly:
Yeah, I know you don't know what I'm talking about, but anyway, I stabbed myself with the the non pointy end of the needle so hard that when I pulled my hand back, recoiled in terror, it was in my hand.
Matthew:
Ah.
Molly:
Yeah.
Matthew:
Isn't this what a thimble is designed to avoid?
Molly:
So here is what I learned. Yeah, so this was before I owned a thimble. And now, now, I own thimbles, multiple thimbles. So I'm really just hoping to get through the binding process without putting the wrong end of a needle in my finger, and I think I've got the goods to help me do that.
Matthew:
I feel like if that happened to me, I would just walk around wearing 10 thimbles thereafter.
Molly:
Just for... No matter what you were doing?
Matthew:
No matter what I'm doing.
Molly:
It was horrifying.
Matthew:
Yeah.
Molly:
I also don't have any animal crossing updates. Do you have any cute animals?
Matthew:
I do.
Matthew:
So we've been watching, so Jeopardy, Alex Trebek's final episode aired a few weeks ago. And the first guest host of Jeopardy is Jeopardy champion, Ken Jennings. And as we've been watching his episodes... The fact that Ken Jennings is on it has nothing to do with this. There was a-
Molly:
I was going to say, your voice suddenly took a turn. I feel like you have an opinion about Ken Jennings.
Matthew:
I don't think he's great.
Molly:
Okay. Okay. You heard it here first.
Matthew:
That's my opinion.
Molly:
Another fiery rant from Matthew.
Matthew:
That makes it sound like I don't think he was a great Jeopardy player. Clearly he's a great jeopardy player. As a host and as a personality, maybe not perfect.
Molly:
You know who they should've hired to be the host?
Matthew:
Yeah?
Molly:
The husband wife duo of Matthew Amster-Burton and Laurie Amster-Burton.
Matthew:
Oh, Seattle's first family of Jeopardy.
Molly:
Seattle's first family of jeopardy. What were they thinking? The two of you together, an-
Matthew:
Unstoppable.
Molly:
Unstoppable duo. You guys are a force.
Matthew:
Yes, we would have rolled over all the contestants. Laurie would read the clue and I'd be like, "I can answer that." "You're not playing. You're the host." That's why they didn't hire us. So there was a category called Earth at Night, which featured many cute animals, and we're going to link to, you can watch the whole category on YouTube, but two of the animals featured were a baby python climbing a tree, I think it was a Python, it might've been another kind of snake-
Molly:
And it was cute?
Matthew:
Oh, yeah. Very cute. And spectral tarsiers, which is a little primate, I think.
Molly:
Oh, wait. Hold on. I've got it right here.
Matthew:
Yeah. Yeah.
Molly:
Oh, wildebeest. They've got wildebeests. Oh, wait. Oh, hold on. Oh, God. What's... Oh, there's an owl. There's an owl.
Matthew:
Yeah. Well, this was a real smorgasbord of cute animals. Maybe that's not the best word.
Molly:
Oh, God. This is so exciting. I'm just scrolling through. The baby python is not one of the cuter ones. I'll be honest. It's terrifying.
Matthew:
I thought it was pretty... I don't know if it's cute, but it was pretty cool.
Molly:
Okay. The owl though, you see it scamper across the ground and that's pretty cute.
Matthew:
Yep. Did you get to the spectral tarsiers yet? This is probably our most popular segment. Don't you think?
Molly:
Yeah, I've been getting some Instagram DMs from people. At first, I got one from somebody who just wrote, "Cute animals," and forwarded me a video. And I was like-
Matthew:
Oh, that's great.
Molly:
I was like, "What the heck is this about?", and I deleted it because it didn't occur to me that it had to do with this segment. I'm so sorry, whoever you were, if I didn't reply to you it's because I just didn't make the connection.
Matthew:
Do you remember what the cute animal was? Or was it-
Molly:
I didn't even look at the video. I was like, "What is this weird random DM?" But then somebody did send me a DM, and by that point, I was conscious, and I was able to understand what was happening, and I forwarded it on to you, and I'm not going to say what it is in case we wind up using it in a future segment.
Matthew:
And I don't remember.
Molly:
I don't either. That's what I was trying to avoid.
Matthew:
Okay, great. I think the chances of this cute animal appearing in a future segment are zero because-
Molly:
Oh. Wait, Matthew, I see the spectral tarsier thing. It looks like the thing from-
Matthew:
Gremlins?
Molly:
Yes.
Matthew:
Yes, it looks like a mogwai.
Molly:
How he pulls on it's own ears.
Matthew:
It pulls on it's ears to hear better at night or something.
Molly:
Oh, God. It was so cute, it hurts.
Matthew:
Yes.
Molly:
Oh, God.
Matthew:
Yeah, but do not feed it after midnight.
Molly:
Will it turn into a pumpkin? Or a-
Matthew:
No, it'll turn into a gremlin.
Molly:
Oh, I haven't actually seen the movie.
Matthew:
Yeah. I have seen the movie, but it was a very long time ago. And also, I read the novelization of the movie Gremlins, but before I saw the movie.
Molly:
Wow, Matthew. That is an A+ nerd move and I love it.
Matthew:
Yeah. Well, I was at someone's house and this Gremlins book was sitting out, so I'm like, "Oh, hey, it's a book."
Molly:
So you were that kid who would go over to play at somebody's house, and you would just hole up with a book, and ignore your friend?
Matthew:
Yeah, I think I was. The way you say that, it seems like you never did that.
Molly:
No, I was the kid who would call my parents to come get me early.
Matthew:
Oh, I would for sure do that also. And I'd be like, "Do you have any more snacks?"
Molly:
Okay.
Matthew:
All right. Go cook dinner for your family. I'm going to go eat dinner with my family. You can find us online at spilledmilkpodcast.com, facebook.com/SpilledMilkPodcast.
Molly:
No, wait a minute. We're not there anymore.
Matthew:
We're not there anymore. Wow. Taping the show, having a guest throws me off, taping the show at 6:00 PM. I think maybe the reason I said that is because I'm a time traveler from the past.
Molly:
You are, but you know where we are. We are on Reddit.
Matthew:
We're on Reddit. Reddit.com/r/EverthingSpilledMilk.
Molly:
Our producer is Abby Cerquitella.
Matthew:
Yep, she's going to cut out that thing I said about Facebook.
Molly:
She's going to hate us.
Matthew:
Yeah, I don't know what's going on anymore. Thank you for listening to Spilled Milk.
Molly:
Oh, let me look at the agenda. The show that's commonly found at festivals, Okonomiyaki restaurants, and in home kitchens.
Matthew:
That's true, except for, I don't know if we're found at a lot of festivals.
Molly:
We're sometimes found eating in Okonomiyaki restaurants. Wow, whenever I say that the word goes on so much longer than I expect. I'm still pronouncing it even as my brain has moved onto the next thing.
Matthew:
I think it would be fair to say that it's a fun word in Japanese, as well as English. I'm Matthew Amster-Burton.
Molly:
And I'm Molly Wizenberg.
Matthew:
Oh, my God. Hang on. Stop. I did not start the recording. None of this was recorded. All right. It's always better the second time.