613: Food Is Funny with Former Simpsons Showrunner Bill Oakley

24:05And it's not just like fast. There's like 25 channels. There's like fast food. There's vegan food. There's barbecue. There's a lot of stuff. A lot of people who are real serious cooks in there, like barbecue chefs and stuff. And there's also people who are kind of internet food types like Barry Enderwick from Sandwiches of History and Jonathan Mays, who's the editor in chief of Restaurant Business Magazine. Mike Harris, former head chef at McDonald's, are in there from time to time. And so it's my source for food news. I used to read all these different blogs, but now all that stuff is on this Discord.

24:34So it's a great club. Anyway, and then I also have things like this. Everything has – anything with the word steam in it is something that's connected to me. In my culinary, I have the steamies. I also have steamed hams, hamburgers. And I think I have another thing, which I'm forgetting about. The speaking series, the dinner series? Yes. That doesn't really have steamed hams in the title, but the dinner series is my undertaking for this year. And so you are hitting the road. Plenty of Simpsons fans in the house, of course, but also food fans. How do these shows, I guess you're like shows slash dinners work when we buy a ticket?

25:08Okay. For me, this is very exciting because it's the first thing I've done that's kind of a business enterprise that is not some stupid TV thing. The TV business has collapsed, as we all know. And I'm excited. Except for you do a great show on, you know, an audio series. That's true. That's not TV, though. We can get to that later. We'll get into it later, yeah. But the, okay, so we did, this way that this originated was after The Simpsons, Josh and I did another show called Mission Hill, which was on the WB network back when that existed. With the frog. Yes. Yeah. And it was canceled after two episodes.

25:38But it was then resuscitated by Adult Swim when Adult Swim was first invented. And they ran all the episodes we made, all 13 episodes, over and over and over for years in like 2006. Oh, people fucking love Mission Hill. Yeah. It's one of those shows. And it's shocking because, and we never heard anything about that either. and then we suddenly learned that there's a pretty serious cult fan base. It's very small, but they're very serious about it. And what we discovered is that there's probably about 200 people in every city. So we were on tour last year. We had a producer, a very good producer, who set up these events.

26:10And Josh and I went on a tour of like 25 cities. You can't see the show on streaming or anything. Really? Yeah, showing it on movie theaters. And then Josh and I would do a Q &A, talk about the behind-the-scenes stuff to audiences. And we went to like 25 cities. And this is how this whole thing began. Because every city we went to, and I'm talking about cities like Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Dallas, et cetera, et cetera. Good ones. Those are good ones. Good cities. Yeah. I was like, I want to go here. And while we're not doing the show, I want to eat everything. I can't get anywhere else. Yeah. So I'd always be like, where's the best?

26:40Obviously, where's the best cheesesteak? Very controversial in Philadelphia. But like, for instance, in Pittsburgh, I went to have the Ohio Valley style pizza, which is that style of pizza that has cold cheese on top of it and cold toppings. And it's so weird. It always shocks everybody when they hear that this exists. So I had that in Pittsburgh and I had dozens of other things like that throughout the year. And then I came back to Portland. I was like, why can't you get these things in a restaurant anywhere? Like, you know, we can get Chicago style hot dogs, although they're not authentic and we can get Detroit style pizza.

27:11But that's it. And there's hundreds of these regional dishes all over the country that are really good that aren't sold outside the region. So my thinking was, let's set up a ticketed dinner series. I will give a funny talk, be a funny slideshow. There'll be Simpsons anecdotes. There'll be talks about the history of these unusual food items. And we'll collaborate with restaurants around the country. So we started in Portland. It was a huge success. We sold out two nights in a couple of hours. And the event was quite a success. And fun, I would imagine. I think it was fun. It was fun. It's fun to tell these stories.

27:43It's fun, yeah. I tell these stories. There's Simpsons stuff for people who like that, but there's also serious food stuff that is kind of like, you know, things that I've learned about the unusual styles of pizza and surprising things. So we serve a seven-course meal of dishes that you – I'm not going to say what they are because the secrecy is part of the fun. Very good. When I roll these out and I say, here's your boom, Altoona-style pizza, for example. And then – so I'm doing them now. I have at least 12 cities already. already so far. What's coming out like in May, June? Do you have anything?

28:13San Diego, most likely Boston, Atlanta, probably Cincinnati. And this is going to think, if you follow my, you have to follow my socials on ThatBillOakley on every platform and you'll find out. But those are the ones that are gelling right now. And then we have, I have them, they're all in the process of being set up, but I'd say there'll be at least 12 to 15 before October. Love that. Because they seem super organic and original and real and when events get to corporate, they just aren't fun. This is fun. It's a real kind of like get your fingers into the tactile. Into the Altoona pizza. Yes, you get to taste it.

28:51It's a fun night for everybody. I have more television food-related questions. You wrote on Portlandia, which I know was more of an improvisational show, but there was definitely some outlines there. Food is so present in this series. I adore the show. I love it. Between the farting patio, the farm to table restaurant, that chefs at the photo shoot bit. Oh, my God. So good. There's the chef's table parody. And of course, cacao is a safe word. Oh, yeah. Steve Buscemi as a unlucky celery salesman. So many ways that food played a role in Portlandia. When you're on the writing staff, how are you bringing food to the show?

29:29The start of the writing staff, I can see during the art, my time there is one person. it's literally that the the show is fred carrie john kreisel who's the head of the director basically the showrunner and he's the director and then one writer and it's me and there's sometimes another writer who comes on it was me for one season it was someone else for another season and it's really just a lot of like shooting the shit honestly like about things and fred and carrie it has to come from their imagination and what happens is we would do things like the only food one i really was involved with was was brunch village oh which i think it was second season, which I wrote the entire outline for.

30:04I mean, they made most of it up, but I sort of structured it into its bits and pieces and turned in an outline for it. And then a lot of it has to do with the Portland food culture, which both at that time and now is extremely complex and is extremely, it's almost laughably self-indulgent in certain ways. And that's where the humor came from. Yeah. I mean, one thing about Portland too, which I think is a big positive aspect of the city, It's extremely local. There's like very few national chains dotting the landscape. And that creates these these like monocultures, these subcultures. This creates these these these paradoxes.

30:47For sure. And I like, as a guy who sometimes is doing fast food things, it's interesting because we don't have, we have a paltry amount of fast food chains there. And there's so many other ones that I would love to try on a regular basis, like Culver's and Freddy's and so forth that we don't have. That would be a six hour drive to the nearest one. But we have, but instead I have 100 terrific hamburgers within a 10 minute drive. You would drive six hours for a Culver's? Maybe. I'm into it. I love Culver's. I do too. I love Culver's. Oh, I love you. But the nearest one is in Idaho, and it would be six hours.

31:20And I don't – I'd rather – we have so many great hamburgers where I live, but I do love Culver's. Yeah, no, Culver's is amazing. So when you're thinking about your channels and creating the Steamy Awards, which we're going to talk about, are you doing a lot of just going to a city and research? How does your research process work? I do a lot of research. I read a lot of – when I say let's see what we're going to. a certain city. Like I went to Phoenix, like just on vacation a couple weeks ago. First of all, I do a ton of research. I read Eater. I read every single thing that Eater has ever written about this place, the 38.

31:56And then I also like, I go through Reddit and it's like best, best hot dogs, best fast food, best places that you wouldn't otherwise know with Phoenix. And then I also put it out on my Instagram and usually Twitter. I say, where should I go in Phoenix and what should I have? And then what I do as I make a chart, which, how many, how many recommendations did this place Yeah. Take two or three. I've done that too. And it works great. And so I usually go to the places that have the most recommendations. And I never am disappointed with them. And it's usually just a matter of like how much can I spend on an Uber, you know?

32:27Like some of them are too far away to go to. Right. But I've had – in Phoenix I had a great time. And I actually was invited by another influencer, quote-unquote influencer who saw me, invited me to watch her throw out the first pitch at the Oakland A's. I guess it's the Vegas A's now. Training camp. And we had like a food adventure at the stadium that they put on. It was great. I saw that video. I was like, how did that happen? Like the DMs? Yeah. Somebody tagged her in the post where I said, where should I go in Phoenix? So fun. I know. It was great. So that's the kind of thing that I'm always open to experiences like that when I go to other cities.

33:01Yeah. I like that you're not like an L.A. guy, right? You're not like jaded like that. You're very open-minded. You're very, you know, I would say inquisitive about food culture. And with the Steamy Awards, which I think are a fun package, you have guest celebrity, you know, I would say presenters for the awards. Talk about a few of the 2024 Steamy Award winners. Okay. Just so you know, with my Instagram, at the end of every year, I do an award show, which is called the Steamy's. Again, in honor of steamed hams. The Steamy's. No awards. Just the Steamy's. 10, 10, there's 10, basically one minute long award presentations for things that I have had throughout the year.

33:43And I usually get a celebrity of some caliber. Sometimes we've had huge celebrities like Jeffrey Wright and Jake Tapper and things like that. And then sometimes I'm like, I want to do it. I want to do it myself or I want to have friends do it, podcasters, members of the Steamed Ham Society. But it's recapping the best and the worst of the year. And they're on my Instagram. And so this year there were some, the disappointment categories are always the most popular. And the Doughboys always award the Doughboys. They're good. They always award the disappointment of the year. So this year, disappointment, we had a grocery disappointment of the year, which was the Olipop banana cream soda.

34:20And I'm not a big fan. I know you guys, this culinary world is being swamped by these probiotic and prebiotic sodas. And I can't hear about them. I care about them every 10 seconds. I know. I've only had one or two in my whole life and I didn't like them. and my friend David Cohen, who you may know as one of the creators of Futurama, David X. Cohen, said, my wife found this soda. It's the worst soda we've ever had. And I was like, I have to try it. And I did, and it's, but, like, I can't express this enough. Some people claim they like it, but I've never had any product that tasted so atrocious.

34:54No, Olipop banana is trash. Hands down, absolutely trash. I will defend Olipop in some way. Uh-huh. There's one that I really love, which is the fake Mountain Dew one. Oh, wow. They're basically doing Mountain Dew. It's very good. I also like the cola. I also like the fake Dr. Pepper. Yeah. Goodwin's Cola, Goodwin's Soda. I'm an Ollipop defender, obviously. Do you find it's good for your digestion? Oh, my God. The macros point to a good digestive day with the fiber. As Andrea Hernandez famously calls it, it's millennial metamucil, as some have said. I love Andrea Hernandez's stuff. Yeah, her stuff is great.

35:34She's such a treasure. And do I like it? I actually prefer like sparkling water or mineral water like flat mineral water if I'm going to pay money for things like that. But on the good side of the steamies like what were some 2024 winners for their excellence? Man, I'll tell you it's condiments. It's condiments are my Like, that's the hardest category because there's always 20, at least 20 contenders for condiments. And sometimes I break it into like hot sauces and things like that and whatever. But this year, for me, it was the clear winner was this product called Slausa, which you may have seen at the event.

36:14Did you get to try this? I don't think I saw it. The name is tripping me. I know. People have, I definitely think the name is a little controversial. It sounds like a Simpson joke, frankly. It does. But it's basically kind of like, well, they call it Slausa because it's part slaw and part salsa. but it's also really kind of like a sour sweet sauerkraut. I like it. I like what you're saying. And man I love that stuff and like you can put it, it's incredible on hot dogs but I put it on eggs, I put it on everything and I also just eat it right out of the jar and that product was at the fancy food show that we were at and I've been a huge fan.

36:49That ran away with the award but there's I've had some other great hot sauces and things like that haven't, that you know That was by far the most significant award winner this year. Yeah. Back to the bad. It seems like White Castle did a frozen product. That was the year before. Okay. I want to say, I love White Castle frozen sliders. Really? And I've been a huge... Oh my God. They're so good. I've been eating them. I literally have been eating them since I think 1987 or whenever they came out. I'm not kidding. It's only 40 years now. I wonder if anybody has a still frozen one from 1987. I bet you they do.

37:32Put the call out, Bill. You could get that. You could get that. Put it in the Discord. I think you're right. Let's get that. That's got to be, that would be something I probably wouldn't want to try. But they, okay, so I love those microwave frozen sliders they make. And they're actually, having now had White Castle at the restaurant several times, I would say the sliders, microwave sliders are just about as good. They're 90 % as good. And they're better than some of the ones like that terrible White Castle in Las Vegas, which makes the worst White Castle food in the world. But they, I love those.

38:01So, and I was excited as hell when they came out with these little ones. This was in 2024. Little ones that are, they're exactly the same size and shape as pizza rolls, Totina's pizza rolls, but they're filled with ground up hamburger. That is insane. Ground up cheeseburger, right? And - They're like a roll or they're like a little mini slider, like one of those - They're not hamburger shaped. Oh, they're like spring rolls. They're little puff pastry things like Totina's pizza rolls. Oh, I see. That are filled with ground up cheeseburgers. And I was like, these are going to be my new favorite thing.

38:29And they're so bad. They both, they smell like cat food. And I haven't eaten cat food, but I do have four cats. But they taste like cat food, must taste. And I'm so shocked that they're still on the market today. And everybody that I know who's tried them, including dozens of people online, agrees with me. So that product, yeah, that was a miss. That was a huge miss. Have you vibed with Dennis Lee, a.k.a. Dicko Dennis? I'm friends with Dennis Lee. You know that? Of course. Yes, Dennis Lee and I have hung out several times. In fact, he gave me a Chicago hot dog tour. Oh, you and Dennis have IRL'd?

39:08I was just thinking that man knows his way around a cat food recipe. He's done the work, shall we say. We have hung out at least twice. He's the best. He's such a smart guy. I love him. Yeah, he's great. We went out to lunch a couple times, and then he also took – and his wife took me out for a Chicago-style hot dog tour last time I was there. Oh, that's great. I love that. I was just thinking, like, cat food. Like, this is the guy who dug into that. Oh, yeah. No, sure. Bill, what's your dream food TV show? What do you mean? For you to do – For me to do. For you to, like, produce, for you to, like, write, for you to star in, for you to animate.

39:44I'm giving you a bra. Okay, it wouldn't be animated. It would be a show that would be somewhere between, starring me, that's somewhere on the spectrum between Somebody Feed Phil and Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, starring me. I see. But it would be funnier than both of those shows. Wait, Phil's taking some strays on this. No, Phil is very funny. He's funny. I would say. He's really funny. I would have my show probably be more funny in kind of a Letterman type of way. Follow. I follow. And you were not being negative towards Phil, to be clear. I went the wrong direction. No, no. Phil's very funny.

40:12Phil's very funny. Phil's very funny. But I think mine would have more scripted pieces. and so forth. And, you know, it would be about things. There would be a lot more. Let me put it this way. There would be a lot more negative material than there is on Phil's show. His show is generally about appreciation of things. And I think mine would be a mix of stuff of like both atrocious material and delicious material that would be funny. And, you know, what I think of as the apex of stuff that I liked in this vein was Letterman's scripted pieces from the 90s. And he did a number of food ones, like where he worked at the McDonald's drive-thru window, for example.

40:47That was good, classic. That type of thing. And I think my show would be like that. Into it. Where are we at with the development? How far are we with this? Like, this conversation is - Or nowhere. If anyone listens to this, I'd say the TV, the market for TV food shows right now is very geared towards competition shows. I know. And competition shows are cheap because the people don't have to, you don't pay them anything. Your show can be cheap. It could be, but then it might as well be on YouTube. Yeah, true. That's the thing. It's like, unless, let's say Netflix were to buy the show and then promote it, it'd probably do just as well on YouTube.

41:17That's part of the thing. You got to do OTT. You got to get on one of those cool channels that maybe has a little bit less of a barrier entry and doesn't feel like it's... Well, should people from those channels be listening? You can DM me on Instagram. Yeah, let's do it. Let's get this in works and have you back. Well, I love this conversation. You're appearing all over the country this year. Have you thought about a cookbook? Thought about a food book? I have thought about a cookbook, but I'm not really a chef. Yeah. But I could compile recipes from various sources. I haven't given it any serious thought.

41:52Okay. Well, let's talk. Okay. I got ideas. It doesn't have to be a cookbook. You don't have to be a chef. I've written cookbooks. I'm no chef. Okay. Excellent. Just to be clear. Bill, this is Taste Best. Guest about the discerning taste. So to close this interview, here's a little rapid fire, fast and furious taste check. Are you ready? I'm ready. The best fruit? Huckleberry. Never had that answer. What's the flavor? It's almost like somewhere between grape and blueberry. If you remember, like, I didn't even know what it was for about 40 years. I was like, this flavor, I must have had it in some sort of fake kid's product when I was a kid.

42:23And I was like, that's the flavor I've been looking for my whole life. It tastes like purple. That's all I can say. If you can imagine what purple tastes like not being grape, it just, it has a rich, luscious, fruity flavor that is somewhere between grape and blueberry, which I love. And it's very common in the Pacific Northwest. Love that. The worst vegetable. Cauliflower. I've tried so many times to like it and so many different versions of it, and I can't get past the weird, bitter part of it. Half a cup of olive oil. Roast that in high temp. Oh, I've tried it. Zaatar, lemon, maybe sumac. Not feeling it.

43:00Maybe some tahini. I would even have broccoli. You know, I didn't like broccoli for years, and I finally came around on broccoli doing it in that way. That's the way to do it. I love it. What's your typical breakfast? Two sunny-side-up eggs with a ton of hot sauce. Depending on which hot sauce I'm trying. And I have a long list. I just cleared out my hot sauce collection, and there were over 100 bottles of ones. Do you have like a hot sauce fridge? I did, but it got too big. It got too full. So I got rid of the ones that were too old. And now I have it. It's down to 20. But I used to have over 100.

43:29And I'm always trying new ones. So it's basically, it's two sunny-side-up eggs. I like them that way more than any other way. And it's a great, I'll just cover them with hot sauce, whichever one I'm trying. that day the best dessert some sort of like apple crumble type thing that i can't get over the i love it when there's like warm i you know hot apple pie with vanilla ice cream but i like it when there's extra super streusely crumbly stuff yeah well you like a crumb versus uh like a lattice yes like absolutely i want more of that stuff also cheesecake but it has to be cheesecake with the crust that's like three times thicker than a regular yes graham crackers and stuff that I actually make that.

44:10Exactly. I think you can only do it when you're making it. Yeah. And I put in two or three times as much graham cracker crust as you're supposed to. Oh. A homemade pressed in graham cracker crust. Yeah. But like doubling it. Absolutely. That's the move. I agree. Is there a restaurant you wish you could bring back from the dead? Yes. It's a food cart from Portland called Off the Leash, which did scrupulously careful Chicago things. Yeah. They had the only canonically perfect Chicago dog in town, Italian beef, all that stuff. And they had all the sodas. They had everything. And they went out of business.

44:45We call it pop in the Midwest, just saying. Okay. All right. Sorry, pop the Faygo and all that stuff. They had so much of that stuff and it's gone. But I would say that's a very, very ultra local thing that was my thing. In terms of bigger places, I want to try Burger Chef. I wanted to come back from the dead in 1979 so I could try it. I would like to try Hotten now. And I know there's one still somewhere. Yeah, Sturgis, Michigan. I could go on long about that, but it is in Sturgis, Michigan. I grew up eating hot now. The olive burgers there are legendary. And yes, right on the Indiana border, Sturgis, Michigan, the only remaining hot now.

45:21Let's go there together. I'd love to. Also, Rax Roast Beef. Wow. We could do a whole episode on Rax. I love that Rax has come up. Yes. Phil, you came to play with this question. Rax is such an iconic roast beef chain. Thank you for saying that. Why do you like Rax? I've never been there. The idea of Rax, sorry. Because I like Arby's and I would like to have a more elevated version of Arby's, which I think Rax was. Certainly right. This is like brings me such joy that you brought up Rax. My childhood is coming back to me. Big question for you. When you're craving fast food, what's your first stop?

45:55Well, if I'm anywhere within 600 miles of one, it would be Culver's or Freddy's, but I'm not. So generally it will be Arby's. Honestly, most of the time I would like to go to Arby's, but it's not close. A lot of it's determined by how close the thing is. You're in a fast food desert, Bill. I am. And I don't like to complain about it because we're so, in Portland, we're so blessed to be surrounded by so much great local, grown food within, like, the whole area. All our food comes from within 100 miles. But are you, Bill? You like fast food. You're in a fast food desert. We have a lot of places that I have to, I got to stay the party line with this one.

46:33You are. We have a lot of places that make fast food style things in Portland that are elevated. But that said, sometimes I would like to get my food real quick at a drive-thru. And in that case, I would go to Wendy's or I would go to McDonald's. Favorite city outside America to visit for food? So honestly, I never go outside of America. Really? If I did go, it would probably be someplace like Warsaw. because having tried so many different types of regional food, what I loved was the Polish food that I had in Pittsburgh and I had in Detroit, and I can't get enough Polish food. That is part of this book idea.

47:10Wow. Thinking about American food going overseas. We got a riff on this. Okay, cool. Last one, your favorite sandwich. This is from another place in Portland, but I'll tell you I have two. I want to have two ends of two. Okay, a place in Portland called Sammich makes a sandwich called the Pastrami Zombie. with their house-smoked pastrami, Swiss cheese, a ton of coleslaw, and Thousand Island and or mustard, or both. My favorite sandwich. Amazing. Everybody has to get that. But I also have a sandwich that I make at home, which is a kind of— somebody correctly called it kind of an Americanized Cubano, which is a grilled ham and cheese sandwich with pickles and Coleman's mustard.

47:49It has to be Coleman's mustard because it's so intense. And that sandwich is—and also Duke's mayonnaise. So that sandwich is my favorite sandwich to make. And I have a recipe, by the way, that you can DM me on Instagram and I'll send you for that sandwich. Bill Oakley, please come back. You're always invited. We will do 30 on racks. I will come prepared. I love this conversation. Thank you so much for joining This Is Taste. Hey, my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

48:19This Is Taste is hosted and produced by Eliza Abarbanal and me, Matt Rodbar. The show is edited by lead producer Clayton Gumbert and supervised by Pat Stango, director of media production and development at Penguin Random House. Thanks to Shalia Harris and the production team at Penguin Random House. Theme music by Steve Rydell. Logo and guest illustrations by Ellie Skrzat. Visit Taste Online at tastecooking.com and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter to keep updated on all cool things in the world of taste.