American Born Chatty Desis (A·B·C·D)
"ABCD (American Born Confused Desi)" is being redefined in new livestream/podcast series American Born Chatty Desis hosted by internet personalities Sandeep Parikh (The Guild, The Legend of Neil) and Omar Najam (Dimension 20). The two hosts (and a sometimes exciting guest) in front of a live chat, with a fast and loose format where they check in with their chakras, debate over their American roots v. Desi heritage then close with a ridiculous game! Come for the light hearted commentary, stay for the deep insights into life from the second generation point of view.
American Born Chatty Desis (A·B·C·D)
Foodie Episode with Rekha Shankar ~ Dosa, Gharana, Energy Drink or RPG Spell? - (A·B·C·D) Sn2 Ep 8
🎙️ ABCD Podcast #40:
Join 🙋♂️ Omar, 🧑🍳 Sandeep, and special guest host 🎨 Rekha Shankar as they devour the latest desi news and trends! 🗞️🌶️
☕ Discover the cultural movement behind Indian-inspired coffee shops and their unique beverages! 🇮🇳🥤
😲 Electric eels can now zap DNA into other animals - is this the start of a real-life Jurassic Park? 🐍⚡️🦖
🌭 Oh no! Joey Chestnut got disqualified from the hot dog eating contest! 🍔🍛
👨⚕️ "Not a Doctor!?" with Gharana Foods' Amit Patel who shares his insights on the evolving Indian food scene in America. 🍽️🇺🇸
🔮 Auntie vs Auntie 2024: Biden stepping down? Trump's VP Pick. Which Auntie will ascend to the ethereal plane first? 👵🏾vs👵🏽
🤯 Can you guess if these are energy drinks or RPG spells? Play the hilarious ABCD game with the hosts! 🥤🧙♂️
🏆 Congratulations to Khushbu Shah on her new cookbook - the "Desi of the Week"! 🍔📖
🏏 And the Runner's Up Indian Men's Cricket Team who overcame South Africa to win the 2024 T20 World Cup in North America - Desi domination! 🇮🇳🏆🇿🇦
😂 Prepare for LOL moments and good karma galore! 💸✨ Comment your favorite part and share for a chance to win! 👇
📬 Got questions? We've got answers! Email us at abcdpodcastshow@gmail.com. 📨
🔔 Subscribe now before your ancestors start haunting you! 👻🧓
Show Notes for the 40th Episode of ABCD:
Sandeep Parikh Linktree: https://linktr.ee/sandeepparikh
Omar Najam: https://twitter.com/OmarNajam
Omar Najam: https://www.instagram.com/omarnajamfilm/
Rekha Shankar: https://www.instagram.com/rekha_s
Rekha Shankar: https://www.tiktok.com/@rekhalshankar
DesiQuest: https://www.desiquest.com/
Anand Upender: https://www.anandupender.com/
Anand Upender: https://www.instagram.com/anandupender/
Gharana Foods: https://www.gharanafoods.com/desiquest.html
Story #1:
https://sf.eater.com/2024/6/10/24173825/indian-coffee-san-francisco-south-asian-bay-area
Story #2:
https://www.newsweek.com/electric-eels-dna-transfer-other-animals-1849970
Story #3:
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/04/nathans-hot-dog-eating-contest-joey-chestnut-debacle.html
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10127187-video-joey-chestnut-eats-57-hot-dogs-at-army-base-amid-nathans-eating-contest-ban
Auntie vs. Auntie Watch: 2024
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/05/kamala-harris-memes-coconut-tree
https://www.sunjournal.com/2024/07/05/nikki-haley-is-still-the-strongest-vp-pick/
ABCD Game:
https://www.kotaku.com.au/2020/04/rpg-spell-or-energy-drink-flavor/
Desi of the Week:
https://www.eater.com/24167217/khushbu-shah-amrikan-cookbook-interview
https://www.npr.org/2024/06/29/nx-s1-5023676/india-cricket-t20-world-cup-south-africa
Producer: Anand Shah & Kaylin Mahoney
Technical Director & Sound Designer: Delvan Neville
Executive Producers: Sandeep Parikh & Anand Shah
Editor: Anand Shah
Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/effinfunny
Support us on Buzzsprout: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2199382/support
Sign up for the ABCD Email List: https://mailchi.mp/effinfunnyproductions/abcd
Join the conversation on Discord: https://discord.gg/effinfunny-783006672439345154
MERCH: https://effinfunnystore.com
Welcome to ABCD. I would like to introduce to you the cohost for this episode, a gentleman who advocates so much for tofu. Our nickname for him on the show is soy boy. Please welcome Sandeep Parikh.
Sandeep Parikh:Gosh, thank you so much. Oh, and I would like to introduce our cohost. the man who, if you order spicy at a restaurant, they just bring out Omar Najam, ladies and gentlemen.
Omar Najam:You know what? Here's what's wild though. We're not alone We have a third co host this week Yeah the first person to give out a James Beard Award without the approval of the James Beard Foundation, that's right, it is none other than Rekha Shankar!
Rekha Shankar:Yay!
Sandeep Parikh:Ladies, gentlemen, and our non binary friends, that voice you're listening to right now, Rekha Shankar, you may have, that might be familiar to you because, not only was she an executive story editor for Grand Crew on the NBCs, and, also executive story editor on Andy Samberg and Neil Campbell's DigMan on Comedy Central. Let's go! Okay, she's also a popular host. That's right. The host of Smarty Pants on Dropout and more. There's more. I'm just, I'm in a flow state right now. just let me flow, baby. she also stars as Usha Rao in G13 on Dimension 20's latest season, Never Stop Blowing
Omar Najam:Up. And.
Sandeep Parikh:huh. And. As. I think the world's best TTRPG character ever in Laddoo Auntie in DesiQuest.
Omar Najam:Yes!
Rekha Shankar:Incredible. Incredible. I love on podcasts when they go wow, what an introduction. So I'll say that, oh my god, wow, what an
Omar Najam:introduction. How would you have reacted if we had done like the best man bit where it's just oh and Rekha, I can't read your handwriting. You know that little bit that men do at weddings? Oh, yeah. I don't know handwriting stuff. I don't know that bit. I only
Rekha Shankar:know when men are like, people have been giving a lot of compliments to my brother, and I'm here to tell you the truth. And they're just like, I hate him, I don't know the handwriting thing. I hate him,
Sandeep Parikh:I hate this relationship, it's never gonna work.
Rekha Shankar:What is the handwriting thing?
Omar Najam:The handwriting thing is, I just gotta say, the groom has an amazing personality, a wonderful demeanor, is an athlete, a doctor. And it's so good, it's Oh, sorry, I can't read the rest of your handwriting. ha! Oh, the your handwriting. wait,
Rekha Shankar:that made me laugh.
Sandeep Parikh:your handwriting.
Rekha Shankar:Damn, that worked on me. Hey, listen.
Sandeep Parikh:Every, trope y, cliche joke, if heard for the first time, is fantastic.
Rekha Shankar:I'm going to use that.
Omar Najam:folks, we're not talking about weddings this episode. We are celebrating our 40th, because it is our 40th episode. And we get to do what we want, because it's our birthday. Which means we're talking food. That's right. Our show, ABCD American Born Chatty Desis is a podcast within a livestream within our lives as two American born Desis. it is a pod duckin if you will, which is also a little bit of a food reference. And if you are like us out there, and you're navigating your cultural identity, and you just want to chat it out, folks, we have such a great episode for you, because on tap for today, we have an old segment with a brand new name. This is the first time I'm saying it out loud on the internet. We'll be kicking it off with "White Lady Teaches Us Brown News". That'll be followed by Auntie vs Auntie Watch: 2024. Followed by "Not a Doctor!?". Then we'll have our ABCD game, which you are really going to enjoy. And finally wrap it up with our "Desi of the Week". But first folks, can I tell you about our sponsors? you might know a little bit about Our first sponsor a show called DesiQuest.
Kaylin Mahoney:Oh,
Omar Najam:that's right. It's the Dungeons and Dragons 5e campaign that stars me and Sandeep as well as You Rekha Shankar and our friend Anjali Bhimani and a collection of amazing guests all set in an original South Asian Mythology inspired world from the brilliant mind of Jasmine "thatbronzegirl" Bhullar aka self care. That's a reference to a text chain that we have All the episodes are out right
Kaylin Mahoney:now
Omar Najam:and
Kaylin Mahoney:you can watch the whole thing over at DesiQuest.com
Sandeep Parikh:Okay, real quick favorite Laddoo Auntie moment from the series I'm gonna just say mine first since I gave the prompt, it's unfair for me to throw to somebody else. So I'm just going to say, in light of our pre show conversation, it's the part where you go, drink water. Such a great moment. But now knowing the backstory of how difficult it is for you to consume water on a regular basis, that's it especially hits on a different level.
Rekha Shankar:Yes, art is very healing. I'm playing against type. Normally I'm not someone who drinks water or advocates it, but I played. Someone who does. It's
Kaylin Mahoney:good to stretch.
Omar Najam:All this spider mama stuff was so great. I do think that there's just a, such a true, an honest, depiction of aunties, like not asking for help that Rekha mastered. And there was just, I don't want to ruin too much, but there's a character that's Hey, there is like a education and business that you could pursue. And you were And if you wanted to share that information with me, that's okay.
Rekha Shankar:Yeah. Way of
Sandeep Parikh:asking for help without asking for help.
Rekha Shankar:Yeah. an auntie will be like, I lost every organ in my body and you'll never know about it. You'll hear about it like a year later. And yeah, every organ of my body fell out. Don't be such a gossip about it. And you're like, "are you ok?" And they're like, you're being weird. Stop talking about it. And you're like, I found out
Omar Najam:my mom was in the hospital. Cause my siblings were visiting Los Angeles and we were getting burritos and they were just like crazy about how mom's in the hospital, huh? and I went outside and I called her and then she just, her, the incident was like, are you in the hospital? And her, she went. And then laughed, and then changed the subject.
Sandeep Parikh:Omar, I'm not going to say I have you beat because that is amazing. but I just want to, and Rekha's heard this story because I called her like pretty much right after this happened. But I had an entire conversation with my parents, a whole conversation with them. back and forth, they pass the phone, everything. And, then two hours later, I get a furious amount of texts from my family. And they were just like, please pick up, please call, call, call. Something's going on. And I talked to my brother and my brother was like, Yeah, so dad's in the hospital. he had an event, heart thing. He's okay, by the way everybody That's why I can tell the story with some joy But and I was like, oh my gosh, what happened? what's going on? I just talked to them He's oh, what do you mean? You just talked to them? He's like they've been in the hospital for 24 hours and I was like wait So they're in the hospital the entire time that I was talking to them about like nonsense. They're passing the phone back and forth because... you know why they're passing the phone back and forth? Because the doctor was coming up to talk to them. And so they're like, here, you answer it, they're trading off. Now you talk about how excited we are about
Kaylin Mahoney:the Kevin Costner film. What is
Sandeep Parikh:even happening?
Rekha Shankar:That is so unbelievably sick. And so typical.
Sandeep Parikh:So typical. It's amazing. What's not typical a podcast to have two sponsors. And I'm going to tell you about our second sponsor right now. It's pretty good, right? Kaylin. Good. Good. Okay. Our second sponsor is you listeners at home is everybody that contributes to our Patreon. Yeah, we need it. We need to make the lights, hum. Is that what lights do? We've, we just started this idea of Effin Movie Club because, guess what? I'm making a movie! You guys, I'm making a movie with one Rekha Shankar! we are working on a film together. It's very exciting, and part of what I do is I watch movies, as research, and what I'm opening up to our Patreon subscribers is, I'll watch the movie with ya. Let's watch the movie together on Discord. And then, and I'll behind the veil it for you as I break down the, important parts what's inspiring me, what's working for me, what's not. what the pieces that I'm gonna carry with me. As I go, Rekha, oh my god! I just watched Palm Springs and we have to do, we have to copy this scene. that's the stuff we get to do together. And I'm like, you can't just
Rekha Shankar:copy scenes from movies.
Sandeep Parikh:No, we just got, we just did it. If Frances Ha did it, you can do it. We just have to credit them.
Rekha Shankar:Yeah. Like a lower third. This scene is from Palm Springs. That's what you do on Instagram.
Sandeep Parikh:You just steal music and then it says it at the bottom. What the song is. Yeah @ Palm Springs.
Kaylin Mahoney:That's right. That is a great. Yeah. We just got link
Sandeep Parikh:their Instagram. So please, hey, why don't you get out there and support a couple Desi's in the creative arts and, help us keep those lights on. Again, that's patreon.com/effinfunny, E-F-F-I-N. Funny
Omar Najam:yes folks, should we get started with this episode? Hell yeah. We
Sandeep Parikh:usually have sound effects Rekha. you could have fooled me.
Kaylin Mahoney:Folks, we're trying something new this week. In our segment, "White Lady Teaches Us Brown News", Kaylin's going to read us the news and we're going to give our real time reactions. Take it away, Kaylin. I just have to say that this was not my idea. I feel like that's important to mention.
Rekha Shankar:Kaylin, don't sell yourself short. Before we started rolling, Kaylin was like, I feel like I, I want more of a presence on the show. I would love to pitch an idea where I read news bulletins and you guys, you sit silently and react. And I think it's a great idea.
Sandeep Parikh:We just have to nod or shake our heads shrug.
Kaylin Mahoney:All right. with that said, because it's an audio medium, I guess maybe react grunt or creative sound, but we'll see how this one works. So here are the articles that I read and can't wait to share, with you. So the first story, "How Salvation Leveled Up the Bay Area's Coffee World". We've got a revolution happening up north, all right? There's a lot of Indian inspired artisan coffee shops and pop ups that are taking over the Bay Area. I learned Indian born residents are the largest immigrant population there. Fun. Yeah,
Omar Najam:we are.
Kaylin Mahoney:I didn't know that.
Sandeep Parikh:NBD.
Kaylin Mahoney:Yeah, apparently they have a lot of like Indian restaurants where these places have things like cardamom lattes, milk wash teas, a litany of other, and these aren't my words, quote unquote, bastardized Indian grandma drinks.
Rekha Shankar:Oh, so like a golden milk or like a, some sort of, I don't know, payasam type beverage or something.
Sandeep Parikh:I love that they call it bastardized Indian grandma drinks. they're just owning the fact that we're just stealing grandma's recipe and trying to market it and make money off of it.
Omar Najam:And running away with it.
Rekha Shankar:Or maybe acknowledging that you actually can never do grandma's recipe because she doesn't write it down and she doesn't have a recipe. Yes, true. If I
Omar Najam:were to be
Rekha Shankar:like's my grandma's God's milk, like the prasadam (religious offering) she had before or, on the, on like the prayer shelves that we would have. I have no idea what's in that. Almonds? Yeah. turmeric, saffron, sugar, cashew. lots of sugar.
Sandeep Parikh:There's also It's whatever's there. Like, it's literally... My mom's not going to run out and get more saffron, if she's run out. She's going to be like, I'm just going to grab this other spice.
Rekha Shankar:People act like Indian cooking is complicated and it is, and actually it's mostly complicated because no one tells you how to do it. And there are no instructions. and every website that tells you how to do it is confusing. And we'll be like, put two clove and you're like, two teaspoons or two cloves? Just Two... feel the
Sandeep Parikh:number two. Not to,
Kaylin Mahoney:Not
Omar Najam:to overly parenthetical on this, because I do want to, laser focus on the news, but I gotta say, in online recipes, when they're, like, oh, here's my entire backstory before you get to, the recipe itself? Yeah. Is that taking from South Asian culture? Because that is what it's like when you ask, an auntie, like, how do I cook this? And they're just like, when I was 14 years old. And then you're like, I don't know, I don't understand how this is at all related to the cilantro chicken recipe.
Rekha Shankar:That is interesting. I never thought about that. And then... That's
Sandeep Parikh:appropriation, basically what you're saying.
Rekha Shankar:Maybe any, honestly, it's probably a lot of stuff that's taken from South Asian culture. When I get like a 404 error, I feel like that is taken from South Asian culture. When I asked my parents a question and they don't have anything to tell me.
Omar Najam:Absolutely. That is taken
Rekha Shankar:from South Asian culture in a way. There's a lot of internet stuff.
Omar Najam:yeah,
Sandeep Parikh:absolutely. Wait, can I ask about this, like the coffee angle of this? Because, Okay. Okay. In, at least in my house it was chai all the way. Chai or bust. There was like no talk of coffee. It was like not. But then I found out recent. Yeah, maybe Rekha. Go ahead. Here's what I have to say.
. Rekha Shankar:South Indian filtered Coffee. Huge. deal for South Indians. So my house, yeah. I was doing chai just on my own accord. You know, kind of cool girly effect.
. Kaylin Mahoney:But.
Rekha Shankar:Kind of a Gilmore girl
Kaylin Mahoney:situation. Kind of a
Rekha Shankar:Gilmore girly, where I'm
Kaylin Mahoney:Blaine from Gilmore girls.
Rekha Shankar:I'm kind of Blaine from Gilmore girls where I'm making my own way and stuff. But, we were coffee all day. Morning was coffee, afternoon is South Indian filter coffee. And my aunt's house is, where it's super, super strong. They will not let you take it without milk. It doesn't matter what your preference is. It doesn't matter what intolerances you have. You cannot have it. They are
Sandeep Parikh:intolerant.
Rekha Shankar:I am intolerant towards your
Omar Najam:intolerance. The aunties say buckle in, nerd.
Rekha Shankar:yeah. Hey, be cool, dude. Don't be a fucking dork. Take the
Sandeep Parikh:milk. Take the milk. Take the milk.
Rekha Shankar:for me, I grew up with a lot of filter coffee. And it's to the point where, because the filter coffee takes a moment to make. If you're like at my aunt's house, you're like, Oh, oh, there's no coffee. Can I make coffee? I don't want to be like rustling through stuff. They're like, Oh yeah, there's instant coffee. I'm like, Oh, that is disgusting. I don't want that. There's actually
Sandeep Parikh:no words in our native language. Yeah. You can't say I don't want, so I
Rekha Shankar:don't know if that's a north or south thing. a Parikh versus Shankar thing, but
Sandeep Parikh:yeah.
Rekha Shankar:That's my thought. I think it
Sandeep Parikh:must, I think it is maybe south. Yeah. Related. South Indian I feel is more of a coffee.'cause when I went to Kerala, Yeah. there was coffee everywhere and I was like, wow, there's coffee everywhere. I didn't know this is a thing.
Rekha Shankar:Yeah. You tify by pouring it between two vessels to cool it off.
Sandeep Parikh:Oh They
Rekha Shankar:do the
Sandeep Parikh:crazy long ones, yeah,
Rekha Shankar:it's
Sandeep Parikh:like the
Rekha Shankar:harlem globetrotters
Sandeep Parikh:but with a drink That's right. If you've never seen that, it's pretty insane how they like I the wingspan on these... gorgeous
Rekha Shankar:wingspan
Sandeep Parikh:insane huge and they're just they're pouring coffee from or tea to cool it off I'm curious Kaylin
Rekha Shankar:to go back to the news that Omar and Sandeep were getting distracted from Do we have a last name on the people who started the coffee shop? Like one of them? yeah, if we got a north or south situation
Kaylin Mahoney:one the owner of York Street Cafe. His name is Anand Upender Yeah
Rekha Shankar:Okay, I can see my telltale is if it ends with an A N, I guess it's a South Indian name. So that's really what I was looking for Kaylin. So you didn't actually give me what, could have been impressive.
Omar Najam:The Upanishads are late Vedic and post Vedic Sanskrit texts. huh. Does that help at all?
Sandeep Parikh:Are you just looking up Indian facts? Yeah, on fuckin Google AI or
Kaylin Mahoney:some shit.
Sandeep Parikh:Yeah. Yeah, just asking ChatGPT, How should I respond to Rekha? just say this thing about the Upanishads. Alright, so what, what's special about Anand Upender?
Kaylin Mahoney:I wrote his name down because he was saying, he said something cool. He called this sort of movement, popularization of South Asian beverages. he called it cultural movement and says it's about having brown hands populate posh coffee bars as much as they do fields on the farm.
Omar Najam:Hell yes.
Rekha Shankar:Now I'm looking at the notes, so I am cheating, but I see you wrote down some stuff about the baked goods. And I think that's an interesting part of the coffee shop scene there becoming Indian that I have not seen, which is so I have never met an Indian family that uses their oven or that bakes anything. So my parents use their oven to store pot lids.
Sandeep Parikh:That's what that's for. It's just to warm up the pots. Yes, it's
Rekha Shankar:a big drawer. My dad's oven has been broken for, I don't know how long, but he does not know because he never has to use it. so
Sandeep Parikh:funny.
Rekha Shankar:So the baked goods situation, I feel like. A lot of people, including myself, don't know fully, like there are biscuits, like tea biscuits and, nankhatai and cumin biscuits and all this stuff that I'd be really curious to try. And there's a lot of British influence in India, obviously, so like shortbread type of situations, cake rusk, all that stuff.
Sandeep Parikh:Let's go on a tour of, the Bay Area to these coffee shops. If you're in the Bay Area
Rekha Shankar:Hit me up, give me something for free and I will be there.
Kaylin Mahoney:Yeah, absolutely. Oh, you, oh, let me see if I got this straight.
Omar Najam:Then we can move on to the next story. If you are in the Bay Area, comma, like you live there or currently there, hit up
Rekha Shankar:Rekha
Omar Najam:and give her something for free.
Rekha Shankar:That's it.
Sandeep Parikh:You got
Omar Najam:it. Okay, great. That's all you gotta do. 1, 2, 3. Great.
Sandeep Parikh:No further questions, your honor. I think we should have our own tea party, you guys. Cute. what do you think? Like an Alice in Wonderland thing? No, I mean the British like high
Rekha Shankar:tea. I freaking love.
Sandeep Parikh:no. like we, where we dump like something into the bay and we dress up like, our type of Indian. Yeah.
Kaylin Mahoney:Go into the San Francisco Bay.
Sandeep Parikh:Go to San Francisco Bay. Yeah.
Kaylin Mahoney:We
Sandeep Parikh:just need something
Kaylin Mahoney:to... off of pier 39. Yeah. Yeah.
Sandeep Parikh:We have something to have a grievance about, which I don't know what that is yet, but I can solve for that later. I
Rekha Shankar:want a job. I'm willing to throw tea. I would love a job. Yeah,
Sandeep Parikh:just the economy.
Rekha Shankar:A tea
Sandeep Parikh:party in this economy, that's what it's called.
Rekha Shankar:And
Sandeep Parikh:then we just go and we dump a bunch of coffee.
Omar Najam:talk about first, second, third generation progress in these United States of America where now we are throwing tea or chai or coffee into the bay and yelling that someone has taken our jobs. That AI has taken our jobs. We truly have taken over the American experience, and I'm so proud of
Kaylin Mahoney:us.
Sandeep Parikh:Let's end that story on that really great note.
Omar Najam:it's a very rad story. Thank you, Kaylin.
Kaylin Mahoney:story number two for you guys today. I hope you're hungry, I'm gonna feed you this good stuff. A shocking study finds electric eels can zap DNA into other animals.
Sandeep Parikh:Wow.
Kaylin Mahoney:Their DNA? Why? Or they take it from one
Sandeep Parikh:DNA. No,
Kaylin Mahoney:it's their DNA, they're zapping it into other organisms. So they're
Sandeep Parikh:like,
Kaylin Mahoney:shazamming
Sandeep Parikh:their DNA into a porcupine or something.
Rekha Shankar:Or
Sandeep Parikh:It probably is an otter.
Rekha Shankar:Yeah, like they put some sort of eel quality into an otter. Eel quality? Eel quality?
Omar Najam:Like patience? I
Rekha Shankar:didn't say virtue.
Sandeep Parikh:Alright, tell us more. Tell us more, Kaylin. What's going on here?
Kaylin Mahoney:Alright, some fun facts about eels. They can release up to 860 volts of electricity at a time. Wow. And turns out, after scientists have been studying them, that's enough to genetically modify nearby organisms through a process called electroporation. And electroporation, that's a fancy way of saying that these strong electrical pulses damage the cells of the other animal and induce negative charge DNA into their cells. So wait. Whoa. What?
Sandeep Parikh:860 volts That's a lot of electricity. That's a lot
Omar Najam:of electricity. It's a lot.
Sandeep Parikh:It's a lot. I looked that up real quick. That's a Nissan
Omar Najam:Leaf. Yeah.
Sandeep Parikh:It's like a high voltage power line is around 860 volts. Really? Electric trains run between the range of 600 and 900 volts.
Rekha Shankar:So is it that Large industrial
Sandeep Parikh:equipment.
Rekha Shankar:Is it that the water reduces whatever the because if I were to be electrocuted by 860 volts, it feels, am I right to say I would perish? So how does an otter, is it, the water is like, doing something? I think they do use it to kill. Oh. That's their, So it's killing, but then, so who cares if it's altering the DNA? We don't get to see what happens. Right? If it dies?
Omar Najam:Have you seen the movie The Fly?
Sandeep Parikh:there's a lot of wiggle room. Yeah, it turns them into an eel. This is how they propagate.
Omar Najam:Eww! That's What? Yeah, it's like zombifying. So it
Rekha Shankar:just changes DNA. Are
Kaylin Mahoney:I thought this was interesting. So the eel, the eel generates its electrical discharge gross using special cells known as electrolytes, I was just gonna
Omar Najam:say, justice for Amazing Spider Man 2, a movie where Jamie Foxx fell into a vat of electric eels and turned into Electro, and a man sitting next to me turned to me and went, that's not realistic. I would love to look that man in the face now and go, looks like it's science. Because it was the electric eels are able to negatively charge the DNA in the phosphorus groups, sir I don't think you're thinking about the phosphorus groups So I think this movie is actually a pretty scientifically accurate for a man who's also a spider boy.
Sandeep Parikh:Yeah that person
Rekha Shankar:watching a movie called Spider man. Eel man can't happen. That breaks my brain a little. I feel
Sandeep Parikh:like you're in the middle of saying something.
Kaylin Mahoney:Oh, I was just talking about their discharge. As you do. Yeah. So they have this, they have this tissue, named electric organ.
Rekha Shankar:That's also the instrument I play.
Kaylin Mahoney:And this helps them generate their discharge. Okay. Which they use to then catch prey and attack enemies, which is what we guessed earlier. But I also thought that Rekha, you brought up a good point with all the water. Does it reduce it? Because No, like it shouldn't, right? Because if you're struck by lightning and you're in a lake, aren't you a dead man? yeah, so it they should all be just they're like double toast. Yeah.
Sandeep Parikh:Yeah, I never thought of that like the whole thing like you don't put a toaster in the bath or whatever It's
Omar Najam:conductive
Kaylin Mahoney:What?
Rekha Shankar:Yeah, can electric eels What are they How do they Yeah, let me say this,
Omar Najam:let me have this as our takeaway. If you're ever bored or feeling like lackadaisical and it's not like a brain chemical thing, like you're just like, I don't know, maybe I've reached the edge of all that could be known and there's nothing else to think about electric eels for just two more seconds. And you'll realize that there's so many question marks left out there in the universe. So many, how did they start doing this and why can't we?
Rekha Shankar:I gotta say, this stuff in the ocean is truly, canonically disgusting. And it's it all has like weird, all the items down there have weird stuff going on like a lamp on its head or
Omar Najam:one That's a good point. It's a lamp on its head. There's a shrimp that can punch better than any other animal on the planet I
Rekha Shankar:think that is fucking disgusting. Zach Reno recently did a presentation on smarty pants about how we should stop going into the ocean And we got to be done with it I completely agree. I think the ocean, everything going on there, I want to preserve it. I don't want to pollute it. All the animals should be able to live there. I don't want to know what they are. I think they're all nasty except for turtles, except the basic ones. The stuff that's super deep is disgusting. Stop going there.
Sandeep Parikh:Thank God this is a live show because we have some scientists in chat, of course, furiously correcting us, but they're just saying, listen, water by itself isn't conductive, right? You need something in it that is conductive, like salt. so thank you, Dan Wally, for that. And
Rekha Shankar:D Man says all the waters that's not artificially cleaned up has some kind of salt.
Sandeep Parikh:Water's rarely, actually pure H2O. But I'm reading the end of this article and it says, the authors are excited about the implication of the study. That organisms may undergo gene transfer under the influence of electrical fields such as lightning. So it's if we get, if we're like near an electrical, like a lightning storm. Struck by lightning. I might get pregnant. Awww. Lightning
Kaylin Mahoney:baby.
Sandeep Parikh:Baby. I don't know. That's my take away. That's my take away. Crazy.
Kaylin Mahoney:my last little story I have for you guys. hot dog. Daddy is disqualified.
Omar Najam:Go on. Enough about me.
Kaylin Mahoney:So as we all know, Nathan's hot dog eating contest at Coney Island, it's held every July 4th. Oh, is this year the two winners? Patrick Bertoletti won, with 58 dogs, But did he? Did he win? And then Miki Sudo won the women's division with 51 dogs. but in general, the dog count was looking a little sad because we were missing famous hot dog dom, Joey Chestnut. Yeah.
Omar Najam:Let's go! Joey! Bay Area Finest!
Kaylin Mahoney:yeah. yeah, and for any, for any of those who unfortunately don't know about Joey Chestnut, he's won Nathan's contest 16 times total, 8 years in a row up until this year. And his record is eating 76 dogs in 10
Omar Najam:minutes. That's a lot. is Joey Chestnut retired?
Kaylin Mahoney:Absolutely not. No, he's just pivoted. So what happened?
Omar Najam:He's
Rekha Shankar:pivoted! He pivoted in a gorgeous way, right? Okay, exactly. Do you know? I think I know. I don't have to be a white lady that teaches. Also this is not brown news. No, I want you to say. No, I was going to ask you the last two were not brown news. Supposed to be, but it's brown news cause I'm interested. So
Omar Najam:questionable competitions is very South Asian.
Kaylin Mahoney:Okay. So he, on the 4th of July, he did compete. He competed against soldiers at Fort Bliss Army's "Base Pop Goes the Fort" event and guess what? He beat all the soldiers. He ate 57 dogs. And the soldiers, I think it was a group of soldiers, ate 49. And that was in just five minutes and 30 seconds. So he was on pace to beat his record. Had he been able to compete in Coney Island, it was nearly half the time. So he's a
Sandeep Parikh:worldwide champ. Did we say why he was disqualified from the thing? Oh,
Kaylin Mahoney:no. Unfortunately, it was because he got sponsored by Impossible Foods. The vegan hot
Rekha Shankar:dog brand. And you have to eat Nathan's. They did not like that. You're joking. And I freaking...
Sandeep Parikh:Also where it becomes south asian, right with as many, vegan and vegetarians as we have in our world like this is like I feel like in a direct assault on my parents. At this point to say that this man just because he was sponsored by a vegan hot dog can't participate in a national hot dog eating contest? I feel like they should be like, NASCAR drivers. they should be able to wear sponsors all over their bodies. I'm sponsored by Whole Foods and Hunt's Ketchup. Because Impossible
Rekha Shankar:isn't actually a competitor to Nathan's. how insecure are you?
Sandeep Parikh:Exactly. You know what I mean? Yeah. Nathan,
Rekha Shankar:what a little
Omar Najam:baby you are about this. You know what Nathan? There's an easy way we can settle this. How many impossible hot dogs can you eat?
Rekha Shankar:Yeah. Right now. We challenge you to eat as many impossible hot dogs as you can. Nathan's pony up. See if you can do it. are you on, are you, do you have tea? Can you fucking do it?
Omar Najam:Gauntlet's been thrown. It's on the ground. The glove, is in the hand. How small are those
Sandeep Parikh:hot dogs? You know what I'm saying? Did you guys ever see, there was like a show called Man vs. Beast or something? Something like that, or like Joe vs. the Beast or something. Anyway, they had, I think, Kobayashi on. The hot dog eating guy, and it was, he was up against a bear. an actual bear. It was like him vs. a bear as to who could eat the most hot dogs. Who won?, And , lemme just tell you, they, they did the typical reality show thing where they like tried to build it up and they're like, Uhhuh, we need to really make an episode out of this. all this backstory on the bear. I don't know, it was just back story. The bear has been
Rekha Shankar:self-conscious about Its salt intake.. Sandeep Parikh: Exactly. Because when they finally get to it, the bear wins in an instant. Basically, like Kobayashi's like starting to get in there, And the bear is just Haauum! Just like a whole crate full of 80 hot dogs in a second. It's a bear. It's a bear.
Kaylin Mahoney:Speaking of Kobayashi, just to wrap it out. yeah. He is gonna, he's gonna battle Joey Chestnut, in a one on one battle on Labor Day weekend, and its gonna be broadcast on Netflix.
Omar Najam:Oh,
Sandeep Parikh:see, there you go. And it's hot dogs? Oh my god.
Kaylin Mahoney:Yeah, it's hot dogs.
Sandeep Parikh:Yep. You blew it Nathan, and I bet it'll be sponsored by impossible. I mean, unless you want to sponsor this show. Nathan's then it's fine. Then
Rekha Shankar:I love you. Hit me up.
Sandeep Parikh:If you're in the Bay Area, If you wanna give Rekha anything for free. If you're in the Bay Area Nathan's?
Rekha Shankar:Hit me up. Give me something for free. I don't eat meat. We'll talk. Let's go.
Sandeep Parikh:thank you so much, Kaylin for the somewhat brown news. I think that worked. all right. It is now time for our next segment, not a doctor.
Omar Najam:Folks, we would like to introduce our guest for this segment, "Not a Doctor!?". It is Amit Patel of Gharana Foods.
Sandeep Parikh:All right, hey, we are here with Amit Patel, so good to see you again, and thanks for being on our foodie episode. for those who are unfamiliar, Amit runs Gharana Foods, You guys manufacture all these snacks in the U. S. and distribute them, and you sent them right over to the DesiQuest set, and man, did we gorge on them. Uh and you were like our first, one of our first major supporters of our show. So we're so super thankful for that, man. but, Let's jump in. I want to get your sense of what's going on with Indian food culture in America. I feel like there's a lot of exciting things happening and I'm wondering if you, what are you seeing out there?
Amit Patel:we're seeing a lot more, penetration of Indian food into the American market. I think before it was like really basic papads and stuff, and now you're starting to see watercress stuff. if you're an Indian person, you know who Deep Foods is. They've actually had a lot of penetration, all their frozen foods are showing up at least on the east coast They're out
Sandeep Parikh:here too.
Amit Patel:Yeah, so we're seeing more of the traditional North Indian food showing up on store shelves because that's what everyone associates with Indian food at this point. a lot less dosa, South Indian stuff and a lot more chicken tikka masala.
Sandeep Parikh:But I feel like even the dosa stuff is starting to hit too. I definitely have friends that are like hitting me up, like my just non Indian friends that are just like "Yo, is there a great dosa place around here?" And i'm like you're asking me this is amazing like you even know what dosa is yeah blown away
Amit Patel:It's better asking for dosa than biryani, right? Because that's the other option. It's one of the two.
Sandeep Parikh:yeah. Yeah
Amit Patel:Have you heard of The Fancy Food Show? So the fancy food show is the specialty food association. They do a lot of small brands, a lot of big brands, they show up and a lot of startups show up there. And there is an Indian brand out of, I think it's Boston, that is trying to mainstream dosa mix. So if you go to yeah, if you end up going to the Indian store, that it's normal for us. Like it's always there, it's pre made. But they're finding a way to try to push it into the mainstream. I don't know how a non Indian person is going to make it unless they buy a special pan. But, They're trying. Everyone is trying.
Sandeep Parikh:what's that pan called? you need a specific. It's a dosa pan. It's
Amit Patel:like a flat, it's like a flat pan.
Sandeep Parikh:yeah, but That's
Amit Patel:all it is. Yeah, there's It's like a flat pan that has nothing, no edges, no nothing. It just, you just You're, like a crepe pan.
Sandeep Parikh:It's like a crepe, yes, exactly. yeah, interesting. what about like the restaurant scene? You're in New Jersey, right? Yeah. okay, if I'm coming out there to PAX Unplugged, I'm only an hour away from New Jersey, right? So tell me where I've got to go.
Amit Patel:it depends. so I'll give you a little bit of background on myself. So I, I grew up in a traditional Gujarati household, which means mushy vegetables. Yep. And rice, I'm
Sandeep Parikh:very familiar. Rice
Amit Patel:and
Sandeep Parikh:dal( Amit Patel: lentils). And, uh, Staple, khichidi kahdi, that's literally every day. I disliked Indian food. I did not know I liked vegetables until I was like 18 and had like Chinese food, probably crunchy broccoli. And you're like, Oh my God, this is what a vegetable actually tastes like. So I ended up, I ended up marrying a Filipino. So I, like all the food is like accessible to us now. New Jersey is probably next to California is one of the best states to live in when it comes to food. You can get. In my neighborhood, I live in Central Jersey, so near Rutgers University, and I can get Ukrainian food. I can get Israeli food, Palestinian food. I can get, literally, Brazilian food. I can find individual restaurants that their only desire is that culture's and region's food. So for Indian food, the biggest one that I've been hearing about is called Arzu. And it's in like Freehold, New Jersey and they are modern Indian food I think we were talking about that before where There is a fundamental difference between what we used to eat and what modern food looks like now and it's Yeah, how would you categorize that?
Amit Patel:It's like fine dining for indian people.
Sandeep Parikh:Yes
Amit Patel:So if you've ever had It's weird to eat Indian food fine dine. I've had like chicken tikka masala in a small plate that has like a little bit of coriander on the edges and that's served to you. And you're like, this is like a $12 dish, man. How are you going to charge me $40 for this thing?
Sandeep Parikh:I know. I'm used to it spilling over the side of the like divided plate and like another auntie already trying to pour it into my, like before I finished. that's how I'm used to it, but you're right. Like when it's like, So curated like it's a Michelin star restaurant or something right? It's a it's a trip. Yeah. That said I really do enjoy it. There's a place called Baar Baar here in LA. Okay. That dude when you come out here, there's one in new york, too. and so we had the DesiQuest party there. But yeah, it's just it was exactly it was like, some sort of gastronomic version of a pakora or something, and you're like, this is crazy.
Amit Patel:It throws you off, like Like they can make a pani puri out of, Nitrogen frozen stuff, and they make it inside. So you get the experience of a pani puri, but it's see through.
Sandeep Parikh:it's crazy.
Amit Patel:It's cool, but it just throws me off too much. Like a samosa that costs like $12, That's stuffed with super fine chicken, It
Sandeep Parikh:throws you off, but I'm looking at the Yelp for Arzu, so we are going, dude. This looks awesome. Yeah, it's gorgeous. We can poo it and also devour it. Oh yeah,
Amit Patel:I'll eat. I'll eat. there's Tamarind in New York City, if you ever make it into the city. I don't know, it depends. So it's, they have, I
Sandeep Parikh:feel like there's a lot of in terms of Indian fusions, I was like, I feel like people are trying to crack like the Indian Mexican fusion
Amit Patel:thing. Well, Taco Bell did it.
Sandeep Parikh:They didn't know they were
Amit Patel:doing it, but Taco Bell pulled it off. They're the best. Are you kidding me?
Sandeep Parikh:They pulled it off that the Mexican pizza was somehow Indian. Until they
Amit Patel:discontinued it, and they got all the Indian people mad.
Sandeep Parikh:But then they brought it back, didn't they?
Amit Patel:Yeah, they brought it back.
Sandeep Parikh:People had spoken. my parents would always bring their chevdo, right? To the Taco Bell. What? What do you mean, what? This is putting on the taco salad. Yeah. Hell yeah. They would pour it onto the taco salad and they poured into the taco. Everything. They'd put in the goddamn soda. I don't know. They poured into everything.
Amit Patel:They just make safe, just put it on everything.
Sandeep Parikh:Yeah, exactly. It's like mom dad Stop bringing in bins of chevdo in your purse. Crunch up some chakri
Amit Patel:and throw it on there it's better than a crouton.
Sandeep Parikh:There you go. Is there like ingredients of the year type thing? cardamom was hot A couple years back Is there a new ingredient?
Amit Patel:Food show is all spice. So chili powder, Ghost pepper anything that's getting spicy. So like takis and cheetos have made it really popular. And now everyone is putting it into like things like popcorn, chips. They're trying to find any savory snack they can possibly find and dust it with some weird taki powder but spicy food is back and I think, what they're trying to do is they're trying to one people want more like more flavor in their food because salt and sweet only go so far. But I think people are trying to eat less And when you eat really spicy food, you can't eat as much and I think that's the trick behind it But the the food shows that's really the thing is finding ways to put spiciness, like hot honey was huge last year and the year before that everything was yuzu. Like it's just we're moving from sour to spicy right now.
Sandeep Parikh:That's a really good point about wanting to eat less. And so let's just let's like burn bright and strong and hard, right? instead of long that makes sense And that's what I said to people about Gharana stuff was I was like if you're into flaming hot, you should be eating the good stuff You know, that our parents made that you know from whatever hundreds of years of making this chakris and stuff like that, you know. Eat the good stuff.. Yeah, Indian food is
Amit Patel:naturally spicy and tastes better and it doesn't have any of the junk that we put into American food right now.
Sandeep Parikh:Is this true or not? Or am I just onto an early trend where I feel like saffron is like sneaking into things,
Amit Patel:Saffron is too expensive to sneak into mainstream.
Sandeep Parikh:But I keep seeing it in weird, certainly in a, like lattes, Oh, a saffron latte.
Amit Patel:That's cause you're in California, man. Do you want to put an expensive stuff into non expensive stuff and make it expensive? I can tell you in Jersey, you're not seeing
Sandeep Parikh:saffron.
Amit Patel:It's a California Erewhon thing.
Sandeep Parikh:Okay, fair enough. I'm so disconnected. I saw saffron in an omelette. I was like, that's insane.
Amit Patel:So they found a way to make a $30 omelette. Nice. Exactly, yeah.
Sandeep Parikh:They put the gold foil on top,
Amit Patel:that is a hundred percent indian inspired there is no doubt about it.
Sandeep Parikh:Yes. Oh, yeah That's what I was always saying, dude. Like I remember seeing that People talking about oh, dude I had this thing with gold foil on top and i'm like we used to Like our burfees like as a kid growing up. Kaju Katli had it.
Amit Patel:The silver foil had it. They still do it. It's not nearly as much as it used to be like the decoration part of our food The nicer stuff, like the saffron, the cardamom, the foils that they used to put on all the sweets, it's slowly fading, it's leaving, it's no longer, that's what makes Indian food so good, is just part of its presentation.
Sandeep Parikh:Wait, so why is it leaving then? Is it just too expensive? Cost.
Amit Patel:Everyone is just cutting costs. Maybe we'll see it come back, but in our area, where it's all little India, essentially, it's all slowly going away. It's really unfortunate. And then you're seeing it come back, in places like Arzu, which is like a fancy restaurant so you can put it back on top of the food. It's now more part of the fine dining sophisticated dining atmosphere than just the means like the normal day to day shop at an Indian store stuff.
Sandeep Parikh:What makes a good Indian restaurant for you?
Amit Patel:I'm a North Indian food eater. Like Gujarati food is off the table. I just can't, I can't go to a Kathiyawadi restaurant and just, I cannot do it. It's not in my DNA. I go with my parents.
Sandeep Parikh:It's literally in your DNA.
Amit Patel:It's not in my DNA anymore. I purged it. I had purposely purged it, cause I cannot enjoy it. North Indian food has supplanted it. Anybody who can make a good butter chicken plus, I think my biggest issue is naan. Because it's so readily available in that frozen aisle, like anybody can buy it. And you get it at the restaurants and you know the difference between somebody who's actually making in a proper tandoor oven. And you get that flaky Puffy buttery like it's just amazing
Sandeep Parikh:a little burnt.
Amit Patel:Yeah. Anybody who can make a good naan and a good basic butter chicken? That's the first start and then you start going to places like Arzu. Or there's a place near us, it's called A to B and it does Really quality food. Not oily. That's the big one. Everything Indian food is like oily. And my favorite is, in our neighborhood, there's a place called deli garden and it's a takeout only. And it's the definition of a hole in the wall. That grease that they've been cooking in for the last 20 years. It's flavored on flavor.
Sandeep Parikh:Okay. I want to go there. No, that's actually the one. I don't want to go to Arzu. Let's go to that spot.
Amit Patel:You can try both.
Sandeep Parikh:So it is more of the traditional North Indian style. sorry, as you were describing it, for whatever reason, this popped in my head, like cocktails, Indian cocktails,
Amit Patel:yeah,
Sandeep Parikh:I had a ghee infused bourbon,
Amit Patel:all right, no, that does not sound,
Sandeep Parikh:it was delicious. It was so good. I'm not kidding. It was like I can't describe it. It was the best old fashioned I'd ever had. It was like a buttery smooth old fashioned.
Amit Patel:Did they set it on fire at least to make it fun that would be lit.
Sandeep Parikh:Was it was already fun. It could have been your own devo, right? My own devo. Yeah, I could do arti while getting hammered Yeah, that's the dream but are there any indian cocktails that you've noticed out there that you dig?
Amit Patel:everything has bourbon or whiskey in it. It's a very busy thing. the most expensive whiskey you can find, they find a way to put, they actually do put saffron and cardamom and that stuff. I've seen pistachios, like pistachio martinis. So instead of doing, a espresso martini.
Kaylin Mahoney:They're using
Amit Patel:like a, Pista or pistachio, puree and putting it inside, like they're doing weird things like that.
Sandeep Parikh:We went to
Amit Patel:a place in the UK called Dishoom. They were doing things like that. It was really neat, but you really have to be in the mood for it.
Sandeep Parikh:It sounds like we already know what side you're on, the northern versus Southern, but do you think that there is some aspects of Southern Indian, this, the, the dosa's, the uttapams, those restaurants? I feel like they're popping up more. They seem to be more in the deli style or like at an Indian grocery store. you'd find the, dosa's and the chaats and all that stuff.
Amit Patel:I think you're finding it as a premix stuff. Like a lot of the premade stuff, like the idli and dosa has been around forever, right? do you know gits packets? No. G I T S. Oh. Your parents didn't make gits idli?
Sandeep Parikh:I do recognize this package..
Amit Patel:Yes.
Sandeep Parikh:Every, okay,
Amit Patel:I see it now. Yeah. With that and a bit of Eno, like the separate
Sandeep Parikh:acid. Yeah. Eno.
Amit Patel:Yeah. Yeah.
Sandeep Parikh:I'd have to drink that whenever I had a stomach ache.
Amit Patel:Yeah., yes.
Sandeep Parikh:She'd pour it in some water because you're not allowed
Amit Patel:to drink soda, so you can have carbonated water that has lemon in it.
Sandeep Parikh:Yeah.
Amit Patel:Makes so much sense.
Sandeep Parikh:for those of you at home listening who are unfamiliar with what we're talking about, there's this stuff called ENO. E N O. My god, you're blowing my mind right now. You're bringing me back to my childhood. And like, whenever we had a tummy ache instead of, ginger ale, like my friends, my, my white friends would be, it'd be ENO for me. Oh,
Amit Patel:that's crazy. It's not just you. It was every first gen immigrant child did it.
Sandeep Parikh:They also
Amit Patel:put it in dhokla?
Sandeep Parikh:Yeah, right
Amit Patel:to make it fluffy
Sandeep Parikh:to make it fluffy and like spongy, right?
Amit Patel:Yeah, that's the trick
Sandeep Parikh:Yeah, I do remember seeing these packages but I do believe my mom did make idli and like khaman and stuff like that from scratch.
Amit Patel:Idli from scratch is work. I remember my mom making it. soak the rice for days. Then blend it, then strain it and then you have enough to make it. Yeah that's why everyone's getting it pre made now the dosa mix. I
Kaylin Mahoney:think
Amit Patel:dosa and stuff, since it's all available and they're trying to mainstream it, I'm trying to remember, there's a brand that does achar, that's in Target and those higher end places. They're doing pre made food now.
Sandeep Parikh:Okay. what would it take to mainline dosa? do they need a Tony the tiger mascot?
Amit Patel:dosa. I don't know. It's the Indian savory crepe, Potato filling or spicy filling. It's just a replacement for bread, crunchy bread. What would be crunchy that I don't even know it's approachable. That's the thing. It's bland and approachable because it basically the flavor is whatever you put inside of it. If you want to,
Sandeep Parikh:I wonder if it'll be like food trucks or something that really, make it pop off. They
Amit Patel:do that. Food trucks in the city have it.
Sandeep Parikh:Yeah. They do South. They
Amit Patel:do dosas everywhere. Between dosa, biryani and chicken tikka masala. Those are the three things that are associated with desi food. They don't realize it's all different regional foods.
Sandeep Parikh:Right, they just lump it together. So okay we do this thing on our show called "This vs. That". you take it take a sort of an American thing and Indian thing and we debate it. And so I was kind of Wanting to do that with northern indian food versus southern indian food, you can pick one. But the other one is done. It's off
Amit Patel:North indian food every day. Immediately. Without even hesitation not even a stutter. Wow,
Sandeep Parikh:all that sambar gone. Yeah Forget it. Get outta my life. I can
Amit Patel:cheat and we can say Dal is Sambar. There you go.
Sandeep Parikh:Yeah, that's true.. Yeah.
Amit Patel:Okay. Again, we forget about Central India being just mushy vegetables.
Sandeep Parikh:Oh, yeah. No, I won't even talk I don't think Gujarati food is in the conversation. there's some good there. Listen, I like my puri's and I, I like, I don't know. There's some stuff. We got some stuff. We got, undhiyu? You don't like undhiyu? Nope. Shrikhand. You know what shrikhand is? Oh, I know what shrikhand is. I'm not a big shrikhand
Amit Patel:fan. See that. I used to eat that with puris. Whatever reason. That's like my childhood memory. That
Sandeep Parikh:combo is good. But for me it was more the puri, but yes. yeah.
Amit Patel:I would
Sandeep Parikh:only dip a little bit.
Amit Patel:Weird, savory sweetness, or salty sweetness. I don't even know. It's bread and yogurt. Essentially sweet yogurt
Sandeep Parikh:sweet very sweet yogurt like like pistachios
Amit Patel:and saffron
Sandeep Parikh:And it's almost like an ice an icing consistency it's
Amit Patel:almost thicker than icing. I don't even know almost fudge batter
Sandeep Parikh:Yes, fudge batter. Something really
Amit Patel:like heavy whipping cream like it's dense
Sandeep Parikh:It like it fights you yeah,
Amit Patel:you're gonna eat one cup of this and you're getting diabetes
Sandeep Parikh:100%. Delicious. If you watch A Neverending Story and Artax the horse goes into the swamp and gets pulled down like You dip your puri in, it may not come out man. It seems like you are doing some fusion stuff to me with Gharana Foods, right? You have the jalapeno. jalapeno is like a hot flavor, obviously more ways than one. talk to us about that. are you seeing more fusion style stuff hitting the market in the snack food area?
Amit Patel:what I see Indian food doing is almost following the Doritos model. Which is coming up with a puri or something that they can fry and turn into a puff like a watercress puff, that's what I've seen a lot of.
Sandeep Parikh:Watercress puffs, yes, I love those.
Amit Patel:Yeah, and what they're doing, Makana? Yes. I like that. Yeah, and they're just dumping flavors on top of it. And that's the current trend. I feel like they're just finding really repeatable foods now. It's almost laziness. But people are buying it, it's really popular over here. They sell taco bell branded stuff over here now Wow, it's weird Like
Sandeep Parikh:Taco Bell branded snacks?
Amit Patel:Yeah, all the sauces are available. The beans are available. Like just in the indian stores.
Sandeep Parikh:Really? Makes so much sense
Amit Patel:And I talked to the guy and he sells he said he sells more cases in his one store Than the guy he sells and in the entire state
Sandeep Parikh:But wait, why would you buy Taco Bell sauce when you can walk into a Taco Bell like my mom does and just pocket tons of sauce and buy one mexican pizza and get like Seven handfuls of the sauce.
Amit Patel:You're so privileged. Just walking into a taco bell and taking the sauce. There's a lot of disposable income over here How much sauce can you possibly steal to be able to put it in your shaak?. Sandeep Parikh: You don't know easily handfuls, purse fulls of sauce we used to have, for sure. So her taco bell sauce is like saltine, crackers, and, ketchup packets.
Sandeep Parikh:Yes. That's right. A hundred percent. we just had drawer fulls of anything you can get free from a restaurant, like whatever it was, subway napkins, Even Heinz ketchup.
Amit Patel:I have my mother in law who lives with me, so yeah, I have to throw away the ketchup, the barbecue sauce. Taco Bell packets, like anytime they go anywhere, I throw away the paper, or I have to recycle the plastic spoons and forks cause they're there just forever. I'm like, can we please, even the free chopsticks you get with Chinese food.
Sandeep Parikh:Oh yeah. why do we need this? We're
Amit Patel:never going to use it. We have real chopsticks.
Sandeep Parikh:All right. So last question here, when are we going to see Gharana Foods in like a Von's?
Amit Patel:It's a dream, but not anymore? So our history had us at Whole Foods for four years and we did okay for a while. And then, the market is so unfavorable to brands. I don't think people realize how much money or how much markup your food has because there's so many hands in the pot. When dealing with a grocery store. So like your food is probably 75 percent markup versus actual cost to produce. And it's not even transportation. I'm just talking about physical product, like the actual production costs to get it to the, if I could sell directly to a store, I would do it in a second, but because the market is so unfavorable to a brand, like this is just. Like just some numbers, right? an Indian grocery store If they sell it in the store for $3.49,$3.99, and they get there, whatever, 20%, 30%, 40% markup, whatever they want to do. When I was selling at Whole Foods foods, they were selling it. This is almost 10 years ago. Now, they were sellig it at $4.99. Wow. Like they were, there were so many, there was so much markup in the middle. That's why if you, have you seen the, achar in a, an American store like the athanu's, or the chutneys, like those types of things?
Sandeep Parikh:Yeah. Yes. I have seen it in, it's like $7 a jar for something this big. or like the jars of ghee $14. The same ghee
Amit Patel:you buy in an Indian store at whatever,$7 for this big jar in the American store is like $14. But it's the same brand, same everything. Nothing's changed.
Sandeep Parikh:Finally my mom taught my wife how to make ghee. because I married a white girl, and so she would, she, and she loves ghee, so she would always buy the ghee. And I was like, I know it's very easy to make ghee, I just don't know, like the process. She's like, fine, I'm just gonna learn it from your mom. You didn't know how to make ghee You don't
Amit Patel:remember your mom making it as a child?
Sandeep Parikh:Oh, Yeah, I remember her making it, but I don't remember like, how long to leave it on the stove and when to skimm the stuff off. Like I had never paid attention. I was doing, typical gender role bullshit of like, you know, My mom cook it was terrible I didn't have sisters, Three three douchey Parikh brothers running around there So yeah, I did not pay. I did not pay good attention. Now I do now because I watched them make it and it's oh now my family knows how to make ghee, which is so great. And it's so easy and so cheap so much cheaper to do than to buy a thing like just You guys, just, I'll have my mom make a video on how to make ghee, okay? So just watch that, and then you can stop buying $14 ghee at,
Amit Patel:Whole Foods.
Sandeep Parikh:All right, listen, that was gonna be the last question, but I want to end with this, because you bashed Gujarati food so much, but there's gotta be something that you can't live without. Isn't there one piece of Gujarati food that, it's something that you're like, oh man, if they didn't have this,
Amit Patel:you're putting me on the spot, man. That's messed up. maybe khaman.
Sandeep Parikh:Khaman.
Amit Patel:But only my mom's. specifically my mom's. I cannot eat it at a store. It does not taste the same. it has to be my mom's khaman. That is something I, whenever she makes it, I will eat. Or, actually something weird is, you know what Sabudana is?
Sandeep Parikh:Oh,
Amit Patel:I've heard that. The tapioca balls. Like the small, the yes. Tapioca, that they do during a couple of, during the holidays.
Sandeep Parikh:The holidays, yep.
Amit Patel:yeah, that.
Sandeep Parikh:that's pretty good.
Amit Patel:For whatever reason, I love that stuff. I have no idea why.
Sandeep Parikh:is that the stuff that's in the milky drink?
Amit Patel:that's what's in the bobba teas but not the indian style is actual tapioca balls Yeah, you eat it with yogurt. It has peanuts on it that are spicy.
Sandeep Parikh:Yeah. Yeah,
Amit Patel:you really can't chew it. It's more like you
Sandeep Parikh:swallow. Yeah
Amit Patel:But it tastes delicious. I don't know why or the fried version of that is also really good All right. See now I gotta go get food. See?
Sandeep Parikh:All right. There you go All
Amit Patel:right, so true traditional gujarati food. No bueno, but like All the appetizers and stuff. Is samosas considered gujarati?
Sandeep Parikh:I feel like it was more prevalent when we're going to go to a north indian restaurant. Like we had like pakoras and stuff. Those are Panjabi samosas
Amit Patel:Specifically like the pure triangle ones. Yeah, these are just a pure like 3d doritos triangles. RIght, right.
Sandeep Parikh:that's the kind that we had. Yeah, uh khandvi khandvi was our...
Amit Patel:Oh yeah I used to make that when I was a kid. That was fun Yeah, I used to cut that off the aluminum foil You're right,
Kaylin Mahoney:I
Sandeep Parikh:think you're right, the appetizers and like the peripheral food in Gujarati food, you take the dhal-bhat-shaak-rotli out of it, that stuff is, you're right, that stuff is winning. All right, awesome. Amit, thanks for joining us on the Foodie episode, we call this segment not a doctor, when we interview someone that is not a doctor, so I think, who, does something actually different, with their lives as a first gen, second generation. Indian. So I think this is a pretty successful one. although a lot of the food we talked about might, land you with a doctor. Um,
Amit Patel:all the Indian food lands you with a doctor. It's not, not to be eaten every day.
Kaylin Mahoney:Let's move on to our next segment. It's Auntie vs Auntie 2024.
Omar Najam:This is
Sandeep Parikh:huge.
Omar Najam:This is our segment where we track the 2024 U. S. presidential election to see just how close we are to achieving a presidential race between Democratic auntie Kamala Harris and Republican auntie Nikki Haley reminder. They are both at least part Indian, hence they are aunties. Now, to be clear, we started this segment a while ago.
Sandeep Parikh:Yep. After the primaries were basically done though. Done. Yeah. And we were just like, why not? As a joke. Basically as a joke. because I think all odds were against this ever happening, right
Kaylin Mahoney:Omar?
Omar Najam:That, yeah, we're, okay, I can't begin to explain to you how far we are from political commentary. Like, how far I am as a political expert of anything. I've never called a race ever before in my entire life. I don't know anything about politics. I, it's a miracle I vote. yeah. The fact that we are now so deep in what is possibly the most important political watch and that it happened here on the show ABCD, I would like to take a second on our 40th episode to acknowledge we are ahead of the curve to finding a trend. I would love to talk about Harris status. Is that all right, Sandeep? Please. the K Hive is popping off. that's right. The K Hive, an informal online community supporting Vice President Kamala Harris, has seen a resurgence following Biden's performance in the last debate as well as television interviews. so for example, there's been increased media presence for the term Kamala, and the hashtag K Hive. Yeah. They've both been trending. Harris supporters are flooding social media with memes featuring the vice president. They often incorporate her distinctive quotes and speeches, blending irony with authentic praise. there is also an emoji that is out in the world. Do you know what emoji it is, Sandeep? Is it a bee? No. Is it a hive? That would be treading on someone else's hive. Is it a rabbit? Is it a rabbit?
Rekha Shankar:Why
Omar Najam:do you think a, why do you think a rabbit?
Rekha Shankar:"Hare-is".
Omar Najam:Wow.
Rekha Shankar:Oh man. It's not?
Sandeep Parikh:It should be. that's brilliant.
Rekha Shankar:What is it? It's a
Kaylin Mahoney:coconut. It's inspired by a particular anecdote shared by Harris. Oh no. Jesus. Coconut trees.
Sandeep Parikh:Wait, what? Do they not know, what coconut means for brown people?
Rekha Shankar:Yeah, wait, what is it inspired by?
Omar Najam:Oh my God. It's inspired by an anecdote shared by Harris about coconut trees. Oh my God. And that's as far as I've given you all the facts. I'm not here for political commentary. For
Rekha Shankar:anyone who doesn't know, a coconut is something that your cousins call you when you're 10 to make you feel bad that you're brown on the outside and white on the
Sandeep Parikh:inside. We literally almost called this show Coconuts because of that. Because we wanted to reclaim the term so instead we went ABCD. Yeah, this is insane. Damn! So that the that they're doing the coconut that's amazing and no one's calling that out. So I guess we are
Omar Najam:yes Also betting markets like PredictIt have significantly shifted in her favor with Harris surpassing Biden as the front runner of the Democratic presidential nomination, so Lots going on there is crazy in the hair. This is crazy. No,
Sandeep Parikh:literally this is what's happening. This is, I just, I was just listening. I've been listening to podcasts like crazy ever since that debate.'cause I did a bit of a deep dive.
Omar Najam:You've been listening to Adventure Zone and . My old podcast"Thank you for Requesting" that's what I should,
Sandeep Parikh:be listening to, to take my mind off of this. But I can't stop thinking about it.'cause that debate was so hard to watch. That was really painful. And I was like, Democrats can't do the thing that, that Republicans are doing, I don't think, which is like propping up the nominee in spite of them not being fit for office. The, nah, he's good.
Kaylin Mahoney:Nah, he's good.
Sandeep Parikh:anyway, I recently heard that Harris is now on these, predictive sites, these betting sites. She's up to 50% to, to take the nomination. from 15 percent before the, the debate.
Omar Najam:Yeah. Okay. Okay. And what percentage were we at last time?
Kaylin Mahoney:we ended at 35
Sandeep Parikh:So obviously on the Biden side of things, the Biden, Harris side, things might change. Things might change. we're pushing up. Do you wanna hear a little bit about the Nikki Haley side?
Omar Najam:I would love to hear what's going on with Auntie Haley.
Sandeep Parikh:Prominent American conservative voice and editor in chief of the National Review. Rich Lowry is arguing that Haley is the strongest pick for VP for Trump. and so Nikki Haley is not currently considered to be on Trump's VP shortlist. Haley could potentially, though, cause she's got a lot of qualifications, right? She was a runner up in the nomination fight. She represents a totally different faction of the party. She appeals to, College educated and suburban voters where Trump is very weak. She provides demographic balance, because, she's an auntie, and she has executive and foreign policy experience. on the other side, Haley was a little mean to poor old Trump. Yeah. She was real mean to him during the primary campaign, when she was like. Saying truths about him so mean Trump retaliated against Haley's criticisms particularly after winning the New Hampshire primary And the MAGA base not a big Haley fan. Questions exist about whether Trump could ever trust Haley in the VP position, but, it probably would be the smart move.
Omar Najam:I've heard people say it doesn't sound like Trump, it like wants Nikki Haley as a running mate. And my response to that is the man talks like EDM music sounds don't Follow, don't try to follow any track of narrative there.
Sandeep Parikh:Yeah. here's what I'm going to pitch.
Omar Najam:Yeah.
Sandeep Parikh:That Biden will step down. Kamala Harris will become the nominee. And then she picks Nikki Haley. And then it's the aunties on the same ticket.
Omar Najam:What a twist. It technically would make auntie versus auntie watch 2024 a 100%.
Sandeep Parikh:I feel like there's not not a chance in hell that could happen Is all I'm saying. I could see them. Yeah, I could see them doing that. I don't know why My
Omar Najam:goodness, so what okay percentage wise 35 percent it's got to go up, right?
Sandeep Parikh:Yeah,
Omar Najam:gotta go up
Sandeep Parikh:after that debate? Yeah, cuz like potentially one half of auntie versus auntie, right? Yeah, it's like way more possible now like way more possible
Omar Najam:Rekha, what are you thinking? Can we get to 50 percent today?
Rekha Shankar:I pray not. I'm not a fan of anybody we're talking about, particularly Nikki Haley. Whatever. She's an absolute, I love
Omar Najam:Rekha's bumper sticker.
No one:2024, she's an absolute
Sandeep Parikh:freaking ghoul.
Rekha Shankar:but it does sound like we're closer. I for sure thought that. Something would happen with Biden's nomination in the last week or so, but every article I was reading is nope, we're still moving on with Biden. And I'm like, now it's starting to trickle out. Like maybe not. And I'm like, yeah. Abigail
Omar Najam:Disney said that she will withhold all of her support for the democratic party until Biden steps down. It's
Rekha Shankar:brutal.
Sandeep Parikh:it's a scary, Not fun thing, that's going on, but I also think there's reality, which is that, I almost feel like it's cruel to run Biden to make that man be president for another four years. give, can we let the guy put his feet up and hang out with his grandkids? Like he's my dad is 82 and he's not fit to, to, to drive, So I'm like,
Rekha Shankar:Because I said the thing of I hate, I don't like all these people I'm going to vote. I always vote. I'm a super voter bitch. I vote all the time. Every day of my life. Please vote. Are these people ghoulish? Yes. Yes. Of course. But we
Sandeep Parikh:vote. Without
Rekha Shankar:a doubt.
Sandeep Parikh:Yeah, I'm not Advocating, for not voting, but to have Biden step down and in the amount of time that they have to put up another nominee, it, would be very challenging to put up anybody other than auntie Kamala. I think it'd be really tough. from everything that I've heard, like just to transfer the money. from his campaign, would be like really challenging if it was not Harris. so look, let the man rest and, and let, But let our vision come true. Let the first half of auntie versus auntie happen What
Omar Najam:percentage are we feeling?
Sandeep Parikh:I'm going to throw out, I'm going to say, yes, it would nor it would boost it to 50, but there's obviously Biden is saying he's not going to step down. So that's got to knock it down a little bit. knock us down like 3 points. Yeah. Okay. 47. Yeah. 47. And then I'm thinking, and then I'm thinking this whole thing with the Supreme Court and their immunity makes it less likely that Trump's going to be indicted for One of those criminal trials so that decreases the likelihood that he's going to have culpability So maybe it's 45%. How does that sound? throwing out 45.
Omar Najam:45 like the 45th president. Interesting. Interesting. Like the four.
Sandeep Parikh:Okay. Can we just do 44 then?
Omar Najam:Okay. 44. So we went, we're going from 35 to 44. So a nine point jump. Feels like it should be more than that. Huh?
Rekha Shankar:I have no political expertise or knowledge whatsoever. So I cannot help you with that math problem Sandeep.
Sandeep Parikh:Let's go 47 Anand Shah's in chat with 47. 47. How does everyone feeling?
Omar Najam:47.
Sandeep Parikh:Yeah. all let's go to a more fun topic and let's jump into the ABCD game. Huh? Huh?
Omar Najam:Yeah. Now it's time to play our game Energy drink or RPG spell?.
Kaylin Mahoney:Yes. That's amazing. I have to give credit where credit's due. We found this online. It was from Kotaku
Sandeep Parikh:Kotaku boosted hell out of Legend of Neil back in the day. We love Kotaku.
Omar Najam:Look at that. And now we're here supporting them. This is a full circle.
Kaylin Mahoney:okay, here's why the game exists. There's a lot of weird energy drinks out there. A lot of them have strange names that sound like spells or attacks from RPGs. the game is, you have to guess if you think it's an energy drink or a spell. They are all either. An existing spell, or attack, from a game, or an actual energy drink. and points if you get it right. Person with the most points at the end is the winner. the winner usually gets to host the next episode. Rekha, this could be very interesting. You could take it
Sandeep Parikh:and break it. This could be problematic for your schedule. You could
Rekha Shankar:end the show. Yeah, next episode's the finale if I win. Okay. Okay. And
Kaylin Mahoney:then the loser will have one minute to improvise a commercial for a very new and a very specific energy drink.
Omar Najam:Beautiful. Oh my god. Okay, I love that.
Kaylin Mahoney:That
Omar Najam:is the
Kaylin Mahoney:punishment.
Omar Najam:Are you
Kaylin Mahoney:guys ready to play okay. Number one, Ultraviolet. Is it a spell, or is it an energy drink? Omar.
Omar Najam:Ultraviolet. light. I'm going energy drink.
Sandeep Parikh:sorry, you just said Ultraviolet. That's the whole thing?
Kaylin Mahoney:Yeah.
Sandeep Parikh:And these aren't necessarily D&D RPG? This isn't any, from Correct. Okay. Correct.
Omar Najam:Could be Blades in the Dark.
Rekha Shankar:Oh no.
Omar Najam:Could be Daggerheart. Oh
Rekha Shankar:no. Oh no. Oh no.
Omar Najam:Could be Candela.
Sandeep Parikh:Rekha, do you want to go?
Rekha Shankar:Yeah. I'm gonna say It's, energy drink.
Sandeep Parikh:I'm gonna just complete the triumvirate and say it's an energy drink. You guys all got a
Kaylin Mahoney:point, congratulations! Damn, let's go, bring
Sandeep Parikh:it on.
Kaylin Mahoney:Who's casting Ultraviolet?
Sandeep Parikh:I don't want to see what's in the room, man. I don't want to know what happened in that dungeon. It's gross.
Kaylin Mahoney:question number two, Pipeline Punch. What do we think?
Rekha Shankar:this time Rekha you go first. Thank you. I think if that's the name of an energy drink, that's disgusting. Because it sounds like it's like beating your esophagus. So I'm going to say it's a spell. Okay.
Sandeep Parikh:You know what? I'm gonna just change it up just so that there's an opposite. But I think it could be an energy drink.
Omar Najam:Okay. I'm gonna say it's like a 90's themed energy drink. It's punch flavored and it's like the pipe Like you're just cutting up that pipeline.
Sandeep Parikh:You're just roasting that pipeline trim
Kaylin Mahoney:It is an energy drink. Let's go, let's go, yes. Rekha, you're just one behind. I lost
Rekha Shankar:my ass in that one.
Kaylin Mahoney:Yeah. You underestimated how gross monster drinks can be.
Sandeep Parikh:Ew! It looks like you could use a pipeline, is all I'm saying.
Rekha Shankar:My pipeline is awesome. It's full of blood, very good.
Kaylin Mahoney:Oh, what? What? Question number three. Blue Bolt.
Sandeep Parikh:I'm going to say spell. Blue
Kaylin Mahoney:bolt. Okay.
Sandeep Parikh:These are great. They really could, they could be both. That's, these are great. Blue? I'm gonna say spell though, yeah. If this is a 5e
Omar Najam:one and I'm overthinking it, Drinking my bolt. I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say energy drink.
Rekha Shankar:I'm gonna say, Spell. It is a spell. eat... It's a druid spell. freaking dust, Omar. Yeah, dude, oh my god,
Omar Najam:I'm stuck at two points. Yeah, we're
Rekha Shankar:tied. How's it feel to be on the bottom?
Sandeep Parikh:Eat some South Indian Filtered coffee bro. Yeah,
Rekha Shankar:come on, dude.
Omar Najam:I Would love that. I don't know why that's an insult. I famously love coffee. Yeah,
Sandeep Parikh:you need that.
Omar Najam:I'm just saying you need that. You stink!
Rekha Shankar:You have the same amount of points as me.
Omar Najam:No, but I said eat it, not drink it.
Rekha Shankar:yeah.
Omar Najam:Okay, so Sandeep's in the lead with three points right now.
Kaylin Mahoney:Alright, next. Star Blast.
Sandeep Parikh:Star. Blast. Yeah. Spell. I'm gonna also say spell. It's two
Omar Najam:words.
Kaylin Mahoney:Okay. Oh, you read spell it. Ha!
Omar Najam:Can you use it in a sentence?
Rekha Shankar:I think it is also a spell. Even though I know that might not help us points wise.
Sandeep Parikh:It only helps me that we all pick the same thing.
Kaylin Mahoney:It is an energy drink. Oh, gosh. You could have had it. You can buy it on Amazon. Rekha.
Omar Najam:You could have had it. Did you, what did you say, Sandeep? Energy drink? I said
Sandeep Parikh:spell. I said the same as you. Oh, gosh. So there's,
Omar Najam:yeah, everybody, there's, there's a chance we can tie it up. right now.
Rekha Shankar:Okay. Okay. Kaz Apple. Spell it. K. Spell
Kaylin Mahoney:it.. Okay.
Rekha Shankar:K-A-Z-A-P-P-L-E. Oh, like kazam,
Omar Najam:but apple.
Rekha Shankar:Yeah. Like abra-kazz-apple,
Sandeep Parikh:kazapple. Abra-kaz-apple.
Omar Najam:I'm gonna go spell.
Rekha Shankar:I'm gonna say
Omar Najam:God the game theory in this with 3 people guessing between two options. I know it's
Sandeep Parikh:nutty
Rekha Shankar:This absolutely sucks I'm gonna say I'm
Sandeep Parikh:gonna say whatever Rekha says
Rekha Shankar:Such trash
Sandeep Parikh:My answer is locked into whatever Rekha says
Rekha Shankar:If it's a spell, it's too specific. What, you turn someone into an apple or an apple tree? Yeah, But if it's a drink, it's way too specific. What, it's all apple based?
Sandeep Parikh:But there's some of those goofy spells, right? there's some of the, meme y spells. There's so
Omar Najam:many drinks named after just a fruit. What? Kool Aid?
Rekha Shankar:What fruit is in that? Alright, I'm gonna do You are, you're mental. I'm going to do spell.
Sandeep Parikh:Okay.
Omar Najam:I'm locked in to spell. It's a trap. We're all doing spell.
Sandeep Parikh:Yeah. You guys are not doing yourselves any favors. Yeah. Go ahead.
Kaylin Mahoney:You all got a point. It is a spell,
Sandeep Parikh:from dragon
Kaylin Mahoney:quest. Okay. Broom, Broom. Croom, broom?
Omar Najam:Broom.
Kaylin Mahoney:So close Rekha. Broom, Broom. B. Broom broom. Broom, as in the sweeper. Broom.
Sandeep Parikh:So, this is round six? Is this round six?
Rekha Shankar:Who cares?
Omar Najam:Why are
Sandeep Parikh:you trying to step out?
Kaylin Mahoney:Step in.
Sandeep Parikh:Because I'm just trying to win.
Rekha Shankar:Step
Sandeep Parikh:in. Be here. Broom, Broom. I'm going to say spell. I'll lead off. I'll say spell.
Rekha Shankar:I'm going to say spell.
Omar Najam:And then I'm going to say sports drink.
Kaylin Mahoney:Alright. It is a spell. It is a spell. So now we have
Sandeep Parikh:We have a definitive loser.
Kaylin Mahoney:It's just a sweeping spell.
Sandeep Parikh:I was going to say, how would that be a drink at all? what is broom? Broom, Broom. Oh, like vroom kind of thing? vroom, it's a sweep. But why is that a drink? Because you could use your brush and brush it up the day. Clean up your insides. yeah, that's what I want to do. I want to take a scrubbing brush to my
Omar Najam:innards. You guys, it's a witch, but it's like fast and the furious and she's on the broom and it's and it says, it doesn't matter if you win by an inch or a mile Broom, Broom, and she's like, it's like a motorcycle, but it's like a broom.
Sandeep Parikh:Okay. So it's more I see it's like a mascot related drink is what you, it's a mascot
Omar Najam:related drink. Okay. They produced it in Salem, Massachusetts.
Rekha Shankar:Awww.
Sandeep Parikh:Got it. you were wrong. But that would be great. Now I want that drink.
Kaylin Mahoney:let's do one last one. One last
Omar Najam:one. Okay. One last one to take it. Alright.
Sandeep Parikh:And this one's worth three points.. Kaylin Mahoney: Yeah. yeah. So
Omar Najam:that it's interesting still. Yeah, absolutely. Three points. Absolutely. Anyone's game,. Rekha Shankar: Okay. All right guys, this is it. Tradin' Paint. Tradin' spell tradin' T-R-A-D-I-N. Little
Kaylin Mahoney:apostrophe mark paint. Tradin' Paint?. Yeah.
Rekha Shankar:sports drink. Yeah, sports Drink energy. Drink energy drink. I know this. It could be a spell or it could be an energy drink. That's what I know. And I feel if it's a spell, it's like we each swap colors, but if it's an energy drink, it's I'm going to kill you on the basketball court.
Omar Najam:Yeah. We're trading paint.
Rekha Shankar:Yeah. I think, okay. I think here's what I think. Well wait Sandeep you should go first.
Sandeep Parikh:Okay, I'm, I'll lock in. Sure. I'm gonna say spell.
Omar Najam:Okay.
Rekha Shankar:Yeah.
Sandeep Parikh:Totally. I'm saying sports I think it's some, I think it's some kind of a, disguise type spell.
Omar Najam:Oh, interesting.
Rekha Shankar:I think
Sandeep Parikh:trading, I'm gonna make my clothes the uniform of this guard.
Rekha Shankar:That's good. That's what I also think it is, but the lack of G on trading is throwing me.
Sandeep Parikh:I'm going to say
Rekha Shankar:this is the number one basketball sports drink of all time. This is
Sandeep Parikh:crazy if this is
Rekha Shankar:a
Sandeep Parikh:drink, because you're not supposed to drink paint.
Rekha Shankar:if I'm being honest, I think it's a spell. I think it's funnier if it's a drink. And I think this is a comedy podcast. So I think it's a drink.
Omar Najam:I'm glad that you think it's a comedy podcast. I do love that. I'm the only one
Sandeep Parikh:that said spell, right?
Omar Najam:If, yes, so if it's a, if it's a spell, Sandeep wins by a huge margin. Yeah! And, Rekha, if it's a, if it's a sports drink, I win. Then, you win, because you snuck one ahead of me. Yeah. And you'll take it, but you also nudge me out. And
Rekha Shankar:then I host the show.
Omar Najam:And you host the show. Since it's locked in, can I say one thing about trading paint, Kaylin?
Kaylin Mahoney:Let's say, let's say votes are locked, you guys can't change it. Votes are
Omar Najam:locked, you can't change it. Trading paint is like a racing term, right? Where like you smash into each other and it's like you are like rubbing the vehicle's paint onto another one.
Sandeep Parikh:Yes. If you all drank more
Omar Najam:Broom, then maybe you'd know a little bit more about drag racing. A NASCAR
Sandeep Parikh:drink?
Omar Najam:Alright. Alright. Are you forfeiting
Kaylin Mahoney:your vote then, Omar? I'm forfeiting my vote.
Omar Najam:no. I'm locked in. I'm locked in. I'm locked in with sports drink. with energy drink. So we're going to count you down and you're going to reveal who's the winner of this highly contentious game. 3, 2, 1 Kaylin. Rekha!
Kaylin Mahoney:No! Congratulations.
Rekha Shankar:The new host of ABCD.
Sandeep Parikh:Oh, God.
Rekha Shankar:Things are about to get a lot stupider around here.
Sandeep Parikh:Congratulations, Rekha. Oh, I finally have my Sundays back.
Rekha Shankar:It is a nascar drink it seems I'll say it looks like motor oil in the can Yeah,
Sandeep Parikh:it looks really great. That's amazing. They should sell it in the same thing that you get, the same kind of motor oil can thing. okay, Which energy drink am I, am I gonna be pitching here?
Omar Najam:Let's go broom broom. I like broom broom.
Sandeep Parikh:Alright, so
Kaylin Mahoney:I'll set the clock. On your mark, get set, go crazy.
Sandeep Parikh:Alright, hey, what do you call a witch's garage? A broom closet. Do you love witches? Do you love brooms? It's time to get hyped. It's time to get a witch inside your DNA. Did you know that electric eels can zap DNA into your body? Well guess what else can? Broom broom. Broom broom can zap the witch's DNA directly into every single one of your cells. It'll change your mitochondria and it'll turn it into, a thing that witches love. Those tiny little hats, with the points at the end of them. You're gonna love it. You're gonna want broom broom. You're gonna want it everywhere. You're gonna want it every orifice. You got, you can butt chug broom broom. You can do whatever you want. You can broom broom your broom broom. If you know what I'm talking about. That's a whole, we're turning it into a verb. like xeroxing. Have you broom broom today? No, you, we're Fucking idiot, you got a broom broom. What are you even doing with yourself? Oh my god, you dumb. You're gonna go to work non broom broom? You're gonna be un broom broom? like a dumb dummy. Why would you do that? Hey, what's the witch's favorite makeup? Mascara, that's right. You got it. Hey, you'll have clever puns like that Flying out of your ear holes with broom broom.
Omar Najam:You all might laugh, but that's literally what late night commercials are like for those of us who still have television, where it's just Have you lost all your testosterone? Yeah, cause you're a loser. You didn't fight in the war, did you? No, you didn't. Your grandfather did. He's better than you. Buy our testosterone pills. They're sawdust.
Sandeep Parikh:They're
Omar Najam:sawdust. I like, uh, Broom Broom gives you high blood pressure. Oh, this
Sandeep Parikh:is great. That was a Rick and Morty improvised commercial in real life. A taste that'll sweep you away. Ah, that's fantastic, KPDubbs. Why didn't I think of it? Okay.
Omar Najam:Oh, absolutely incredible. Kaylin, thank you for hosting that game.
Rekha Shankar:And Rekha,
Omar Najam:thank you for winning that game.
Rekha Shankar:Oh my god, no problem. You're my employee
Sandeep Parikh:now. And
Omar Najam:on that note, let's head over to "Desi of the Week". Actually, wait, we should
Sandeep Parikh:have a sound effect from our new boss.
Omar Najam:Yeah. Oh yeah. Sorry, boss.
Sandeep Parikh:Let's head over to "Desi of the Week". Yeah. Man, things have changed. Things have changed. For the better, I don't know. That's your new ringtone ladies and gentlemen.
Omar Najam:Folks, this week's "Desi of the Week" is author Khushbu Shah. Shah has just released a new cookbook slash history book called Amrikan that shines a spotlight on the Indian American diasporas, culinary ingenuity, and creativity.
Sandeep Parikh:Hey, what recipes can you expect? let me tell you conventional Indian dishes with American ingredient substitutes. For example, chevdo made with Chex. Or pappadi chaat made with tortillas. I don't know how I feel about this. Let's go. Chex. Actually, my mom, I, my mom used to make chevdo. We called it "cher-do". not used to, she does. And whenever she makes it with like actual all Indian ingredients, I'm like, yo, I want my Rice Krispies. this is, I want the stuff that, that you made it with when I was a kid. That is. I want my Frosted Flakes. Listen, we talk about
Rekha Shankar:diaspora. I was like, what is chevdo? My friends.
Sandeep Parikh:it's like hot mix. I
Rekha Shankar:just call this mixture. Just call this straight up mixture.
Sandeep Parikh:You just say mixture? Absolutely. Is that what you guys say? Mixture?
Rekha Shankar:Say straight up mixture.
Sandeep Parikh:Your parents say mixture?
Rekha Shankar:Absolument. Okay.
Sandeep Parikh:Wow, are they French?
Rekha Shankar:Yeah.
Kaylin Mahoney:so
Omar Najam:I just learned something. I love that. Rekha's parents, for those who don't know, and I'm sorry if this is out of your personal information, but your parents are Gambit and the rat from Ratatouille, if I'm not mistaken. Yes, I hate to admit that because I don't want people stalking
Rekha Shankar:their house and taking them out of it and stuff, but yeah.
Sandeep Parikh:let's see what other dishes you can expect. Some other fusion dishes with other immigrant cultures that are unique to the American diaspora, Indian Tex Mex or Indian pizzas. Yes, I do love Indian
Omar Najam:pizza.
Sandeep Parikh:I love Taco Bell pizza personally. So I hope that's in there. stuff that Khushbu wished and existed and takes on things that she grew up with as well. For example, falooda with boba. I don't know what falooda is... The drink! But
Rekha Shankar:I want it. I only learned recently.
Sandeep Parikh:Okay. I wonder if we see this is the thing it's possible that we call it something else. Is it like the milky type of drink? Is that what it is?
Rekha Shankar:I never heard of it. I don't think it's South Indian either.
Sandeep Parikh:Okay, it sounds great cuz I love boba. Saag paneer lasagna Rekha!
Omar Najam:Let's go
Sandeep Parikh:and a duplicate of the McDonald's India McSpicy paneer sandwich. I didn't know
Omar Najam:about this
Sandeep Parikh:I've
Rekha Shankar:never had it's Indian McDonald's has like good stuff. I've never had it either
Sandeep Parikh:I've had the McSpicy paneer sandwich, and it's delicious. I really enjoyed it is Strangely kind of classy. Yeah, so
Omar Najam:speaking of foods you can't get your hands on, the reason that Shah wrote, Amrikan is because Indian immigrants used to have to sneak Indian spices into the country and substitute any traditional ingredients that weren't available in America. So for example, using Bisquick to substitute for Goya, a key ingredient in Gulab Jamun, chutneys made with peanut butter, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, leading to the development of an entirely new style of cuisine.
Sandeep Parikh:This is the whole thing we were talking about. Like our parents just being like. I'm going to just use what's in the house. This is around. Yeah. Yeah. They didn't have, at least when I was growing up, they didn't really have a lot of Indian grocery stores around New Hampshire. They had to go to fricking Boston to maybe find something. yeah. Hell yeah. We used a lot of peanut butter. all right. look. Congratulations to, Khushbu Shah for this big win, but, we got a runner up for "Desi of the Week". Okay. This is the foodie episode, so we wanted to give it to Khushbu. However, we'd be remiss without celebrating India's national cricket team for beating South Africa in the T20 World Cup. Played for the first time right here in North America. It was played in Barbados for the finals. Congratulations to India and congratulations to my parents who are going to brag about it endlessly. So good job. this ended India's 13 year drought for global cricket title and their second win in history. the India won the final match by a narrow margin of just seven runs. And Virat Kohli played a huge role scoring 50 in the final match. and this victory makes India one of only three teams along with the West Indies and England to have won the T20 World Cup more than once.
Omar Najam:Wow. Yeah.
Sandeep Parikh:And India became the first country to win the tournament without losing any games. So they were undefeated. This is huge.
Omar Najam:We'll never stop talking about this. Just so everyone else in the world is prepared.
Sandeep Parikh:My parents will definitely never stop talking about this.
Omar Najam:This is huge. This is huge. Oh my gosh. folks. That's been our show. As always, our big ask is that you find one person like a Rekha Shankar in your life and let them know about this show. Share it with them. Let them know how much they will enjoy and appreciate it.
Sandeep Parikh:Yes. And, we wanna hear from you guys. We wanna feature you into the show. Yes. So send us a question or something that you want some culturally specific advice on, and we're going to answer it. Are we gonna answer it poorly? Absolutely.. But we are going to answer it. Okay. So badly. So you can write in or even send us a quick audio file of the question. Whatever you want to do, we'd love to feature you. So tell us your name and where you're from, and then send that question over to ABCDpodcastshow@gmail.com.
Omar Najam:Hell yes. Now is the time in a show when we would like to shout out our Patreons and listeners. Kaylin, do we happen to have a genre or way of reading these out to everybody?
Kaylin Mahoney:Absolutely. We had some fun suggestions, but I think my fave was because all three of you are here. How do you feel about reading these names as your characters from DesiQuest?
Omar Najam:Oh, okay. That is amazing.
Sandeep Parikh:Hi, everybody. I'm so glad to be here. so in your presence, this is so lovely. And I'm especially glad because, I miss all my friends from home, Joshua O'Ryan, Toby M. Carlo, Benjamin Lowe, and Miranda Hollinger. I miss them so much. And I'm so glad to be talking about them.
Omar Najam:it's so funny. I, was spending some time on a, a, numerical translation device with Michael Long to that day. And we were discussing how Raelynn Fox and Selena B had been designing something that completely just astounded nervous wrecks.
Rekha Shankar:I have a list here of people who have wronged me. Number one, but not least, but actually most, Michael Long. And, Sarah H., you've done something, you know what you did. Moldy Vort. you have a lot of explaining to do and I don't have time to listen to it.
Sandeep Parikh:No. And, that's, I that's interesting. You have a whole list of people that you despise. It's wonderful. I just wanted to keep shouting out. My pen pals from Brit Sowald, Philip Daon. Kathleen Schlegel and Ducati. Yeah. I owe Ducati some pretzels. I do. I tried. he gave me so many, and Reverend Catino and Brendan Pace. I wouldn't be here without your, emotional support.
Omar Najam:when I'm building something and I, have a sort of eureka moment, I like to, I have certain, things I shout out. for example, Varun! When something goes very well, or Monroe Maxwell, when I'm just astounded, or Jeremy Schwartz! When I'm confused and perplexed. But really, when I'm, when I hit gold, you'll hear from out of the lab, me yelling, With a, congratulatory bursting the window out, and I yell down to a small child, you there, young boy, what day is it? and the child will look up at me and go, sir, it's 8 bit D!
Rekha Shankar:Pfft! recently I saw, Sitara hanging out with a list of suspicious people, And I am, I have sent her my recommendations for who she should stop hanging out with immediately for suspicious behaviors and possible lewd activities.
Sandeep Parikh:Read them all very quickly. Kristen, Stan Wally,
Rekha Shankar:Jeremy O'Brien, Astra, and Brendan Bradley are the number one offenders. Currently
Sandeep Parikh:excellent. I'd just like to also announce that this is actually canon me and lisa are having a second child and we're gonna name them one of the following names Mark tucker hannah lehman james gaffney That would be pretty cool name That's one name. Yeah, that's one name The right hand and the left hand and then and vaden of course is on the list as well So those are our baby name lists and those are the gods that support us the most We love them
Omar Najam:my goodness. Oh,
Sandeep Parikh:we did it! We did
Omar Najam:it! Folks, this show was produced and edited by Anand Shah and Kaylin Mahoney. The show's technical director and sound designer is Delvin Neville. The show's executive producers are Sandeep Parikh and Anand Shah. Music is by Harshal Sisodia, Jasvir Singh, and Malik Saveri. This has been an effin funny production. And on behalf of our co host Sandeep Parikh and her other co host Rekha Shankar and current boss, I've been your host Omar Najam. May your chakras be aligned and smothered in chutney.
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DesiQuest
Jasmine Bhullar, Anjali Bhimani, Sandeep Parikh, Rekha Shankar & Omar Najam