It's the Judge John Hodgman podcast. I'm bailiff Jesse Thorn. We're in the chambers

of Judge John Hodgman with Judge Hodgman. Greetings. We have an exciting case this week concerning

potluck dinners, but before we get to it, I thought that we could take this opportunity

to clear the docket of a few food-related cases. If you're prepared to render some judgements,

that is, Judge Hodgman. Let's clear the docket. Here's the first case. Pat writes that being a big

maximum fun, max-fun-con type of guy, he believes that the only person who can possibly end

a debate he's been having with his friend, Dan Shee, is you, Judge Hodgman. Do we know that Pat

is a man or a woman? We know that Pat is a man. Okay. Not that it makes a difference, mind you.

I just want to know. He says, I am very opposed to people eating cupcakes except maybe for a six-year-old's

birthday. I feel that cupcakes mean making a minor concession in the area of frost

to cake ratio, and without use of a fork, you lose proper control of that ratio on a bite-to-bite

level. Every time I eat a cupcake, I find that I am forced into a few unsatisfying frosting-free

bites. His friend says that they are cute and convenient, and he says that it is an affectation.

Cuteness has no place in cake, and that cake does not need to be eaten in a situation in which

you can't use a fork. That's what brownies and cookies are for. So he's an obsessive on this

issue. He also says he bakes about one cake a week, and he never, ever, ever makes cupcakes.

So he says, is the cupcake a meaningful expression of the baking arts?

Well, at first I thought Pat was someone who took cake very seriously, and maybe admirably

seriously. And then once he started talking about a few unsatisfying frosting-free bites,

I started feeling nervous for Pat. Pat started to seem a little cake snobby, and then when I learned

that Pat was making one cake a week, I began to be worried for Pat's mental health. I think this

might be someone like a cake hoarder of some kind. And I'm worried about this person. Look,

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