Hearthside Chat Q&A: Bananksgiving Edition

Caldwell is right Red Beans and Rice is a 10/10 meal

Fun fact about Gremlins: the movie does take place during Christmas, however, it was released as a summer blockbuster and many thought it was very odd that a "Christmas movie" was being released in the summer but still managed to be a hit.

red beans and rice is NOT a soup

also, to Emily - annotating your books is a great way to enjoy them in the moment and to enjoy them later! i love doing that, too. i dog ear the bottom of the page to come back to later as well as underlining or starring sections

murph, i cant remember if it’s been mentioned, but you have gooootta get on AEW!! there’s so much fun stuff happening right now, and you deserve to be wrapped up in Timeless Toni Storm’s stormy tornado of a persona

Emily is so adorable this episode I'm getting cuteness aggression.

So close to a gooobie nooo reference literally my all time favorite bit from 8BBC

Come to Montreal so Emily can live her poutine dream. that baked potato is pretty much just a poutine from la banquise

Emily only mentioned it briefly, but "What is Power?" is by a cool contemporary philosopher name Byung-Chul Han. I so super stoked to hear him indirectly referenced that I'm making a second comment about him! Everyone go read "Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power"!!

About note taking: because the brain is a network, memory actually has way less to do with "storage capacity" and more to do with pathways to the information. Taking notes, repetition/practice, and interest/uniqueness make those pathways stronger. Notes are also a physical reminder of the memory even if it's illegible. This is why neumonics make memorization easier, they give you a more memorable connection point to lead you back to the information. This is how a lot of advertising strategies work too btw

One of my favorite poems is You said is, by E.e. Cummings. I have the final stanza tattooed on my leg

Anyone reading this should absolutely read the love song of J Alfred Prufrock, it’s so gorgeous. Was shocked when Em mentioned that’s her one go-to poem because it’s also mine. “Do I dare Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.”

CHOWDAH!!!! 👏👏👏 jake loyal new england representative

I really want to see the 16 cats. I love so much that they take care of all those babies.

dearest emily, i too love prufrock and would recommend you read “the waste land,” also by t. s. eliot! and thank you to jake for the poetry recs! 💗

I never went to trampoline parks as a kid, so I went for the first time recently. I managed to sprain my ankle jumping into the foam pit no more than 15 minutes in. It was awful, I had to use crutches and office chairs to get around for weeks lol! I’m also surprised I never realized red beans and rice is a regional dish. “What else is in it? You’re just saying red beans and rice” made me have to mentally recalibrate

I need Emily book recs and the list of 12 dates on Substack please! :)

Gotta try Portuguese kale and chorizo soup. Its perfect

When I was a teen I read aggressively more than I watched TV or played video games so my mom eventually got me a kindle. But then I would read through books faster than we had the ability to buy them. Eventually I discovered that if I connected my Kindle to the computer I could access all the files, including the folder books were stored in. I had the thought that if I refunded a book immediately after buying, then put it in airplane mode, I could make a copy of the book on my computer. Then turn off airplane mode, let amazon take back the book, then load the copy. It worked. So for awhile I was getting all the books I wanted for free (I don't know if this is still something you can do, but don't, it is stealing not just from big bezos but the authors). Well as one might expect the bank eventually suspected fraud from all these buying and refunds on my mom's credit card. That was a sad day, but lesson learned.

happy hoglidays and thank you for all that you do!!

Sooooooooo... No C4 info..? 👀👀

Fucking Brianicus!!!

Dentist stuff. Dead on. I also love how brutal everyone is, even Santa. Bullying in the 60s was the real shit. Having grown up in the 70s and 80s I totally relate.

Seriously!? Can I love you guys any more?!

Illustrated Man was a book I read Freshman yr in hs. Changed my life. Literally turned my inner sci-fi nerd on!

Bud Mud!!! Ah, the horrible memories of my 20s!!

I loved the conversation about which Thanksgiving foods you would fight. I now have inspiration for a one shot (or mini campaign) where the BBEG will be the Thanksgiving Turkey!

Y’all keep mentioning The Bright Sword and I gotta recommend The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro. Still Arthurian legend but focuses on an old married couple as they wander through a mystical Britain of ogres and pixies.

Emily book club please! All her recommendations are bangers!

If Emily elects to eating herself instead of the worm dilemma, she's just back to eating a worm #wormwife

Lmao as someone with a poetry degree, y’all are killing me (but also way too many people I’ve been around DO believe that poetry isn’t as hard as other forms of lit because it’s often not as long).

I cannot comprehend the levels of soup blasphemy I've just heard.

On the ratio of soup: My grandfather used to call the ingredients in soup Inners and the broth Outers. You must balance the inners against the outers.

The Libby Hustle is a victimless crime! The book license returns after 21 days freeing it up for someone else while you're still borrowing it. Everyone wins.

Disappointed that Ha Un didn't make Jake's poem list

Finding out Murph and Jake are soup haters... never meet your heroes 😢

I recently read A Darker Shade of Magic, very good book, fun magic system, great worldbuilding

For Emily: creatine is very safe. It's a compound we already intake/make naturally that aids in the replenishment of ATP- athletes take it to recover faster. I doubt you'll notice any immediate mental changes, but there's a lot of evidence it can help prevent neurodegenerative diseases associated with aging. My mom takes it as our family is predisposed to dementia and Alzheimers 👍

Did anyone note all the recs and care to share? If not I’ll buck up and relisten and actually write shit down

It's happened multiple times now that Murph mentions over the garden wall and every time, Jake goes: Oh that sounds cool, I've never seen it. Happy to be here to observe another yearly tradition

Caldwell, I relate to the thankful you shared! My son was born 5 weeks early and we spent our first Christmas in the NICU. SO happy to hear that the kiddo is doing well! 💞💞💞

For all my Libby Hustlers out there: Libraries do have limited time and/or "copies" (number of rentals) for their e-books and audio books. These are usually more expensive for libraries because of licensing, so be careful with keeping lots of books on hold. You could prevent others from reading them because they're reaching their time limit or they just simply can't rent them because they're still technically on your possession. But keep using your libraries! We ❤️ libraries!

Murph, my 11yo plays hockey (he's a goalie). We also D&D together and listen to Dungeon Court sometimes so he was SO STOKED to hear you play hockey too. Also a team full of comedy and improv folks, the chirps have gotta be out of control

favorite poem!! The Cinnamon Peeler’s Wife by Michael Ondaatje

Emily if you're enjoying Curse of Chalion may I STRONGLY recommend Bujold's sci fi? I have reread the vorkosigan saga at least once every two years since I was like 12 to now at 35 (more books have been added in the interim lol)

Emily! Have you read the Penric and Desdemona series? It’s the same world as Chalion (World of the Five Gods). If you haven’t you should check it out.

I too do the Libby hustle. I did not previously call it that, but I will now.

This is the hill I will die on: the audio book is by far the best and most definitive way to experience Dune (the first novel at least). It's a full cast recording and won all the awards for a reason.

With all the love in my heart and a forthright acknowledgement that I care way too much, it hurt my heart to hear Cazaril (the hero of Curse of Chalion) described as kind of like Geralt. I'm from Minneapolis and grew up around Lois McMaster Bujold and I can honestly say that she was a lynch pin in my ethical education. For anyone who wants to know more, Cazaril is an escaped POW making his way back to his childhood home who encounters an extremely weird corpse while he's just trying to find a steady place to find a role in life after his body and psyche have been shattered. The divine order in the world of Chalion (the five Gods) is one that I feel I honestly could espouse in this world. Read it! The sequel is good and then she kind of gets away from the initial inspiration and you can tell it becomes a bit of an intellectual exercise in world building rather the mystical impulse that inspired the first book. Okay, I shut up now.

Never meet your heroes kids…Jake and Murph don’t like soup.

Jake'n'Bake should talk eith Trapp about what happened to his family before he tries to take down a turkey. Also, by that measure the proper way to defeat it is to distract it with pocket corn and then punt it through a wall.

We need more Emily book talks!!!

Over the Garden Wall ❤️❤️❤️ I walked down the aisle to the prelude from it for our wedding. Definitely a yearly watch

I watched Jingle All the Way last night! It was great, not a classic, but definitely a good watch.

My Air Tagged Periapt I gotta get it back My precious Periapt I took precautions So I can't lose track Of my one and only Periapt Yeah when you're on me I can't feel disease When you adorn me Then my heart's at peace I want you to wear me So you'll be my queen Just stay beside me Nothing in between I wear you all year Like it's Halloween Let's cosplay Lady Thor You stole my heart Blew to Valhalla And tore us apart At least I air tagged It before I gave My head and heart To someone in a grave.

Jake, I loved the poem shoutouts. Especially the last line of Yellow Landscape about the Labrador: “And I’m singing because yesterday I needed something to hold, and he laid his gold head in my hands.” Leaves you with such a feeling. Thank you for sharing.

I also just casually think of “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”!! “Do I dare eat a peach?” lives rent free in my head. I have often quoted it during summer and peach season. No one ever gets it. Thank you Emily for bringing this poem up. And I hope you like the poem Jake! :)

I like that I accidentally got all my questions answered because of food puns.

NJ Devils fans represent!! Even though they’ve been heartbreakers for seasons. Been a fan since the 90s. Yet another way Murph and I are the same lol

Curry as a soup is called mulligatawny and if you find a good one you are in for a treat.

Murph I am mad at you for the mere SUGGESTION that Nightmare Before Christmas could be a Halloween movie. It has Christmas in THE NAME!!!

When I saw Murph's look at the D20 show in Seattle, I immediately thought of Weird Al. Just me?...

caldwell's sharing about his family being what hes always wanted had me tearing up in the car

Emily makes me feel seen

CALDWELL! Kielbausa is pronounced KEW-bah-sa PLEASE!!!

murph tiny L you missed that degeneration x literally covered people in shit once!!

Not to be too sincere, but I’m definitely very grateful for this podcast🫶 hope everyone who observes had a yummy Thanksgiving!

The fact that this random podcast I was randomly recommended 6 years ago somehow has multiple hosts talking about Final Fantasy tactics advanced, a game I had never found another soul to talk about it with. That's kinda beautiful in a way

After he said Emily mashford I was racking my brain for what he was going to portmanteau-ize Caldwell’s name to be. Laughed out loud rocking my son to sleep at “pumpkin pie panner”

Murph rules :)

“Sometimes the darkest horse is the smoothest ride” Caldwell is always dropping the best one liners lmfao

POTATO AND LEEK SOUP SUPREMACY

There is real research on brain health wrt creatine. It helps with cognitive performance. The studies I've heard about are helping to make up from lack of sleep. Your body makes creatine and it's like the single most tested supplement. Very safe and effective. Get stuff made by a reputable company and try it out! Also helps with muscle development. It gets a bad rap from gym bros but it is just demonstrably good even if you're not a powerlifter.

Whooo! Hell yeah to Darker Shade of Magic I fucking love V.E. Schwab!

📢‼️🚨 BYUNG-CHUL HAN MENTION

I LOVE THE CURSE OF CHALION!!!

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35984306/ For those interested (especially Emily)

I absolutely loved the 10 minutes of Knight Murph fan fiction followed by the worst (wormst) question ever asked on this show

So one of the guys in Presidents of The United States of America is now a kids singer called Casper Babypants and honestly his music slaps, my 3 year old loves it

YES EMILY! My husband and I met in college in a class where we read and analyzed The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. It's my favorite poem, and he used it as a template for his wedding vows to me! He made the vows a sort of response to the original poem, to say "Yes I dare disturb the universe" and also added lyrics from my favorite songs and some cleverly phrased personal jokes. It was beautiful and made me cry.

Finally caught up, only a day late

LITERALLY just finished Curse of Chalion before listening to this...... Incredible pick, Emily!

Someone you can build a nest in is SOOOOO GOOD!

A lot of my fellow librarians and I tell folks about Libby on airplane mode. Emily is my hero!

Murph has been holding out on us with that incredible Stone Cold impression

listening to this in a train where a guy is wearing a festive grinch hoodie ❣️ happy hoglidays everyone!

it kills me that emily is one of the coolest people ever and still thinks anything she does could be deeply embarrassing

i really need a monthly column of emily recommending books. i’ve followed most of her recommendations and they are always absolute bangers (shoutout to the bright sword and nettle and bone)

Omg Emily please do not apologise for your reading habits, they’re not “snobby” or whatever! It sounds wonderful and I’m going to try. It’s not snobby if something works for you 😌

Eyes Wide Shut is incredible and it really weirds people out when I say it's my favourite Christmas movie.

My favorite author is Jane Austen, and I will sometimes need to look up a word or phrase that is particularly antiquated. I kept looking up the same word repeatedly, and someone recommended that I write the definition in the margins (I obviously own the books). All this to say, Emily isn't the only one annotating her for-fun reading! I think it enhances the experience. 😊

28:09 “Like a patient etherized upon a table. - TS Elliot.”

Oh the best scifi/fantasy I read this year is Moonbound by Robin Sloan yalllll it’s so good: a King Arthur retelling set 10,000 years in the future it’s unlike anything else and so funny and delightful

I write a whole book recommendation newsletter (Books & Banter on substack) so I love hearing about Emily’s reading hobby!! :) underlining sentences is the best also the Libby hustle is a great tip.

My Xmas watch is the first season of Dimension 20 Unsleeping City. Love that mutant Santa battle!!

Listening to this lovely episode made me renew my library card. Thanks Emily!!!

spud mud is foul

A DARKER SHADE OF MAGIC MENTIONED EMILY SUPREMACY FOREVER AND EVER

Awwwww. Yes, Murph. You Really do seem to be getting better and better! Such a sweet moment of honest love and admiration from Emily.🥰

Will you post some of the 12 days on Insta?!?

Emily, Awesomely clever reading strategy! You out Libby’d Libby! I never even thought of doing that!

Just got done eating Thanksgiving at Mangia’s with the family. What a pleasant surprise to get early content

Last year I lost my job but I went to see d20 in New York anyway and had a beautiful time. Now, I have a job I adore and my boss is letting me fly to New York for naddpod :)

Emily, you have incredible taste in books, I love The Curse of Chalion, and I've never heard anyone mention it before! I hope you enjoy it. The rest in the series are great too.

Ok so guys- Emily there are like a billion chalion books. The first two are probably the best but they’re great and very readable in general, some of my comfort re-reads. See also bujold’s epically long vorkosigan SF series. Bujold is the best / most awarded SFF author who apparently no one knows about.

That’s why I love Emily! Both she and my suitemate from college introduced and reignited respectively J Alfred Prufrock love.

Emily is laying down amazing Libby strat for us audiobook listeners 🙏🏽

First "why does it have the be so wet" nearly made me wake my wife up while I listened before bed. Second in the same vain of die hard, I like lethal weapon as a Christmas movie as I realized some years ago while watching it that it takes place completely during Christmas

EMILY! I love A Darker Shade of Magic (and honestly, everything by VE Schwab).

I support the Libby Hustle. I believe it’s actually a positive for libraries, because as dumb as it sounds, the licensing only allows the library to check ebooks out so many times before it has to be renewed. I guess to make up for the fact that ebooks don’t get lost or damaged like regular books. So keeping them on airplane mode avoids checking books out more than 1 usage of the ebook license.

my fellow soup haters!! “why does it have to be wet” is exactly my logic - i like pasta and meat as is, why do i want them to be soggy??

the curse of challion!! i’m reading it too, I like it so far. emily never misses with her book recommendations. one of favourite books ever - the Goblin emperor - was one of emily recommends !

Oddly enough right before I listened to this podcast I listened to one of my science/skeptic podcasts and they were discussing creatine. There's been some studies that show some improvement in certain brain functions but they're relatively small studies and there's a few caveats involved. Usually in the preliminary phase of studies with such mixed results they normally don't pan out. That being said, unless your kidneys are in poor health, go ahead and take them if you wish. I am not a doctor. Also, red beans and rice is not a soup, and that is a scientific fact.

The Stone cold impression was on point 😂

As a librarian, I love hearing how much Emily uses library stuff! Thanks for keeping us in business!

The Illustrated Man is my favorite book I’ve ever read Emily

Feels great listening to all this lovely thanksgiving stuff while hunting around the house for hidden feral cat poop 🩷

My Christmas movie is the Lord of the Rings.

I still need answers on future PF2E projects! Happy Hog Days everyone!!

home-made pumpkin soup with chilli flakes and sourdough is AMAZING

I love Curse of Chalion and the sequel so much!! She has a series of short stories that are based on a concept from the third book that are incredible

Might be in the same vane as bud mud, but my friend in college called it Natty Splatty

Gizmo got wet and the bad mogwais popped from him, then they ate after midnight which turned them into gremlins

For holidays, Klaus is truly the best Christmas movie ever I think.

We do an OTGW watch party every year and it’s truly one of the best pieces of media ever

Happy hoglaidays!

EA: Someone You Can Build A Nest In is gnnnnnarly, I think you're going to love it

I love buying a used book and finding annotations in them. Please keep annotating your physical copies it’s fun!!

Love Song of J. Alfred absolutely hurled me back - we studied it in high school, and I was in a staged reading of it in my uni theatre club. Great shout

My mind is fully blown by the Libby hustle!! This is gonna save me so much grief, I wish I knew it when I had to return Wind and Truth with 200 pages left!!!

Em might appreciate this: there's a Soviet dessert called "kartoshka" which is the word for potato - it doesn't actually have any potatoes in it but is shaped liked one. It's really quite good, one of my favorite lal time desserts. https://www.tastingtable.com/1065978/the-soviet-chocolate-potato-youll-want-to-try/

Curse of Chalion is a banger! 📚 Emily’s TBR list 📚 📕 Everything You Ever Wanted 📗 A Darker Shade of Magic 📘 The Illustrated Man 📙 Someone You Can Build a Nest In

Public librarian here- go forth and Libby Hustle with no worries! For more info, the books do automatically return themselves after the checkout period from your Libby account (but are trapped in your Kindle by the airplane mode) so you aren't stopping anyone else from getting their holds, and it doesn't impact the library negatively at all. I know plenty of library staff that do this too! Also ebook and e-audiobook publishers are pretty much scamming libraries so I fully endorse scamming them back ;)

The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock is an amazing poem

Fly Turboman! Use your jetpack!

happy hoglidays, i am grateful to this year for making me a naddpod fan

Veterinarians and vet techs are the best!! I worked for 5 years at a major Veterinary ER and tertiary referral center in the Northeast and the skill and dedication of the practitioners in that field are unmatched. Glad to hear your cat is doing well and all is good with the neighborhood kitties. Everyone who contributes to TNR efforts helps a lot.

Murph's mustache is so sick. Can't wait for next Murph campaign!

ty for answering my q!!!

I cannot believe my ears... 2 out of the 4 hosts of the podcast I love the most don't love soup... soup/stew is the best version of food... Wow.

Thank you for Bud Mud.

red beans and rice is definitely not soup. canceling murph over his needless soup hatred. simply terrible. (not canceling Jake because he is bad at food (see: taking a year to "get into cake" by having 2 slices that he didnt buy or make))

its definitely not embarrassing to annotate your books. I dont do it as much with fiction (but its also hard for me to find fiction i Really enjoy) but if im not doing that with a nonfiction book, how am I gonna remember the things that made me think or felt important?

Justice for red beans and rice, with love from the Gulf South

I love The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock ❤️ the last two lines are a punch in the gut every time

where my avgolemono heads at??? 🇬🇷🇬🇷🍲

For audiobooks, completely agree about the switching between audiobooks and ebooks with Emily! It really helps keep the flow of the book alive. Unfortunately I don't have a hack for keeping your place with Libby books, but if you're using Kindle books, first, you get a discount on the audiobook if you already have the Kindle version, and second the syncing technology is fantastic, it'll pick up exactly on the page or sentence you left off on when switching formats, I use it all the time for audio while driving then reading while in line etc etc

A darker shade of magic is GREAT! VE Schwab is a fantastic author. And Jake being afraid of soup totally checks out

Can't believe Murph hates soup as much as he hates Anchorman

Favourite soups! Mulligatawney (chicken apple curry soup) Beef and barely Split pea and ham Loaded baked potato soup

Curry is a soup depending on what country’s curry you are talking about.

The Axford book recommendations are the best part of these 😄 A Darker Shade of Magic is great, VE Schwab doesn't miss

Going through my annual 8bbc listen and heard Murphy do the same "[Arnold voice] Who said you could eat MY cookies!?" in Christmas Comes to Pac-Land. Very sad they didn't re-discover Young Dad Blood.

I loveeeeeeeee Emily book recs

First of all huge Gremlins spoilers Second of all I watched Eyes Wide Shut for the first time recently because Emily said it was a Christmas movie. She is not lying when she says it's Christmas forward

LOVE a Darker Shade of Magic! Sequels are OK but I love a practical magic setting.

Seconded on Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock! There’s an excellent audio version of Anthony Hopkins reading it on youtube as well. I’m sure there are recordings of Sir Anthony reading Final Fantasy Tactics too if you really go digging around for them

Considering I’m a vegetarian and that’s the only dish that isn’t meat filled unfortunately Spudd Mudd is entering my lexicon

As a certified souper fan, i’m absolutely furious reading these comments before watching the episode. I will forever hold resentment towards the criminal boob that holds that opinion.

lol Emily just recapping when she gave Beardsley an immovable rod for Christmas on d20

The Gremlins movie does feature a tragic dad Santa fireplace death

Omg not being into soup is CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR!

Everyone hold everything because Murphs stone cold impression was GREAT. Spot on. I was very impressed

I've got so many soup thoughts y'all: Cream of tomato but with potato taking the place of cream, also stick sun-dried tomato, tomato paste and fresh tomatoes in there. Rice and mushroom soup with a corn starch slurry in the broth to thicken it Lentil, potato and pesto soup Parsnip, celery and fennel soup with Indian spicing i have more but I must go to the shops now

everything you ever wanted mentioned <3 great insane book

Thanks for answering my hockey question!

100% would listen to Jake read poetry stream

Wow I can’t believe my favorite DnD professional is a nerd that reads

Omg please do a mixed bag watching jingle all the way my favorite Christmas movie

I *love* physical books, my lack of space for more bookshelves is the main thing limiting how many books I buy! I absolutely respect buying books so that you can underline passages.

Im not a library expert but I think the Libby hustle is fine cause the library gets charged everytime you take out a book. So it would be more costly for them for you to keep reborrowing when the time is up. If anything I think its probably just making people wait longer. Which would be the case with a physical book anyways.

Emily! I do the same thing! Lois McMaster Bujold is so good, if you like The Curse of Chalion I'd recommend Tigana and The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay Also depending on book length, I noticed some parts are cut in the audio book. I was relistening to Words of Radiance and they skipped sentences If you're cool with 1940s film recommendations, The Thin Man is a murder mystery that takes place during Christmas and New Years

Who else is listening to this off the back of the new Death Blart

Thank Melora, will be listening while baking. Happy thanksgiving naddpoles!!!

Happy tailsgiving everyone

I'm pretty sure Dave Matthews dumped the sewage onto a boat tour.

This will be my treat for 6 hours with my family lmao

Oh man I wish the aux in my car worked I'd be making my partner listen to this the whole trip to my mom's

Donk Squad ACTIVATE

Hell yeah

Happy Bananksgiving!!!