This is an I-Heart podcast.

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to American Gravy.

Look, this is where food meets fun, family, freedom.

Lauren, Andrew, you got it.

And flavor meets the absurd.

So I'm Chef Andrew Gruhl.

And I'm Lauren Gruhl.

And today we're going to be diving into some of the funniest,

strangest, most mouth-watering food stories, a little bit of politics, everything that's making the rounds this week. Because let's face it, food news has officially gone off the rails. We've got people deep-frying ice cream machines. We've got the world's most expensive grilled cheese. Heck, we've even got a chef who accidentally created a viral trend, I think I saw, with pickle cupcakes. Ooh, that sounds horrible. Have you ever noticed that food stories are getting weirder and weirder? They are getting weirder and weirder. And I think people are just trying to be over the top. They are trying to create that viral moment. And so they're just doing the most ridiculous things. And that's going to be a theme in a lot of our stories is the way in which people keep trying to push the limits. I mean, 10 years ago, the craziest thing we had was like the double double it in and out. And now somebody's serving sushi in a shoe. No, it was like the deep fried Oreo at the fair. Like that was the craziest thing. I never liked that. That's disgusting.

Well, you don't like Oreos. I don't like fair food. You don't? Not even like the turkey leg? The reason I don't like fair food is because at fair food, I know what the food prep situation is like. They're prepping offsite in like an RV or a food trailer in the back. It's hard enough to set the fair up. these people are on the go, on the run. They're going and picking up their food at like restaurant depot, who knows how long it's sitting out. And then they prepare the food in these little cubicles. They almost look like jail cells. And nobody's actually checking the sanitation water. Let's not ruin it for the people. But that's why they deep fry everything. Oh, to kill anything? I mean theoretically, right? Just you worried about bacteria. Just kill it off. Yeah. Just fry it off. Well, today we got a few that are going to make you laugh, gag, who knows what else in between, probably questioned humanity all before lunch. Oh, boy. Yeah, depending on what time you're listening to this. So one of the stories that's been in the news the past, you know, week plus, what have you, has been.

And it's funny because I went on X and then Facebook and it's just Katie Porter, Katie Porter, Katie Porter, Katie Porter.

Everything anyone is talking about is Katie Porter.

Which stems from this viral clip where she basically was incredibly rude to a reporter that was doing nothing more than trying to ask questions and follow-up questions.

Yeah, there were follow-up questions.

She took it very personally, which was very odd.

I mean, come on.

They weren't even hard-hitting questions.

They weren't hard-hitting questions.

And I bring this up because Lauren and I always make the joke that if you want to judge a person's

character, you can see the way that they treat people in restaurants. Yes, we always say

this. So we'll go out to dinner sometimes with some friends and, you know, they'll treat the

wait staff kind of mean. Ex friends. exactly and I'm like and that just shows

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