Baked By Melissa Has Strong Feelings About Food & She's Not Backing Down

0:00Melissa Ben-Ishay:Like the pre-cut fruit at a bodega. I mean, how are pregnant people allowed to eat that but they can't have sushi? It makes zero sense to me. Have you seen where they cut up that fruit? And it's like, ooh! I'm Jo Salts, the editorial director of Delish, and today we have someone who's not only a viral sensation, she's a cookbook author and an acclaimed baker. She also tore the internet up with her version of a green goddess salad. Please welcome president of Baked by Melissa, Melissa Ben-Ishay.

0:30Welcome. Thank you. I'm super excited to have you here. And also, I do have to give a tiny little shout-out because my daughter's gluten-free, and your gluten-free baked by Melissa cupcakes are her favorite. She was super excited. So thank you for developing a delicious cupcake that is gluten-free because that's actually not easy.

0:47Melissa Ben-Ishay:No, it's not. It took us years. It must have. And I must give my husband the credit for finalizing the recipe. Really? Because at one point, I was like, I'm not putting out a gluten-free cupcake that doesn't taste good. Yeah. I mean, it's actually really hard. Vanilla is generally gluten-free. Vanilla is disgusting. In our house, we only eat gluten-free chocolate. We're gritty. It's like gritty, yeah. It's not good, but you did it. I want to start from the beginning because I feel like you now have multiple ways into people's food universes. But what was your food life like when you were a kid?

1:22Like, did you grow up in a good snack house?

1:23Melissa Ben-Ishay:I grew up in a good food, love food house. And very, like my mom would say, eat the cheesecake. It's good fat, you know? So we didn't have snack wells. Right. We had Oreos and chip soy cookies and Elio's pizza for snack after school. Where did you grow up? In North Jersey. Oh, yeah. What part? Bergen County. Yes. What town? Hillsdale. Okay. I grew up in Essex County. so I feel like Bergen County is like a different state as far as I'm concerned because I feel like you either know Bergen County or you don't know Bergen County and I have lots of friends who grew up in Bergen County but you grew up with a lot of cool stuff around you though because I feel like Bergen was always the first to get like cool mall restaurants.

2:07I was just gonna say malls. Yes. We have lots of malls. You have lots of malls and one of the largest malls in the country for those of you who don't know New Jersey Garden State Plaza but also I remember that being the place where all like the good chains were like four and 17 were like if you wanted to eat rose american yes

2:25Melissa Ben-Ishay:yeah and paparazzi oh my god those were my favorite i can't believe you just said joe's american there so they had this salad with uh honey like mustard chicken salad yes there was angel hair and iceberg and chicken and it was actually in my last cookbook i have a an homage to joe's american do you actually yeah i all i think about is the warm bread that they used to serve brown bread the white oh my god and then they also had i can't believe we're talking about this on this podcast i'm so happy right now they also had that crazy mudslide pie at the end this dessert which i i mean you with the oreo crust oreo crust but it was a giant like it was almost like a like a so good oh my god why did it go away i know there is still one so the daughter of the i want to say founder yeah uh messaged me and the original is in boston yes yes there's still that one in boston oh my gosh oh god i also like i get called out for making really dramatic faces on the show like they're like come on you're not that excited i'm like i am actually that excited right now that I'm like, when am I going to be in Boston next?

3:35Okay, so you grew up in a good house. You grew up in a house where people appreciated food.

3:39Melissa Ben-Ishay:Yeah, food positivity. I love that. So then how did the mini cupcake universe start? What's the what are the art? What's the origin story of that? Well, I love cake. And it's funny, I had I don't know if you had pioneer day in fifth grade, where you dress up as pioneers and build wagons. And for pioneer day in fifth grade, we had to make layer cakes. And that really scratched my itch for like cake and baking. And I, after Pioneer Day, that one layer cake, I just kept making layer cakes. And my mom let me. I remember bringing it to my friend's house and like we would just eat it. So I love to bake as a way to show my love for people.

4:18Melissa Ben-Ishay:And then after college, I went into advertising and I would bake tie-dye cupcakes. the first batch of tie-dye cupcakes i baked was for a co-worker whose birthday was march 1st and it was his 30th and i he loved the grateful dead i love the grateful dead so i made him the first ever batch of tie-dye cupcakes red white and blue cake with the steal your face on top and the response i got when i brought them into the office for his birthday was just beyond yeah it felt so good yeah you know when you create something and you give it yeah to me there's no greater feeling yeah so I kept making tie-dye cupcakes when it was people I love's birthday and I love a lot of people and yeah over the course of two years the product evolved and kept getting better I was fired from my job in advertising when I was 24 as an assistant media planner and I went home and baked cupcakes four batches normal sized sent them into work with my That's a friend's little sister the following day who was interning at a PR agency and wound up being introduced to the PR, the owner of the PR agency's caterer and started doing events with him.

5:32Melissa Ben-Ishay:He suggested making them just a bite. Tiny. Yes. And at the time, you know, when you work in ad sales, you're getting sent all this stuff. And so I would eat so many cupcakes and candy every day. I lived across the street from this deli on 34th and 2nd called the Clover Deli. They had cupcakes. And I would actually walk to and from Deutsch in Chelsea, which was like a pretty far walk. Yeah, that's a really far walk. So I would on my way home stop at Clover Deli for a cupcake, but I would get two because I could never decide if I wanted the one with the yellow cake and the chocolate icing or the chocolate cake with the cookies and cream icing.

6:11Melissa Ben-Ishay:and uh yeah i made them small so you could try them all and not feel as gross as i did after eating two jumbo cupcakes every day after work but you're walking i mean come on totally like that took it off um but i love the idea to that first of all similarly editorial we get sent a lot of things as well so um but also the bite we we actually have at delish most of the people in the kitchen actually i don't know if they do it as much now but they used to have like a two bite rule because they were making so much food all day that they were like if we fill up on any one thing like nothing after this is going to taste that good so totally I do feel like there's a science to the idea that like all you want is like a bite right and you know the saying like a kid in a candy store yeah I think that the experience with baked by Melissa because our cupcakes are just a bite yeah the idea that you can try all the flavors like I was that kid that would take a bite of every yes uh like chocolate from a box of chocolates just to see what was inside like you could do that here and and it's okay do you order dessert at restaurants every single time are you unless it's like pear compote no no no something like no what's your good when you see something on a dessert menu what's your dessert chocolate really oh oh yes cake um well if there's cake i'm getting it but i also love ice cream the hot fudge sundae at hillstone they give you the ramekin of the hot fudge yes wait what are you talking about that like you've brought up joe's and hillstone in this and like so you just know good food can i get a houston's like have you been um the reason i love hillstone so much is because i grew up going to the houston's in riverside square oh my god my besties that's like when we got our license the first thing we did i heard the rumor that they only changed the name so they didn't have to put the calorie count yes okay so i only know houston's because my grandparents lived in boca and there's a houston's in boca and that's where i fell in love with i think that's where i had spinach and artichoke dip for the first time which is so good i got my daughter actually recently into spinach and artichoke dip inspired by hillstones uh she's 10 uh bless bless her heart early get them up get them on them early get them on spinach and artichoke dip early my daughter used to eat when she would eat now she's like it's everything is a fight but she like would like eat spinach and archery up with a spoon like back when she back in the young when she was like two well i make a healthy version oh yeah she doesn't like is it in my cookbook no it'll be in the next cookbook i think she doesn't like um like too rich and creamy i don't know how she's my daughter but yeah but it's great what's your version what's your recipe saute a shallot and then cut up the artichokes but if you can't cut through it don't put it in because you can't chew it yeah spinach a big heaping tablespoon of tempty oh and then like maybe half a cup of good culture cottage cheese yeah and then she doesn't like the crust so I just sprinkle shredded mozzarella in it and then put it in a bowl for her whereas if I'm eating it I bake it in the oven after yeah so it gets crumb crusty so you like it warm it what is cottage cheese like when you warm it it's just like a replacement for sour cream got it and it melts down yeah it's it's it does and even comes a little stringy but i do the full fat like the green good culture like the oh the best one yeah yeah yeah that stuff is so good um actually so good that i can't even get it in my oh i know i know that's i send my I get my husband selfies of myself when I get the green good culture from our local.

9:50It's not even an option on my Whole Foods. You can't. Oh, no, not Whole Foods. Don't even ask. Where do you get it from?

9:55Melissa Ben-Ishay:We have like a local organic store. Do you live in the city? I live in Hoboken. Okay. Oh, Hoboken. Plus, you're like a Jersey girl. I didn't realize that we're so kindred in that way. Just out of curiosity, did you grow up Jewish? Yeah. Okay. So that's why your mom was like, this is a good fat. This cheesecake is a good fat. Eat, eat. Eat. Like, I do feel like that because I grew up Jewish and then I married into probably a more conservatively Jewish family. My mother-in-law, not like conservative Jewish, but like on the conservative side of reform. And they always had like really big dinners for all the Jewish holidays.

10:33And like that was 100 % the love language. It was like. Food. Yes. And it was like if there was an inkling that maybe someone at the table might not want brisket, she had to make like enough chicken for everybody at the table. Do you know what I mean? That is who I am. I joke.

10:50Melissa Ben-Ishay:My husband is actually a Jewish grandma. So, yeah, we've got to. And if you turn it down, it's like it's like an offense. Like you can't not you can't say no. No, totally. Like the idea of going somewhere and there not being enough food is just like horror. horror yes it's embarrassing and actually my in-laws now basically live you know they're empty nesters obviously kids have gone all grown have their own families but like they still cook sometimes I think my mother-in-law is still cooking for like like everybody like it's two of them um all right so I want to get on to like your entire salad empire which is wild and how were you always it's wild what do you like how do you think about this at night are you sometimes like how did this happen or were you do you feel like you were destined for salad greatness well now that it happened it makes sense to me that it happened if i'm being honest because well first of all i in in come hungry my first book yep that's has real recipes that aren't just cake yeah um the small plate section I just talked about my mother-in-law and when I went with my husband to visit my in-laws the for the very first time nobody spoke English but the first bite of anything I took was just iceberg that looked a little shiny and I ate it and I was like what what is this like everybody stop cooking everywhere yeah what is what am I eating and my mother-in-law explained in another language like you know shoom people i made her like list all the ingredients for me and i've posted it so many times i call it life-changing lettuce it's the foundation of every dressing i make before i met her i don't even remember like i've always loved salads but i think that really changed the game for me and what was your go-to salad before that like where what what was like your order at a place like a salad it was the grilled chicken salad at hillstone Oh, so good.

12:51Melissa Ben-Ishay:Chopped. So good. Peanut sauce on the side. So good. So good. And then I also was lucky to grow up where we would go like on Sunday nights to the Midway at my parents' club and it was basically like a make your own, it was, it was a make your own chopped salad station. And so you pick what you want, but everything was chopped so small. And then you pick your dressing and they mix it in, just like before chopped and just salad. it was so good before chopped and just salad there was another place that was what was the place that was like chopping salads though i feel like chopped yes did chop salads but i'm like i have like a memory of a place oh i'm thinking in your there was a place in chelsea market that i used to go to that would do chopped salads and it was really good yeah yeah it's a long time ago when i first started at friendlies you know they had the salad the the fried chicken salad yes like the chicken fingers on top yes yes in the bowl that you can eat yes and the taco shell bowl yes okay have you ever eaten at jose tejas in new jersey oh it's a really good mexican place and still still business fairfield i love a good taco salad but taco salad on in the bowl yes with like a warm chicken yum so good warm and cold always for dinner and dessert like you know a brownie with yes yes yes yes and salads are not about eating well at the back my love for salads didn't stem from trying to eat healthy right it was just like crunchy and refreshing like yes you layered lots of different things but also it's so good yeah so i guess where i'm going is that i really love salad yeah the same way i love cupcakes and dessert and my husband and i have this shared passion for feeding people yeah and when we were dating we would just do these one meal sundaes where we would cook all day and then everyone would come and eat and my best friend is gluten and dairy free and she would come and dip chips in my salad which is why I dip a chip in my salad she would sit at my kitchen counter and just dip chips in the salad as I'm making it is that what you started doing like you started well yeah that's how we would do it because you eat it while everything else is getting together and just salads there are so many different types my husband and I are very uh competitive in the kitchen so he's he makes his salads I make mine and when I started posting to social media people responded and you know I'm an entrepreneur I love opportunity.

15:13Melissa Ben-Ishay:I'm kind of like addicted to it. And I immediately understood the opportunity that I had when that first salad I posted went viral. Was that the green goddess? It was not. It was actually just like a Mediterranean salad. And in the voiceover, I love social media, like I understand it. Yeah. And the voiceover, I started by this salad is the reason I married my husband. And that's all you need. That's a good hook and a delicious recipe. And you've got yourself and a delicious recipe that also has mass appeal like a Mediterranean salad like every different region has its own version of it so that what's in that salad cucumber tomato a little red onion and some kalamata olives yeah and what's the dressing and the dressing is olive oil lemon juice a splash of white vinegar grated garlic salt and pepper and we'll be right back

16:06so good i do feel like your technique of chopping is what makes your stuff so special because it's not like normal chopped i feel like it's like extra it's finely chopped really fine it's a micro chop it is what do you use i forgive me because i should know are you using this guy no

16:24Melissa Ben-Ishay:no i'm using a cleaver i'm using usually a shun knife they're the best yeah i remember buying the first one that i owned with my husband at the surla table surla top or surla table i say surla top and i never understood why i say it i was just like i no one told me this is supposed to be french so i don't know why i say it like that but i do same same so whatever that first shun cleaver actually the first shun knife we bought he wound up breaking trying to cut a dog bone but we bought more because we love them they're good they're the best you should find your way to the the kitchen store on the corner of Houston and Lafayette which is like a restaurant supply have you been there yeah is it the Wynn Wynn or Bair it's Wynn I think and it's like but they sell really big expensive knives though their knives are great like and they're really cheap we used to walk there um we would run out of um the stainless steel oh the big baby sheets yeah yeah yeah and um we would walk there when we needed more and carry them over our heads back to cafe barry on broadway in spring yeah yeah yeah we did our baking in the early years oh is that right oh my gosh yeah i've got i all this the spatula white tip spatulas the giant bowls yeah oh my god those bowls are the only bowls in every video i'm using a stainless steel bowl those are the restaurant the restaurant supply stainless steel bowls they're i don't know why people spend money on certain things that's how i feel about it too and i make i use those bowls to make i also have i make a huge i do a big seder for passover and i make a massive amount of matzo ball soup so i had to get like one of those giant soup those are the best they're the best and you can't find them that big anywhere else on the planet and cost effective cost effective but then the same with big bowl like you have to mix the matzo meal and that so i have a seder salad do you really what's in it it's um the crouton makes it a seder salad matzah crouton it's a garlicky matzah crunch sorry have you been able to do something good with matzah like are they good so they are delicious i agree with you matzah is disgusting in general because like don't crack it don't put a sugar topping on it but this one is so good that i did decide to put it in the book and it's because of the garlic let's be honest and matzah is great to keep a crunch which Well, that's it.

18:46Melissa Ben-Ishay:When you're topping a salad, there aren't many things that will keep their crunch that also is like bread. Well, but it's also like, because I have tried to do things with the, what do they call the farfall? Oh, and there's za 'atar too, I forgot. Oh. Yeah. All right, I'm going to have to try that Seder salad. Matzah, extra virgin olive oil, garlic, and za 'atar. You should make that for us for Passover. You should come and make that at the Delish Kitchen. We would be really excited to have you do it. Yeah, it's actually a very delicious salad. I mean, I can't imagine there's anything in there that's not delicious.

19:20You brought a lot of food, though, and I'm very excited.

19:22Melissa Ben-Ishay:Because it's the Jewish grandma in me. But I'm like, no one, I'm really serious. I don't think anyone's brought as much that you brought. Like, not even in a weird way. Like, why aren't more people bringing me food? I'm just like, and I looked in the bag, and I was like, what do we have in there? You have to tell me what you brought. Okay, we brought lots of things. I'm ready. Well, we brought chips. So these are the salad chips. These are the salad chips. They're Zack's Mighty. They pack an extra crunch. Can we just, like, talk for a second about why do they say this is how you should open a bag?

19:53Melissa Ben-Ishay:Because that bag is so thick. And I think they do it so it doesn't break the chips. There's, like, extra air in them. That's fine. But, like, then I have a bag like this? Yeah, I know. And then you have to roll it up when you put it away. So I brought lots of snacks. Cupcakes, obviously. And we need them after the snack. Obviously. But for me, I have like a very strong point of view on snack and just food in general. Please, tell me what that point of view is. So, well, my food philosophy is that if you, like mealtime is for nourishment. And if you get your fulfillment from your meals, you could indulge in dessert every day, just like me.

20:27Melissa Ben-Ishay:Sure. A snack is when you're hungry in between meals and you need that nourishment. That's like, that's what your body is telling you. Nourish me. Because food in its most primitive form is nourishment. That's why it exists. So, okay, wait. on that logic is coffee a snack no it's a drink okay is wine a snack no it's a drink okay is um what other ones did i have is salad yes that's a snack cupcakes or dessert is cereal a snack cereal's dessert unless it depends what cereal cereal's dessert well the fruit loops like lucky charms that's dessert what's a cereal that's a breakfast um like unfun things like a homemade granola cheerios but it needs to have milk and like you know at least milk bananas or something yeah i don't put fruit but yes what's your breakfast of choice i have never really been a breakfast person i love an israeli breakfast or like a sat like eggs over vegetables in i celebrate leftovers and come eat and there's like uh eggs over veg like basically and it's just like the leftover vegetables that you have from the night before and then you like fry two eggs and put it on top like that is the per like anything with an egg on top is breakfast okay so not like you're not you're not an oatmeal person oatmeal like dessert i don't understand what you're saying i don't even understand these words on carbs for me like my body like that doesn't like so you need power in the morning like i need protein and like vegetables i wake up before i am i work out i am I'm like, I am a mom of small children, overachieving millennial mom, you know, trying to be everything for everyone.

22:06Melissa Ben-Ishay:I am not compromising an inch of my energy for anyone or anything. And so protein and vegetables. Coffee in the morning? Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. Like before I open my eyes. That's what I was going to say. Cold brew. What's in your cup of cold brew? Oh, it's black. Black. Yeah. Wow, you're hardcore. Okay. Okay, sorry. I need to know now. This is just. By the way, this chip is delicious. It is delicious, right? There's nothing like it. So here's what we're going to do. So this is half of a chicken Caesar wrap. And where is this from? Lenwich. Lenwich. God bless. And then what we do, this is like, you know, I'll eat half my wrap on a call, like chewing in everyone's face.

22:49Melissa Ben-Ishay:And then the second half I'll just like snack on, you know? But again, you have to have, you're good. You make a mess. We're going to clean this place up. all right sorry i'm not gonna put my fingers in it but and i i'm not gonna chew into the mic but i am gonna yeah why is that good

23:14it's so good i mean to your point you're like it's not salad's not healthy and chips eating your salad with a

23:24Melissa Ben-Ishay:chip is probably i love a good vessel you know like toast is like a vessel for like cottage cheese and salad on top the chip allows you to make a salad a snack you know i love this theory did i just get salad in my hair okay usually my husband is like you have like you're he's like constantly pulling food out of my hair because i like just don't care um here's what i'll say i love a vessel but I also like I mean I feel like chip is next level but like a bread a bread bowl a bread dip a like um pita are you pita shove everything into a pita and it's delicious yes why is it so good okay so this is your go-to chip for any kind of salad you serve at home yes what is that little thing there that's also a salad this is a lemon cucumber herbed couscous salad and so that you would eat with a chip yeah probably and then like usually like because i'm because of the chapter of my life i'm in yeah i realize i'm hungry and i am like i need to find food right now yeah sometimes that means walking into the whole foods going to the prepared food bar and like it's like you know just like eating while i'm walking somewhere else yeah yeah do you find your sweet or savory like what's your go-to savory then sweet all the time like now like truly okay so now we just had a chip with salad on it which was delicious she brought cupcakes yeah okay we're gonna do this one we're gonna do this one because this is our spring fling so cute first we just dipped chips into a caesar wrap and now she's opening her spring fling cupcakes which are very brightly colored yellow blue pink purple chocolate my daughter's gonna be so pissed we have some for you to bring her oh my god she's gonna be thrilled how old is your daughter she's 12.

25:16oh oh gosh perfect oh god mine's 10. perfect age i'm scared oh yeah it's scary yeah i'm just kidding i'm just she's not gonna listen to this because she's too embarrassed but i will tell you it's get scarier look at how pretty okay we have cotton candy which i don't know about you but do you remember bubblicious bubblegum yep cotton

25:39Melissa Ben-Ishay:candy yep they still make it but it's not the same as it was back in the day what do you feel for cotton candy as a flavor profile i don't order it anywhere i go like ice cream you won't eat cotton candy actually my my seven-year-old like does get cotton candy ice cream and it there are certain types of cotton candy ice cream where did i have the best cotton candy ice cream like that was so good i want to say an lbi but no i would never order it myself like it's not for me and cotton candy like is not like my kids love it and i'm like fine that you're just eating sugar that burnt there is a very i feel like a there's probably like a chefy sophisticated flavor profile of that burnt sugar that i think when done well is delicious but that's not what this is what this is is the cotton candy bubblicious bubble gum and if you've ever had it it was pink and blue and when you chewed it it became this beautiful color purple which is actually my favorite color and inspired by Bubblicious Bubblegum.

26:39Melissa Ben-Ishay:That is amazing. And the flavor is unlike anything you've ever had, and I do believe I have replicated it here. All right, I'm going to try it. It is a cold favorite. We bring it back. We try and bring it back once a year because that's how much everyone loves it. I'm going to try it, but I'm going to first let you take me on a journey through the rest. Okay, so we have this yellow one. We have really good copy around this flavor because it's inspired by a peep. Oh, that's cute. yeah marshmallow flavor it's called marshmallow chick that's marshmallow that's not the good copy but yeah we call it marshmallow chick because we can't call it a peep got it a peep very cute um it's over how do you feel about where do you stand on peeps yeah i don't like marshmallows in general my seven-year-old loves marshmallows and cotton candy not for me but i will say people love vanilla people love vanilla and people love marshmallow and people love peeps totes exactly everything Am I those people?

27:33Melissa Ben-Ishay:No, I am more in the chocolate camp. So this flavor here with the quins on top. Yeah, the chocolate with the little. This one is inspired by a Cadbury egg. Stop. Yes, and the filling is actually Cadbury cream filling. I feel like you're just giving me a list of all these things that I need to talk to you about. Where do you stand on Cadbury eggs? Okay, well, back in the day, I used to walk into town with my best friend Allison, and we would go to Walgreens and buy Cadbury eggs. Okay. And eat out the filling first. now I mean like that's not what I would choose when I'm in Walgreens I'm like why did they need to make that why was anyone in the world asking for like a runny yolk based it's a little dollop of orange like to look like a yolk but you know what like this the nostalgia yeah like is what I really play into yeah I love that I don't know it just like brings back so many memories very trad Easter what is the purple and the what's the chocolate with the pink chocolate like just plain chocolate yeah so if you were to pick one of these what would be the one you'd go to oh man well I have to take a bite so like if it were if we weren't together right now I would probably and I just finished like half a sandwich I would definitely go for the chocolate okay but oh my god don't judge me I'm not gonna judge you I do take the top off because it's like so soft I'm going in I'm gonna try the cabaret cream egg one it is really you can come back anytime so good oh it's yellow inside your cupcakes are moist beyond and i need to i do need to chase it with the chocolate but um how did you get this texture how many how long did it take for you to develop she's dreaming and eating they're just so good they are so good how long yeah not very long the icing which ironically icing is so easy no but it takes the right i think that's the other thing i like about your product is that it's very um it's the right ratio yeah i love i love a frosting it's the perfect bite have you done a nutella cupcake can i get that on your list yeah we have okay the trick the tricky part with nutella and maybe we make this more of a problem than it is but it's a nut oh and it looks chocolate and one of my you know we're very yeah yeah careful with labeling and making sure that if we have flavors that have nuts it looks like it do you do either of your kids have nut allergies no oh interesting you are very careful i actually really appreciate that too about your like especially you know having a daughter who's gluten-free um how careful you are my husband like gave my daughter peanut butter before she had solids and i'll never forget the moment in my kitchen she was like three months old and he just like wiped it on her lips i was like and she was fine she was fine yeah yeah they're resilient um all right i am gonna move on to our 30 second snack attack i want to tee you up with like no fruit in salads oh please talk to me about this well okay i love vegetables i fruit i am a whole different creature about and i i do love fruit but i need to choose it myself or my mom needs to cut it up in her kitchen i can't explain it like the pre-cut fruit at a bodega i mean how are pregnant people allowed to eat that but they can't have sushi it makes zero sense to me have you seen where they cut up that fruit and it's like oh and you could have this most delicious strawberry in one bite but then the next strawberry you get like it could be so disgusting so yeah not even a strawberry not even a strawberry in a salad no what is it like there's i just maybe one day listen i am an evolving creature my opinion is subject to change but i went to syracuse university there was a restaurant called fagans and they have a sonoma salad and everybody loves the sonoma salad and it has strawberries and blueberries and greens and tomatoes i think and onions and how does that all work together i don't understand there is however one exception to my rule which is this watermelon salad that i make and it's watermelon cucumber and corn huh and feta I was gonna say I thought there was gonna be a feta in there so yummy so whatever I make my own rolls I just you're allowed that's what the beauty of food is yeah but no fruit or and and in my dessert unless it's strawberry cake because the strawberry cake that we make is the best thing ever so wait no fruit in dessert like no whole fruit I don't like pie I I'm offended by the fact that people think pie compares to cake like it doesn't interesting yeah i can't say i disagree with you i do like fruit in my desserts but i'm not a huge pie fan but even a strawberry shortcake i could get behind cooked mushy fruit like a crumble between like pastry what about like a crumble or like a cobbler yeah i would need to make it and like choose the strawberries oh i see i see okay did you eat pop tarts more pop tarts are the best flavor pop tart okay but not a fruit followed by the brown sugar ones the strawberry ones yeah that's not fruit that doesn't count that is not fruit no you know peanut butter and jelly is amazing that'd be being like okay you don't like fruit so just do you like fruit by the foot right that's not fruit either exactly no way i would say um i really loved having you and honestly i feel like we've we're we're kindred like we're gonna be friends for a long time because we can meet at hillstone houston's we're gonna meet at hillstone houston's um i'm gonna give you one more throwback to a restaurant that i used to love at garden state plaza which no longer exists which is napa valley grill did you ever eat a napa valley grill i did not oh my god it was so good really yes it was like in that little spot where the california pizza kitchen was like in that like in that little area and oh my god the california the blt salad oh they that They're the king.

33:33I feel like they... They don't make it. No, sorry. The BLT pizza. The BLT pizza.

33:38Melissa Ben-Ishay:They would give you the salad on the side. They would cook the pizza just with the tomatoes and the bacon on it. Yes. And then you would get to put this delicious dressed lettuce all over it. How do you feel about salad pizza? I feel like my memory of it is so much better than it probably actually was. I think that's right. I love salad pizza. But there's like, like the pizza shop in my town made the best salad pizza. Yeah, same. We have a really good one that's like. Also cold and hot. Cold and hot. What I will say, let's give a shout out to California Pizza Kitchen and to Cheesecake Factory.

34:12Because I feel like those two were the first to really like lean in on the like meal based salad celebration. I remember the first time I ever got a salad at Cheesecake. Cheesecake Factory. The monster. And I think it was probably the Asian chicken.

34:27Melissa Ben-Ishay:hold the oranges. No, I would eat the oranges. I've loved having you. Thank you for coming and come back anytime. Thanks so much for joining Snacks. Please make sure to like and subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts and follow at Snacks Podcast wherever you get your social.