Armchair Anonymous: Cooking Disaster II | Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

What this episode is about

The discussion centers around amusing and disastrous cooking experiences, particularly one involving a poorly executed pancake brunch for a child’s birthday celebration. Guests share humorous mishaps and warnings about the perils of cooking, specifically highlighting the challenges of managing an event while dealing with unexpected cooking failures.

Key takeaways

• Cooking is a fine art, but sometimes it turns into a slapstick comedy—in grease.
• Pancakes are a crowd-pleaser until the bacon grease decides to join the party uninvited.
• When juggling cooking and family, remember: chaos is the secret ingredient in every recipe.
• Kids have an uncanny knack for switching into caregiver mode—who knew disaster could foster heroics?
• Even a cooking disaster can lead to silver linings, like a newfound appreciation for medical supplies at home.

Who speaks in this episode?

• Dax Shepard (Host) · 29 min speaking
• Randall Padman (Guest) · 14 min speaking
• Casey (Guest) · 2 min speaking
• Sarah (Guest) · 2 min speaking
• Emma (Guest) · 2 min speaking
• Jen (Guest) · 2 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 5:00: Randall Padman, Dak Shepard, Armchair Expert, Bard, North Carolina
2. 5:00 – 10:00: Dak Shepard
3. 10:00 – 15:00: Toronto
4. 15:00 – 20:00: Armchair Expert, Honolulu, Hawaii
5. 20:00 – 25:00: French Press, Honolulu, Hawaii
6. 25:00 – 30:00: French Press
7. 30:00 – 35:00: French Press, Dak Shepard, Don Cuckoo's
8. 40:00 – 45:00: San Diego
9. 45:00 – 47:36: Dak Shepard

Notable quotes from "Armchair Anonymous: Cooking Disaster II | Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard"

• Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dax Shepard and I'm joined by Randall Padman.

  about Dak Shepard · at 0:00

• I think you may know the town that I'm from. Bard, North Carolina, west of Asheville.

  about Bard, North Carolina · at 0:49

• Summer of 2013. I was dating my now husband and boyfriend and we were about 3 hours apart. He was close to London and I was living in Toronto. So, I was going to visit him for…

  about Toronto · at 12:29

• Where are you? You seem like a city girl. Just right away, I'm going to say that. I'm in Honolulu, Hawaii.

  about Honolulu, Hawaii · at 19:42

• And that was the last time we ever used a French press.

  about French Press · at 29:21

• Well, wishing you a very easy labor. I just want to thank you for doing what you guys do. I think you're changing lives with your vulnerability and how much you share and how much you just keep it real.

  about Armchair Expert · at 32:23

• Oh, I love Don Cuckoo. I want it right now.

  about Don Cuckoo's · at 33:26

• He is in San Diego for a work trip but he told me to say hi. What's his name?

  about San Diego · at 44:45

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Dak Shepard — Person · Host · 4 mentions · first at 0:02
  Primary host of Armchair Anonymous; reacts to callers’ cooking-disaster stories and drives the conversation.
• Randall Padman — Person · Co-host · 2 mentions · first at 0:02
  Co-host alongside Dax; participates in reactions, questions, and comedic commentary throughout the episode.
  Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dax Shepard and I'm joined by Randall Padman.

Companies & orgs

• Don Cuckoo's — Company · Referenced business · 1 mention · first at 33:23
  Mentioned as a favorite Mexican restaurant in Burbank.

Products & tech

• French Press — Product · Incidental mention · 6 mentions · first at 21:11
  Mentioned in a cooking disaster story involving a French press accident.

Places & events

• Honolulu, Hawaii — Place · Setting · 2 mentions · first at 19:45
  Mentioned as the location of a caller sharing a cooking disaster story.
• Bard, North Carolina — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at 0:51
  Mentioned as the hometown of a caller sharing a cooking disaster story.
• Looking Glass Falls — Place · Referenced landmark · 1 mention · first at 0:56
  Mentioned as a notable waterfall near Bard, North Carolina.
  Yep. Sure is. About 10 minutes from where I'm at right now.
• Toronto — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at 12:29
  Mentioned as the previous residence of a caller sharing a cooking disaster story.
• San Diego — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at 44:45
  Mentioned as the location of a work trip by a caller's husband.

Media & podcasts

• Armchair Expert — Media · Host platform · 2 mentions · first at 0:00
  The podcast platform where the cooking disaster stories are shared.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dax Shepard and I'm joined by Randall Padman.

0:05 Hello. Today we have cooking disaster stories. What do we say? Warning alert. Trigger warning.

0:12 Oh, trigger. If you hate burning, this is not the episode for you. Don't listen to this one.

0:21 No, skip it. Please enjoy cooking disasters. Times come and go. Good times, take them slow. My life, I had them both. One [singing] thing you got to know, I'mma keep on shining.

0:46 Hello. Hey. Where are you? I think you may know the town that I'm from. Bard, North Carolina, west of Asheville.

0:54 Oh. Oh, I bet I've ridden through there. The land of waterfalls. Wait, is that where Looking Glass Falls is?

1:00 Yep. Sure is. About 10 minutes from where I'm at right now. Oh, amazing. We were just there.

1:05 Yeah. You've given some good shoutouts to the area. We appreciate it. Okay. So, you have a cooking disaster story.

1:11 I do. Yeah. So, this happened about 3 years ago in March. Our daughter at the time was turning three and my wife was about 8 months pregnant and she was going through a big pancake phase and so we thought we're going to throw her a pancake brunch. We'll invite some family and friends over, which seemed like a great idea. It was a great idea.

1:32 She likes straight flapjacks or she likes chocolate chip. What was her jam? The weird thing is she doesn't like syrup. Still, we can't get her to eat syrup, but she loves a pancake, chocolate chips or fruit.

1:43 Keep her off the syrup. If she don't want it, that's great. It's her one excuse to be able to eat a sweet and she's like, "Nope."

1:49 Oh, yeah. Day of everything's going to plan. Pretty much everything's done. And the family arrives surprisingly going off without a hitch.

1:57 And can I ask quickly like a mechanical question? Have you put a big flat top grilling surface on something? What are we cooking on?

2:03 Yeah, we're cooking on a griddle primarily and then we're in our kitchen. So, we've got a stove and so I decided I'm going to do some bacon and I'll cook it in a sheet pan sort of in bulk which I wouldn't normally do. Being from the south, we make breakfast all the time. I grew up in a family where biscuits and gravy every weekend.

2:21 Wow. Jealous. no problem with cooking a great breakfast, but on this day, obviously, there's more people showing up, probably about 20 people or so, kids, family. And so, I thought, okay, I'm going to put this bacon in a sheet pan and cook it in bulk, and that'll be the quickest way to get the job done.

2:35 How much bacon are we talking in pounds? Probably 2 lb, 3 lb, maybe. Not a crazy amount, but enough to fill probably two sheet pans. We're almost to the point of everybody having their brunch, eating pancakes. The bacon is the last thing to kind of come out of the oven. And around that time, the family shows up, kids are playing. It's a little bit of a compact kitchen. So, you know, my mother and mother-in-law are in the kitchen. Of course, they're like, "What can we do to help? Where does this go? Where does that go?" And it just gets a little chaotic around family, as it tends to do. So, I go to reach for the bacon, open the oven, and I guess I'm just so focused, I pull it out probably a little quicker than I should,

3:11 and just ever so slightly tilted it back towards me. Oh, entire pan of bacon grease spills down my forearm.

3:23 [ __ ] I can feel that. Obviously, there's the initial shock reaction. Drop the pan immediately.

3:30 Kind of freak out a little bit. There actually wasn't a ton of pain, which is also maybe a little scarier than you know, you don't really know what you've done in the moment. I rush to the sink, start to rinse my arm off, and this is where my wife swoops in to save the day. She's a nurse. comes in handy on a lot of occasions. And so, yeah, she's helps me get this thing washed off. And I think at the moment, I'm trying to just keep as calm as possible. You know, there's kids around. I don't want to freak my daughter out. And it sort of becomes evident what I've done. Almost immediately, my arm starts to like blister and bubble [snorts] up.

4:01 [groaning] By this time, my daughter finds out. And of course, she like runs over and I mean, she's going to have to be in healthcare like her mom because she's like immediately interested, not scared at all, not concerned, just like wants to know what's going on. And she also shifts into take care of dad mode.

4:18 Oh, so sweet. It is. Yeah. If you had a boy, he would have been like, "Where's my baseball bat?"

4:23 He would have like run his little trucks over your arm. Totally. I think Rob may have sent you a photo.

4:30 Oh, he did. He did. Let's see. We always wait. before we Yeah. He wants me to do a full like a

4:37 That's horrible. Oh my god. The first photo is where my arm sort of bubbled up immediately. We got it patched and taken care of essentially for the weekend until I could get to the doctor. Fortunately, the surgeon that works in our practice was there on that Monday or Tuesday and just had to scrape off the whole thing. Oh, that

5:02 it wasn't incredibly painful until that moment and that's sort of when it like really got real, you know.

5:07 Can I ask why they have to scrape it off? That's a terrible question for me. Just clean it and put ointment on there or something.

5:14 I think that's essentially it. I'm really sad that the listener can't see it because what's so freaky about it and I've never seen a burn like this.

5:22 The burn has the drip marks. It looks like liquid. The burn. Do you see this money on the right? I do.

5:28 Wow. It came up my wrist and wrapped around the wrist there around the thumb. Did you have a scar?

5:36 Shockingly, it healed up really well. I'll credit my wife for jumping into action quickly. We probably have more medical supplies around the house than the typical household, thankfully. And she just got it patched up quick, and I was pretty religious about putting ointment on it for 6 weeks. Of course, my daughter wanted to help with that as well. So, got a nicer reminder every day to take care of your arm daddy. H. Oh my, that's rough. For the listener, if you saw this, you would know to never cook bacon ever again.

6:09 Yeah, it was a little while before I decided to give that a go. I still haven't cooked bacon in a sheet pan.

6:14 I mean, how is one supposed to remove that sheetpan with all that hot grease underneath?

6:19 Were you wearing oven mitts? I had a towel in my hand, which is part for the course. I'm kind of act first, think second kind of guy, unfortunately.

6:26 Oh, I'm so lazy. I've used like paper towels on the counter like I can get it out in time before that cooks through.

6:30 A dish towel is what the chefs do. They don't use oven mitts. But you have to really be a chef and you have to be confident in your skills.

6:38 You do. I use oven mitts. You do. But you also like the decor of the oven. Yeah, they're cute.

6:45 The thing I live in the most fear of in these burn situations is when you hear people where the skin just rolls off.

6:52 Yeah, I was a little nervous that was what I was in for. Yeah. Oh, there's a few seconds that pass between when it happens and when you start to realize what you've actually done. I mean, it was rough, but it thankfully was not that sort of situation.

7:05 This is a PSA because I would definitely try that. Like, if I didn't hear the end of the story, I'd be like, "Oh, that's a hack. Cook the bacon in the oven."

7:11 Exactly. No. Yeah. Don't do it. Get it all done. I was even thinking what you're telling like, "Oh, I'd even add a grate. I would add a little grate between the cookie sheet and the bacon so that it wouldn't be sitting in the oil." I think I did have a grate on the pan, which I thought that's a great idea, but obviously the grease is still in the pan, you know, underneath.

7:26 It sure is. Oh boy. Oh boy. Slowly and carefully remove and make sure it's level.

7:33 So, how old's baby now? She's almost six and baby number two almost three. Oh, congratulations. Another girl.

7:43 Two girls. Wouldn't have it any other way. Now, go get you a vasectomy cuz you don't want three.

7:48 Yeah. already taken care of. Okay, good job. Just pour a little hot grease down there. That could also

7:55 might do the trick as well. Let's do a prompt. Accidental vasectomies. Unauthorized vasectomies.

8:04 Not contribute to that. Well, thanks for sharing. Yeah, Seth, it's lovely meeting you.

8:10 This is great. Thank you guys so much. Would you mind if I let my wife come say hi?

8:14 We'd love to meet your wife, the nurse. We love nursing. We're going to ask her some medical questions. Hello.

8:20 Hi. Hi. Oh, I'd be delighted if you were the nurse that walked in the room. Look how cheery she looks.

8:26 Yeah, I have a question. Do you think I could maybe get my ears reierced? Even though it's gone rancid twice.

8:34 That doesn't seem like a smart move. Oh, ma'am. I would love to say yes as a girl. Like, heck yeah. But,

8:41 you know. Okay. I trust you. What's your name? My name is Casey. Casey, you know the old adage, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame. We're already at the shame on me part. The third would be like, shame, I'm a [ __ ] dumb dumb.

8:53 No, that's the third would be shame on Casey. That's why I Well, I mean, Dax has already had to operate once. He did

9:00 once or twice. Have I done finger ear? Always jewelry related. Yeah. How long have you been nursing?

9:07 It'll be almost 13 years. You guys are the best. Thanks. Well, I think one thing Seth forgot to mention was whenever the grease thing happened, you know, he's being very stoic. He's fine. He's fine. He's fine. And I look over at him and he starts to turn that white yellow color and I was like, "No, you need to sit down." He's like, "I'm fine." I was like, "Sit down and eat something." I probably handed him a pancake at that point. Small pain.

9:33 I don't need to deal with a head injury. already have like 20 people at the house and here we are with this pretty severe burn and let's pass out on top of all of it.

9:41 Yeah. What if you pass out onto the sheep? Oh my god. Face first. Oh my god. Jesus.

9:47 That was like a Mr. Bean movie or something. Well, thank you guys. It was lovely meeting you.

9:54 Thanks. And I think we need to shout out Angie, too. Angie Set's college friend who got us his armcheries.

10:01 SHOUT OUT ANGIE. OH, YOU'RE WEARING A BEAUTIFUL piece of merch. He got me this for Christmas. I love it.

10:07 Oh, good job. I went to get him a shirt and went on the website and that's actually where we saw the props. I was like, "This is perfect." Oh my god.

10:15 Oh my god. Two birds. We're out of shirts, unfortunately, at that point. But it's okay. I got one, so that's all that matters.

10:19 We We're sold out of shirts. Yeah, we sold out. Oh my god. But we might reup. So, we'll keep you guys updated.

10:26 What do you mean we might? We must. Okay. Well, we we're going to sidebar about this. All right. Lovely meeting you guys.

10:33 Bye. Bye, guys. Do you think it's sad? Like they hand over their headphones to their partner and then they just have to sit and they like don't know what is being said and it's like I'm left out now.

10:44 I do think that. I don't want to get in another round of technical difficulties, but I almost want to say like just pull your headphones out so that you guys can now just chat and we can all be in this together.

10:54 Yeah, but we don't want to do that. We like when people are left out. Something to work through.

10:58 Too dangerous. Sarah, smile a while for me. Sarah, if you want to be free. Hi. All you got to do is say so. How annoyed are you or how much do you love Sarah smile?

11:20 Honestly, I've never heard that one before. A haul of oats. I think you have. Probably. It's probably just not a good rendition that Dax is doing.

11:27 That is definitely the case. I didn't know what you were singing and I know Sarah smile

11:32 smile. Won't you smile a while for me Sarah? I think it's cuz there's so much other band stuff going on in that.

11:40 I was in that movie in that song. A capella is tough. Well, especially when you're not a good singer. Sarah, where are you?

11:46 I am in the McDonald's garbage can. I am in London, Ontario. Oh my god. I literally was like, you're in a garbage can right now at a McDonald's. What is happening?

11:59 It's really funny you bring that up, Sarah, because I was just at my friend Kevin Zagger's house yesterday, and he grew up about 10 minutes, I think, east of London, and his folks were in town for the holidays, and I got to tell him how I used to expel my rubbish over there in London.

12:15 And he was saying that London is a wild place. When you're young and you go downtown, you can have a real rockous time.

12:20 Oh, yeah. I went to university here and can confirm. So, you have a cooking disaster?

12:27 Yes. So, this would have been in the summer of 2013. I was dating my now husband and boyfriend and we were about 3 hours apart. He was close to London and I was living in Toronto. So, I was going to visit him for the weekend. He was living with his parents. His dad was going to do a dinner. All his siblings were going to be there.

12:44 How long had you been dating? About 8 months. So, this is a high stakes meeting. This is the time for you to put your best foot forward.

12:51 100%. So, the dad's making dinner and I'm like, "Well, we should do dessert." And so my husband says, "Let's make lemon mering pie." That's like a real specific suggestion, but sure.

13:04 He just had a craving. No, it's actually his favorite dessert given the choice, that's what he picks, which seems insane to me. But to each their own. So, we're newly enough into this relationship that I just go along with it. Like, yeah, okay, let's lemon mering pie. I hate lemon mering pie, but let's do it. Early dating so misleading cuz you know you wake up like 2 years later and you're like lemon mering pie and you're like [ __ ] lemon pie. Yeah, we're married now.

13:30 How long do you carry it along? Yeah, that's insane. I'm not participating in that.

13:35 So, we go out, we get all the things to make this pie. I find my mother-in-law's pie plate. We're using the like refrigerated crust that you just roll out. We're preheating the oven in this like 100-year-old farmhouse that doesn't have central air conditioning. So, I've got the oven going. It's really hot in the kitchen and I'm like, "No problem. Let's turn on the ceiling fan." Up to this point in my life, I've never operated a ceiling fan. So, I reach up to pull the cord and the whole light fixture comes down.

13:59 Oh. Oh my god. Oh jeez. On your head. That's so scary. It landed on the pie plate and just sort of like bounced off of it.

14:07 How big is this ceiling fan? Just the light fixer in the center came down from the fan.

14:12 Okay. Not the fan blades. No. So, just the light fixture part came down and hit the pie plate vicinity. Nothing broke. We put the light fixture back up, carry on making the pie, and there's nothing else memorable that happened during that dinner until we served the pie.

14:29 Uh-oh. I have a terrible Me, too. I have a bad idea. So, I'm serving the pie. This is it. This is the first time I've made anything for this family to consume.

14:54 Quick question. How did it look visually? Did you guys feel like you nailed it?

14:57 The pie looked great. Yeah. You're like, "Fuck yeah. Time to show off." Yeah. I've made a lemon mering pie when I really should have been making chocolate chip cookies.

15:05 Yeah. Yeah. So, serving the pie, one piece, two piece. I get to the third piece and the pie does the thing where it flops over onto its side and my mother-in-law says, "It's really weird that it burnt like that and I'm like, "What?" So, I look at it and I'm like, "Oh, that is weird that it burnt because the bottom of the pie is speckled with burnt dots." And so, I lift up the whole pie plate and I look and I'm like, "Oh, the whole pie is speckled with these burnt dots." And then I look a little bit closer and it's dead bugs.

15:36 No. [screaming] Hold on. Hold on. That's better. I didn't know. I know you were illprepared. You were expecting glass, right? Yes. Me, too.

15:47 But this is so preferred, but not for you. No, I'd rather you eat glass. Cooked bugs.

15:53 Get bugs all in your protein, edible, not sharp. No, this is a win. I think given the situ that makes sense. So that thing had so many bugs in it probably

16:05 as light fixtures do and it just came down and we didn't check and it's so much that they could see them all scattered about

16:13 and people had already eaten other three pieces. My youngest brother-in-law, as youngest brother-in-laws do, had inhaled his piece of pie.

16:23 Yeah. But he still maintains to this day that it was a great pie. Yeah, sure. I can't imagine this would diminish the taste at all. I would never be able to live knowing I ate all those bugs.

16:34 I'd be like, "Serve it up. They're cooked." Ew. Now, did you think when you saw and you were like, "Oh my god, it's full of bugs that I should just Oh, I think I spattered some Crisco at the bottom."

16:48 Oh, you're so nice and honest. You're such a good armchair. I think I would have panicked in the moment and been like, "Oh no, you know what? The light fell. I'm nervous there's glass. Let's not eat it." But I knew that there wasn't glass. Bugs were so far away in my mind.

17:03 Yeah, the glass was a red herring. That's how it works. You're like so worried about an intestinal.

17:08 I would just be for some reason so much more embarrassed to serve a pie with bugs in it than a pie with glass in it.

17:14 Really? Even though one's potentially life-threatening. Yeah. I have to imagine there's someone like me at this party that's like, "Give me a piece." No, I think they were just trying to follow my lead of like, "Oh my god, if we can't eat this pie, there's bugs in this pie. Forget it. Never mind. We should all go home."

17:32 Bug pie. Oh my god, that's so disgusting. My mother-in-law asked me, I made pumpkin cookies about a year ago, and she asked me for the recipe for the first time she'd ever asked me for the recipe I ever made for anything. And I was like, I've done it. It took me 12 years, but here we are.

17:48 That's great. Did you add some bones? I was going to say you should have put random insects. Presumably mosquitoes and moths.

17:55 Oh, mosquitoes. Don't listen, Monica. But the reason I knew it was bugs cuz I saw a wing. [snorts]

18:07 I hate the story. It's so funny. I don't mind. I know. I just I hate bugs and maggots. This is kind of like maggots everywhere.

18:16 But you got married and everything worked out. We have two kids. No bugs are eaten in our household.

18:22 Actually, that's not true. My oldest eats ants and there's nothing I can do about it.

18:26 No need to stop. Again, we're omnivores. We're totally fine and equipped to eat ants. No problem.

18:32 I don't want to eat them. You ever watch the chimps eat the ants with or termites out of the line with a stick?

18:36 I attempt to stop her, but she's 3 years old, so I don't stand a chance. You should do real ants on a log. Do you guys do ants on a log up in Canada? The celery and the peanut butter and could be raisins, but in this case,

18:47 Yeah. Okay, can I just do a quick shout out to my two co-workers? So, my corker Caroline got me into Armchair Expert and my co-orker John has been along on the ride as we both discovered this podcast.

19:00 Well, big thanks to her. She tripled our listenership in Ontario. Exactly. Good job.

19:06 Oh, well Sarah, so nice meeting you. Thank you. So nice to meet you, too. And I promise next time I drive through London, there will be no littering because I know better now.

19:15 All right. Take care. Bye. I sure love meeting these arm jeries. Here's Emma. I wish Allison Roman would have called in.

19:24 I wish our Emma was submitting. She never has cooking disasters. She cooks perfectly.

19:31 Hi. Can you hear us? Yes, I can hear you. Can you hear me? Beautifully. Now, did you have fun communicating with Emma as Emma?

19:40 Yes, I did actually. Where are you? You seem like a city girl. Just right away, I'm going to say that. I'm in Honolulu, Hawaii.

19:47 Oh, that's a city. How many people live in Honolulu? I believe on our island it's like a million people and then in the whole state it's like 1.3. Last I checked.

19:55 Wow. Okay. Like 90% of the Hawaiians are living on Aahu. I know you guys have vacationed here a couple of times.

20:01 Love it. One of the best four seasons around. Yeah. It's so good. Have you been to that little restaurant with the tiki torches that are burning? It's Italian. It's like outside.

20:11 Yes, I have. I don't remember the name, but it's really good. And the Four Seasons on the Big Island in Kona is also really awesome.

20:16 I keep hearing that maybe now that we're talking about it, they'll invite us. I think that might be the one that like charged me.

20:24 I think you're talking about the Rosewood. Oh, you're right. You're absolutely right. You're right. Thank you for saving the merch. You know how I feel. And are you from there or did you move there?

20:33 Born and raised in Honolulu. Yes. I've lived other places, but my whole family's here. My husband's here. My husband's family's here. So, it just makes sense to be here right now.

20:41 Okay. Great. Okay. So, you have a cooking disaster story. So, this story took place back in 2021 when my husband and I had just had our first baby girl. She was about 6 weeks old.

20:54 Okay. Oh, teeny. She was one of those babies though that didn't like to sleep. So, we were really sleepd deprived and my husband was drinking coffee like a madman. So, the cooking disaster takes place in the kitchen. I decided to make him coffee and at the time we were using a French press. Are you familiar with like how a French press would work?

21:15 We are, but I think we should say for the listener how it works. Okay, so a French press is like a glass beaker of sorts and it has a little handle and you put ground coffee and you put boiling hot water into the French press and then it has a cover that you put on top of that boiling water with like a plunger on top. The beaker is probably about maybe 8 in and then the plunger goes up maybe another 6 to 8 in and you leave it unplunged while the coffee steeps and you plunge it when you're ready to drink that coffee.

21:46 Yeah. And it's got a screen filter on the top. So as it goes down it gets rid of all the grounds and leaves the yummy coffee.

21:52 Exactly. So, I poured from the kettle the boiling hot water into the coffee and then that coffee made its way over to we had at the time in the house we were living in this little breakfast nook and it was sitting on top of the table.

22:04 I'm scared. You're about to hear some questionable parenting decisions, but I just want to tell you we were so deprived.

22:12 Of course, we've learned our lesson. So, that's just a little disclaimer. You had been a parent for all of 42 days. This baby was 6 weeks old.

22:20 Yeah. Why do they let people just be parents with no training? Pretty great. I don't know. It was too soon for us.

22:28 My daughter used to sit on this little baby lounger. I won't say the brand, but it was like this little baby lounger pillow. And I went to go hand the baby on the baby lounger pillow, which you're not supposed to do. And then I handed her to my husband, who was going to put her down next to him on this nice thick breakfast nook bench that we had. Okay. As I was doing that, the bottom of the pillow hit the top of the French press plunger.

22:56 You know, over a foot tall, and the entire thing knocked over toward my husband. Glass shattered with water, coffee grounds everywhere. Because my husband's like six feet tall, it landed right onto his thigh.

23:13 Oh, thigh. Penis. Wait, wait. I missed the third thing. Was it balls? Balls. Yeah. Great. Great. Great. Great. Oh my god. Oh my god.

23:22 Listen, we have photos and if we have a picture of your husband's burnt balls, I'm going to be thrilled.

23:26 Okay, so I didn't know the legality of sending that back. I did send a picture to Emma, who I think forwarded to Rob. It's hiding his penis and balls, but you can see entire thing. Can we look?

23:39 But before we look, so this big ruckus happens. What I'm immediately afraid of is like we don't drop the baby cuz we've knocked something over. Okay, he didn't drop the baby, which I think is the only thing we didn't write in the story.

23:52 He's a good dad. But the baby unfortunately also got splashed with water. Okay.

23:58 Uhoh. Boiling water. And the baby is screaming louder than I've ever heard a baby scream in my life. My husband put her down. He ran to the shower. Luckily, he knew that you're not really supposed to put like ice water on a burn. You're supposed to put lukewarm water. So, he went into the shower. put the shower on lukewarm and he was just standing there. The baby is screaming and I'm obviously freaking out.

24:22 And there's broken glass everywhere. Broken glass everywhere. As Monica would say, it was scatty wampus.

24:28 You have catchphrases, Monica. You know what's so funny? I love that that's become mine cuz I got that from you.

24:33 Yeah. And I got it from a gal at the grounds because really the word is cattywampus.

24:37 Well, but Jack says scatty. Now I do and now it's mine. My life mission has been to replace cattywampus with scatty. working. It's slowly working.

24:47 And you're not wearing shoes, right? It's in the morning. Not wearing shoes. Luckily, I'm the only one who somehow came unscathed, but emotionally not because this baby was so sad, but luckily she was fine. Ultimately, her burns were super super minor and she was back in action one day. But my husband was not. So, I went into the shower to take a look at him and it was like his skin was gone.

25:11 No. The top layers of the skin had just shriveled up and disappeared and it was just red.

25:18 Ew. Burger. Oh, beefy burger. Yeah, you can look at the picture whenever you want.

25:25 Okay, let's do it. God, I'm bummed that there is one of the penis that I'm missing.

25:29 E. Holy [ __ ] [screaming] Okay. Oh, no. I know I bring this up way too often, but that great documentary, Hot Coffee.

25:36 Yeah. You think like, oh, why' this woman sue over nothing? And this is what her thighs look like.

25:42 This is horrific, gang. It's his entire thigh. It's like knee to well [ __ ] and balls.

25:49 Oh my god. So his penis looked like that. Luckily, well, I don't know if it's luckily the majority of the burn, the worst part of the burn was on his thigh, but it was also the other areas, which I can imagine felt terrible.

26:03 Oh my god. It's also his whole thigh. It's not just like a small part. It's the whole thing. No, if I saw this without you telling me what had happened, my guess would be that you had made a bucket of hot coffee,

26:16 you know, like a couple gallery just threw it on him. Yeah. Yeah. It didn't miss him at all. It was so bad.

26:23 Okay, now this is inappropriate, but it's crossing my mind because it just happened to me. I had this catheter in and I was like so nervous I would get an erection over the three days that I had the catheter. Like I didn't know what was going to happen if that happened. Was he so paranoid he would get an erection with all that burnt skin? I didn't ask that, but I think he was so traumatized. I don't think that happened. He wasn't

26:43 Well, not obviously that evening, but if you're in so much pain, you'd hope maybe he blamed her and so

26:52 Oh, resentful enough. Yeah, that was mad at her long enough for it to heal. Yeah.

26:58 Oh my gosh. So, the story's not over. Well, since the baby was still crying, I called my mother-in-law who lives really close. She zoomed over and she took him to the burn unit, the only burn unit on our island, which was smart of her to do, and he went into the emergency room. I very naively thought that he'd be back the same day. I thought that they would put some basracin on it, wrap it up in gauze, and that he would come home. But that quickly became clear that that was not going to happen. They admitted him to the hospital for two reasons. He had secondderee burns which are the most painful because you know in the case of thirdderee burns it actually burns the nerve cells and kills the nerve cells and you don't feel it as much. Second degree burns is like the burn is so bad but you can still feel it.

27:44 They hooked him up to an IV drip of fentinyl and morphine. No boners now. I was like this guy's not going to be trying to come home anytime soon.

27:56 No, no. He's got he's got a 6 week old baby, you know. He's like, "Fucking take your time, y'all."

28:01 Secondly, they were scared of infection because it was so large that if not cleaned properly every single day, that could be a really bad infection.

28:09 Go visit him at the hospital after 1 day, 2 days, 3 days. We've been together for like 15 years. There's no jealousy left in our relationship. But when you go and you're 6 weeks postpartum, your hormones are not balanced. He would be being sponge bathed by like two nurses who look they had just graduated from nursing school.

28:31 So an erection is in danger. You thought it was going to be an easy peasy. You're right.

28:36 I didn't see one. It was like day five, day six, and he was finally healing enough where we thought that he could come home, but unfortunately he got addicted to the fentinyl and morphine drip. Stop. Sure.

28:53 What? He needed to slowly wean him off in order for them to feel like he could come home and not have

28:59 withdrawals. Holy [ __ ] This is a disaster. It was such a disaster. They would wean him off slowly and he was having full withdrawal syndromes. He was waking up in puddles of sweat. After about 8 days, they finally discharged him and then able to come home. Got like a $10,000 hospital bill. And that was the last time we ever used a French press.

29:25 Yeah. Peace out, French press. Oh no. Wow. This was a full-blown disaster. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. You know what's great is I'm glad you told the end of the story cuz it's like when you tell me he got hooked up to the fentanyl and morphine. I'm like that sounds nice. But then I'm reminded like oh right that detox it ain't worth it. He still had quite a bit of recovery even when he moved or when he moved home

29:49 when he returned from vacation. Oh my god. But he didn't have to have a skin graph or anything. That's a blessing.

29:54 And honestly, it looks perfect now. He made a full recovery. That was 5 years ago. Now we're about to have our third baby.

30:02 Oh my gosh. You won't stop. That's great. Well, after this we'll stop. Okay. Okay. It's time for him to return to that hospital and get a little snip snip.

30:11 Well, no. We're going to do a prompt about accidental vasectomies. So like just see what happened. This could have been an accidental vasectomy if it had gone up a little higher.

30:20 Yeah. Whatever they cut in my testicles. Yeah. Which is simple. They cut one thing and then you're good.

30:25 Your vaserin. No. Uh that's like your whole or whatever. In theory, you could burn through that.

30:33 Yeah. You could cauterize it. Is he a handsome man? He's so gorgeous. Yes, he is.

30:38 I had a hunch. You guys are such a pretty hot couple. Oh, yeah. You're a hot Well, they're a hot couple.

30:43 And a pretty couple. Yes. And a pretty couple. And a hot couple. Yeah. Yeah. Well, they're a hot coffee couple.

30:49 Hot coffee. Well, this was fun. Thank you. For us and not him. Oh, of course. We survived. And don't ever make the mistakes we made.

30:57 Cautionary tale. If only we could sue McDonald's. I know. Get a couple mill. Sure. That would have helped things out. Especially that $10,000 bill.

31:05 I'm still an advocate for the French press. I generally only get it when I'm at a hotel, but if they offer it, I like it. Wait, when we were [clears throat] in India, remember you ordered a French press like eight times a day

31:18 because the coffee there's different types of coffee there. I guess like you just wanted a French press. So you would always call to the front and say, "Can I get a French press?" Literally every 14 minutes.

31:30 I did because I'm going to be honest, the regular drip brew coffee was not choice. I don't know what the method the methodology was different somehow. It didn't taste the same for me. And you know what else happened? To defend myself, the first hotel we were at had a French press.

31:44 I know. And I was like, "Oh, this is probably the Indian way." Makes sense. I think the French press is English. I don't know. They probably got [snorts] stuck with that.

31:51 It sounds French. Of course, it's not English. It'd be called an English press.

32:01 Exactly. Anyhoo, Brit Press. Boy, I really enjoyed talking to you, Emma. This was fun.

32:05 This was fun. Oh, this was so fun. Thank you so much for talking to me today. My due date is in a few days, so I'm glad I didn't go into labor and then I couldn't tell you the story.

32:13 Wait, is it inappropriate for me to ask you to stand up cuz you do not look pregnant. Do you have a big belly?

32:18 Let me see here. Okay, there it is. Well, wishing you a very easy labor. I just want to thank you for doing what you guys do. I think you're changing lives with your vulnerability and how much you share and how much you just keep it real.

32:34 Thank you, Emma. Have a good rest of your day. All right. Take care. Bye. Bye. Hi.

32:55 Hello. You have my favorite shirt on. Really great station. Jen, where are you?

33:01 I'm in the Bay Area. I'm like 25 minutes outside of San Francisco, but I grew up in Burbank.

33:08 Oh. Uh, down the street. How did you end up up there? I moved up here for college and had every intention of going back to LA and then got a job and met my husband and I was like, I guess I'm staying. So, here we are 22 years later.

33:23 Did you go to Don Cuckoo's? Girl, you know I did. Oh, I love Don Cuckoo. I want it right now.

33:28 What's Don Cuckoo's? Mexican restaurant in Burbank. Oh, in Burbank. So good. I think there's like another location now, but they used to have this like really good bean dip. Monica, did you ever have it? No.

33:40 I know exactly what you guys are talking about. It's right by Bob's. That one near.

33:43 Yeah. I don't think they have it anymore. We were in LA last year and went there to get it cuz I like hyped it up to my kids. They didn't have it.

33:50 Oh, no. Sad. What line of work are you in up there? Is it techreated? I am a dance teacher and a dancer. I run a program and have a small dance company.

33:59 Amazing. Okay. So, you have a cooking disaster story. I have several, but this is the one I chose because it's the gnarliest and I had photos to back it up. So, I am a little bit of a clut in the kitchen.

34:11 Counterintuitive cuz you're a dancer. I would think great balance and agility on stage. In the studio, no problems. In the real world, in life, not so much.

34:21 Have you thought about hanging a dance bar in your kitchen? That might round you. Well, during the pandemic when I was teaching online, my countertop was my dance bar and the side of my couch. So, we've made it all work this year. So, yeah, it happened May 5th. So, Cinco de Mayo 2020. So, it happened in this house downstairs. It was the beginning of COVID, no masks, no vaccines. I think California the whole was maybe still on lockdown. Like, nobody knew what the [ __ ] was going on. So, I was like, let me be the cool mom, which I'm not, and have like a big Cinco deio dinner. I was gonna make tostadas and do all the things. Have fun.

34:57 Don cuckoo. I just should have been like, you know what? Forget it. We're ordering pizza. But

35:02 I'm in the kitchen. Everything's fine. My husband and I are in there. And I don't even know how it happened. I pick up a bowl that had corn in it to like move it to the other counter so I could do stuff. And in the blink of an eye, the bowl goes flying up in the air. Comes down, smacks our counter, shatters. So there's like glass everywhere, there's corn everywhere. Two seconds later, I look and there's blood everywhere.

35:26 Yeah. But I'm not registering that it's my blood. And I'm totally in shock. You're like, "Oh, this corn was full of blood."

35:36 I look and in my wrist is a beer arrow headshaped piece of the bowl sticking straight up.

35:43 Oh my god. A shard. I'm in shock. My husband's like, "Oh, fuck." And I don't even think I just yank it out.

35:49 Oh, not good. You're not supposed to do that. I don't think you're not. It was already bleeding and then it was like bleeding.

35:57 No. Would we use the verb spurting? Oh, yes. She's doing a spurting move. It was like down the counter on my clothes on the floor.

36:06 So, I pull it out. The pain starts to set in and my husband like grabs my arm, puts it under the faucet, and there's other like pieces of bowl in my wrist. So, we're like rinsing it out.

36:20 I'm screaming at this point. I think I said every expletative there is. My almost six-year-old comes in. He starts hysterically crying because I'm crying. Then my 10-year-old comes like everybody's crying and screaming and yelling and the dog's trying to like eat [ __ ] corn in a bowl and glassy corn.

36:36 He's rinsing out my wrist. Finally get it sort of cleared. And you guys, you could see my tendon.

36:42 No, we have a picture of it. I can't wait to see her tendon. I do. So, I don't have a picture of that one, but the pictures I did send in are still gross. So, Monica, buckle up. But I didn't think to take a picture then cuz I was just like, "Oh shit." So, we see the tendon and I'm like, "This is fine. Everything's fine. We're going to be fine." So, my husband's getting like every rag bandage. I'm bleeding through everything. And he's like, "We [snorts] need to go to the hospital." I was like, "No, I'm fine. You know, it's co. You can't even just walk in to the doctors or the urgent care. I don't want to bring my kids. I can't drive myself. And we went back and forth for like 20 minutes. I'm losing all this blood.

37:21 We've gone through our whole emergency kit with like all the gauze, everything. And so he's like, "No, you need to go." So I call my friend thinking she's going to be on my side and be like, "Girl, you're fine. Stay home." And I was like, "Here's what happened." She's like, "You're an idiot. I'm coming to pick you up." Like, "Okay." So she pulled up. Now you guys, we had no mask, nothing. I hadn't seen her. We put on safety goggles from her wood shop. painters, masks, bandanas. I think she had like gardening gloves on and I had cafeteria lunch lady plastic gloves on because it's all I could get over the bandages. I had to call urgent care first and be like, "Can I come in?

37:59 What's the protocol?" So, I come in and I'm like bleeding everywhere. And they're like, "Here, let me take your temperature. Here, change your mask. Here, stand outside." I'm like, "Can I get some [ __ ] stitches, please?"

38:08 Yeah. Yeah. Finally, I get in to see the doctor and it was still wrapped, so she hadn't seen it yet. But she asked me what happened and she's like, "Oh, this is the fifth kitchen accident I've seen this week."

38:19 Oh, co people are cooking. So, she comes over and takes it all off and it starts gushing blood. Her face said everything. And she's like, "Okay, it's really deep. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to close this. You might have to go to the hospital." And I was like, "No, we got to figure this out." She goes, "Well, you were less than a quarter inch from nicking your artery." So, she tries to stitch me up, but it was so deep that the stitches just wouldn't work. So, she finally gets, I don't know, some like heavy duty stitches, gets him in, finally stitches it up. And she's like, "Okay, you have to keep your arm like this for basically the next 3 days. So, I have to sleep with my arm like this. I can't lift my kids. I can't do anything. It's just excruciating pain. I'm bleeding through bandages for days." Wow.

39:05 So, she's like, "Come back in two weeks and it'll be fine." two weeks. I know. I know.

39:09 Either you'll be alive or dead. Yeah. So, I come back and I like knew something was up. It was per day.

39:17 Oh. And she's like, "Okay, it's not closed and it's maybe getting infected, but I can't take the stitches out." Cleans it up, wraps me back up, and then she's like, "You need to go see an orthopedic wrist surgeon." So, I go to the orthopedist and he's like, "We need to operate today."

39:34 Oh my god. No. And so we go back and forth and I'm like, I'll call you tomorrow if I want to have surgery. I leave. I ultimately don't end up having surgery. I have friends who are a PT and an OT and the OT specializes in hands. So he was helping me rehab it, but I had to wait another couple weeks to come back to get the stitches out. At this point, they've been in longer than they should have. I think they were in for five weeks total or something. I go in somehow, I didn't even know this was medically possible. My skin had grown over the stitches.

40:06 Oh, sure. Yeah. And my skin turned to like cement. It was the weirdest, grossest thing. There's a picture of him.

40:16 So, she's like, "Okay, I have to cut him out. We got to take him out." It was excruciating because [snorts] the stitches at that point, they were like sticks. So, they just kept snapping every time she was cutting them. It's not even fully closed, but she's like, "You can't keep these in." She finally gets them all out and she said, "I don't think you're going to get 100% mobility and strength back." And I was like, "Great. Okay, fantastic." So, go home. It's healing. I'm doing the rehab exercises. And it took probably another 3 months for the pain to go away and be able to like close my hand. I've never gotten 100% strength or mobility back.

40:55 Wow. No. The scar, which is pretty small. You can't even like see it anymore, but the area around it is like numb and tingly at the same time.

41:04 I screwed up all the nerves in there. It was really bad. And that was my kitchen disaster.

41:10 Oh my god. Okay, so now we're going to look at the photos. Ew. Ew. Ew. Well, that one looks like a smiley face,

41:19 but it's still really bad. Oh yeah. Here's you guys in your ridiculous outfits. You definitely look like you're on your way to paint a house. The wrist for some reason really makes me feel really like

41:30 jeez. It was very traumatic for my children and I'm careful in the kitchen, but I've had like five other accidents since

41:38 I'm going to ask a crazy follow-up question. Were you on your period when I did it?

41:44 Yeah. I don't know cuz my wife claims when she's on her period she has something called energy hands and it's things just fly up into the sky like you're describing like this bowl was in your hands and then it just took flight.

41:57 It's a possibility. Do you have any period clumsiness? I think I do have some PMS. There's a franticness that kind of starts like a manicure.

42:07 Yeah, you're a little just offkilter. I'd like to blame it on that and not my but maybe you just had oil on the corn olive oil and some of the olive oil got on the bowl.

42:18 You know, my husband was in there so I think I'm just going to blame it on him and be like this was your fault.

42:21 Yeah, he knocked you over. He must have tripped you a little bit. Yeah, it was crazy.

42:26 Enjoy those photos. Sorry that they're pretty gnarly. Since we started doing this, which I don't know how many years we've been doing Armchair Anonymous, but we have seen some photos. We have quadrupled the amount of insane photos I had seen prior in the 45 years before.

42:40 It's true. Yeah, I've listened to every episode and I was retraumatized by the rat in the water bottle thing last week. I was like, "Oh my god, you guys."

42:51 We were just talking about the rat. The rat got gendered. It's really gendered. And my anecdotal feedback

42:57 how grossed out they get. Yeah. Like women are really [ __ ] freaked. A I do think women carry water bottles more than men.

43:03 I think that's why. And then maybe women are afraid of mice more than men. I don't know.

43:07 No, it's not about being afraid. It's about drinking a dead rat. No problem. I remember how you were behaving during the episode. You were creeped.

43:15 Rob, roll the tape. Roll the tape. I didn't even see photos and just the visual in my head was sad about.

43:23 You've not had a stress-free sip of water since that episode. And I didn't even like water to begin with.

43:29 Well, Jen, thank you for that tasty story. Yeah, that was great. My pleasure. My husband and I have been listening forever to every show, every offshoot, everything. And I just really appreciate the conversations and the honesty and the vulnerability around addiction. Next month, my husband will be 10 years sober.

43:47 [ __ ] yeah. Congratulations to everyone. We've been together for almost 20 years now and the last 10 obviously have been a lot of work and he's done a lot of work but I just feel like him hearing some things from you Dax and things that you've shared you guys have very similar journeys and experiences and I've listened to day seven a handful of times and having the perspective of Monica when you love an addict it's really lonely and it's really scary and you want to protect the person So you don't really share a lot or at least I didn't with a lot of people and so having that episode in particular and just for years you guys talking about it has been more impactful than you know on both me and my husband and I think it's apropo that his 10y year anniversary is in a few weeks and I get to talk to you guys so

44:39 well please tell him congrats for me that's so mega man 10 years is impossible.

44:44 He's really mad that he can't be here. He is in San Diego for a work trip but he told me to say hi. What's his name?

44:50 His name is Justin. Oh, that's my favorite name. Have you ever heard me say that?

44:53 Yes, I have. My cousin Justin, who lives in the East Bay as well, who's the coolest dude I ever knew growing up.

44:58 Maybe that's her husband. Oh my god. Are you married to my cousin Justin? You do not look like Leanne today.

45:04 No, we constantly annoy our kids. One of us will say, "Hey y'all." from like across the house.

45:12 Oh, that's so cute. My kids are going to lip out when they hear this cuz I didn't tell them I was doing this.

45:17 What's their names? Let me shout them out. So, my daughter is Stella and my son is Becket.

45:21 Becket. Stella and Becket. Those [clears throat] solids, guys. Raise as much hell as you can. That's my advice.

45:29 And they are. Don't worry. All right. Well, take care, Jen. Wonderful meeting you.

45:33 Thank you. You, too. Have a good day, you guys. Bye-bye. Do you recall my brother's story? It was very similar to this one. We were out in the middle of [ __ ] nowhere when my mom and dad were still married. So, my brother couldn't have been more than eight cuz we left there when he was eight. All Coke and Pepsi was in these 16.9 oz glass bottles and they came in an eight pack.

45:52 Okay. And my mom was like unloading the car going back and forth from the driveway to the house. And unbeknownst to her, David had decided to help and he had grabbed one of those eight packs of soda.

46:03 Yeah. And he dropped it on the [snorts] floor. And when she came in the house, he was lying on his back and she said the blood had spurted and hit the ceiling. My brother cut his artery as a little boy. Yeah. And we're in the middle of [ __ ] nowhere. And she said the blood shot all the way up to the ceiling. And so she or my dad turned it with a dish rag

46:28 and then my dad drove 6,000 m an hour to get to the hospital. And obviously he's alive, but he's always had

46:33 Oh my god. Yeah. Even if next time you see him, he has a crazy gnarly scar right across his artery. It looks for sure. His whole life people are wonder.

46:41 Yeah. It's hard. Wrist is tough. It's really Yeah. Ooh. Well, happy cooking everyone. Be careful out there.

46:51 Be careful in the kitchen. I've had a lot of knife injuries. Yes, you have. That are really, really, really, really, really bad.

47:00 Very bad. And everyone needs to come over. All right. Love you. Do you want to sing a tune or something? We have a theme song.

47:10 Oh, okay. Great. We don't have a theme song [singing] for this new show. So here I go, go. We're going to ask some random questions and with the help of our cherry, we'll get some suggestions on the fly rhyme dish. On the fly rhyme dish. Enjoy.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Armchair Anonymous: Cooking Disaster II | Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard"?

Dax Shepard (Host), Randall Padman (Guest), Casey (Guest), Sarah (Guest), Emma (Guest), Jen (Guest).

What is "Armchair Anonymous: Cooking Disaster II | Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard" about?

The discussion centers around amusing and disastrous cooking experiences, particularly one involving a poorly executed pancake brunch for a child’s birthday celebration. Guests share humorous mishaps and warnings about the perils of cooking, specifically highlighting the challenges of managing an event while dealing with unexpected cooking failures.

What is mentioned in this Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard episode?

10 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Dak Shepard, Armchair Expert, Randall Padman, French Press, Honolulu, Hawaii, Bard, North Carolina. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Armchair Anonymous: Cooking Disaster II | Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard"?

The episode runs 48 min; the transcript is about 9,846 words in 259 timestamped sections.

More from Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

• All analyzed episodes
• Books mentioned on Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
• People mentioned on Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
• Sponsors mentioned on Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
• Topics mentioned on Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard