993 – My Favorite Rolls

Notable Language:

• Kaiser Roll
• Yarmouth Rolled
• The Archetypal Patriarch

Notable Culture:

• Seinfeld
• Aladdin
• Othello

Notable Talking Points:

• Who’s your favorite Iago?
• There’s gumbo inside that bun
• Let’s reinvigorate Powdered Donuts

Episode 993 – My Favorite Rolls

 

[START OF RECORDING]

 

SCOOTER:    Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, friends beyond the binary, and my patron peeps; hello, patron peeps.

 

INTRO:    [INTRO MUSIC] Hey, are you up all night tossing, turning, mind racing?  Trouble getting to sleep?  Trouble staying asleep?  Well, welcome.  This is Sleep With Me, the podcast that puts you to sleep.  We do it with a bedtime story.  Alls you need to do is get in bed, turn out the lights, and press play.  I’m gonna do the rest.  What I’m going to attempt to do is create a safe place where you could set aside whatever’s keeping you awake.  It could be thoughts you’re thinking about, things on your mind, maybe thoughts about tomorrow or yesterday or a while ago or just thoughts that just keep coming up and keep changing.  That happens to me.  It could be feelings like emotions related to those thoughts or that are just there from the day.  It could be physical sensations or changes in time or temperature or routine.

 

You know, life…stuff like that.  Whatever it is that’s keeping you awake, I’d like to take your mind off of that and keep you company while you fall asleep.  What I propose to attempt to do is…I got a safe place here set aside for you.  I’m gonna rub it, I’m gonna pat it…I’m gonna pat it, I’m gonna rub it, and I’m gonna rub it down and I’m gonna say safe place, ‘cause I got mixed up.  I don’t know my BBDs from my BVDs.  But then I’m gonna send my voice across the deep, dark night.  I’m gonna use lulling, soothing, creaky, dulcet tones, pointless meanders, superfluous tangents.  So, what that means is I’m gonna go off-topic, I’m gonna get mixed up, I’m gonna repeat myself, I’m gonna…my logic is gonna be…there may not be very much logic; flawed logic at best.

 

Then I’m gonna remember a story about the…about…oh boy, the children’s play that never was.  My role as a roll.  It was a good one where I played a role as a roll.  These are my…a few of my favorite rolls.  I guess that’s what tonight’s episode’s gonna be about.  So, that’s interesting.  So, oh boy, oh, so I get mixed up, I’ll go off-topic.  So if you’re new, a few things to know other than I have creaky, dulcet tones and I don’t make a lot of sense, first thing is most people…it takes two or three tries to get used to this show, or…because it’s just so different.  If you’ve arrived at this podcast skeptical or doubtful or a little bit grouchy or just like, I don’t know what the…what is…that’s totally normal.

 

I just want to validate those feelings because I would be skeptical if someone told me some dude’s gonna tell a story and put you to sleep, but it’s not really a story and the story never really gets started, and it kinda peters out.  First he talks for like, fifteen or twenty minutes about the…how he makes…he introduces the podcast in a very inefficient way and I love this show so much, so you should check it out.  So, if you’ve heard someone, that’s usually word-of-mouth for the podcast.  You just have to listen to it but you don’t really listen to it.  So, if you’re feeling different or unsure or skeptical, that’s totally normal.

 

I would say that most people that listen to the show on a regular basis say give it two or three tries, because that’s how long it takes to just kinda give up on it ever making any sense or to kinda give in, like go with the flow or whatever, stop swimming.  I don’t know.  But that’s the next thing I want you to know, is this is not a podcast you really listen to for content.  It’s more you listen to it kinda like one step above background noise.  So, you kind of just kind of barely listen.  A lot of…one analogy that I’ve used in real life, and I don’t know if…when I talked about this in a intro at all, but there’s different times when I had delivery jobs or I was doing chores…one of my favorite memories is raking leaves with my father.  My father would play college football on the radio.

 

I guess that was where I had a positive association with it, even though raking chores with my father was not a pleasant experience.  Maybe jumping in the leaves after, but chores just aren’t…they have to get done.  But then throughout my life, I would put on sports like baseball, particularly for…when I had delivery driving jobs or install jobs throughout my life and baseball could be on during the week during the day.  It made for just a comforting background noise.  A lot of times people say, what’s the score of the game?  I would just stare at them, like what game are they…?  What?  Who’s winning?  The A’s winning?  That’s literally 99% of the time…I say hm, I don’t…I was just listening to Bill King talk about ATM machines, actually.  So, that was…that’s kinda like the podcast.

 

That’s literally what most couples talk about at breakfast, if they talk about this podcast at all.  They say, what was Scooter talking about last night?  I think he said he was the king of ATM machines or maybe he…something with rolls and ATM machines.  I don’t know.  It was great.  I slept so good.  So, this is just kind of a podcast you passively listen to, so that’s one thing.  The other thing is it doesn’t really put you to sleep, either.  I’m here to keep you company.  I’m applying for the role of bore-friend or bore-bae or bore-bestie, bore-associate.  It could be something less than friend, you know?  Bore on demand, bore-bud, bore…did I say bore-sib?  Bore-cuz…you know, any of those roles ‘cause I’m here to just keep you company while you drift off.  That’s why the episodes are about an hour.

 

Or actually, now they’re…most of them are well over an hour…is to give you plenty of time to fall asleep so you don’t say oh, I gotta fall asleep in the next thirty minutes, but also so that if you can’t sleep or you’re in your car and you’re having some stress, like you just found something out or you’re having a rough day during the day or you got some kinda rote task like raking you gotta do, I’ll be here to keep you company.  The best part is, you don’t…you can just barely listen to me.  So, I don’t know, that doesn’t make a lot of sense either but if you can’t sleep, I want you to know I’m here for you and I’m also here for you if you can sleep and you don’t listen to me.  So, it’s like a…those two things reinforce each other somehow around the podcast.  But I also want you to know there’s no pressure to fall asleep.

 

I’m gonna be here keeping you company, barely…I’ve been barely entertaining people since 2013.  Put that on a shirt; Sleep With Me, Barely Entertaining Since 2013.  So, there’s that.  What else do you need to know?  Oh, structure of the show.  That can…oh boy, does that throw people off.  I understand it because I listen to a lot of podcasts; Sleep With Me is not structured like any of them because it has a purpose and it’s a little bit different.  So, our show starts off like a normal podcast would, with a greeting or…friends beyond the binary, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, roleplayers everywhere so you could feel seen and welcome in.  Then we have some listener support, then we have podcast support, sponsors, and that’s how we’re able to bring you the show for free.

 

That’s probably the first, I don’t know, six, seven minutes of the show.  Then from, whatever, minute seven to minute twenty, twenty-two, eighteen, there’s an intro.  The intro’s around…somewhere around twelve to twenty-two minutes.  The intro is me explaining what the podcast is like we’ve been doing for a little while here, trying to earn…establish some rapport, earn your trust so I can lose your attention, and just give you a general idea of what to expect and make you comfortable for the new listener, but all my regular listeners out there, what up?  All my pets; what up fishes?  What up gerbil-based beings?  Hamsters, can I get one of those cute sounds you make when you listen to Sleep With Me?  Yeah.  Oh boy, I love those hamsters.

 

Don’t worry dogs and cats, I love you as…you know, equally as all the pets that are listening right now or if only dogs and cats are listening, so much more.  [00:10:00] Pet your pets.  But so, the regular listeners know that the intro also serves a secondary purpose ‘cause for most listeners…there is a set of listeners that fall asleep right away but for most listeners, the intro, the first fifteen to twenty-five minutes of the show is part of your wind-down whether you’re in bed or you’re getting ready for bed or you’re doing some other relaxing activity while you’re listening.  The intro is here to ease you into bedtime, to get you comfortable.

 

Yeah, even if you’re in bed, you’re saying…people have their heads over…their pillows over their heads or their heads on their pillows and they’re just kinda barely listening to me…so that you get some distance from the day and you kinda sink in, get cozy, get comfortable, and then you drift off.  I’m not able to make a podcast that puts you to sleep very fast or efficiently.  It’s just not what I do, is…and it’s not whatever…it’s what never worked for me.  When someone said oh, you just do this and you fall right asleep, then I’d be up for hours.  So, Sleep With Me is bringing you in for a landing.  That’s what the intro…the secondary purpose the intro serves.  You could always start the show at twenty minutes or twenty-two minutes if you want to skip the intro, or you could support the show on Patreon and listen to story-only episodes.

 

Those come out twice a week for $5 and up patrons.  So, those are two options.  But yeah, 2% or 3% of people skip ahead to twenty, twenty-two minutes.  I think it went from 2% to 3% in the last few months that I’ve been mentioning it.  So, that’s another 1% of people that are satisfied, maybe.  So, that’s the intro.  Then there’s business between the intro and the show.  That’s how podcast business works.  That’s called the mid-roll, and those are sponsors that help me bring you the show twice a week.  You can always when your hand hits the fridge tomorrow say oh, I’m gonna check out the sponsors because I was in bed on Scoot…on the website sleepwithmepodcast.com.  But so, there’s business there, then there’s our story.

 

Apparently…I thought I was recording something else, but we’re gonna record…what is that?  Rolls of My Life or something?  These Are a Few of My Favorite Rolls?  So, that should be interesting.  So, I don’t know…we’ll be talking about that in some way tonight later.  Then there’s thank-yous at the end of the episode, so that’s the structure of the show.  It serves a purpose and I realize that a lot of people use Sleep With Me in a lot of different ways.  So, some people listen all night and for some people, that works for them.  For some people, they feel like just because the show’s not designed to be listen to all night, it can be disruptive.  We do design some things on Patreon to be listened to all night, just ‘cause it wouldn’t be sustainable on the free feed, but so, that’s an option if you listen to all-night, or a lot of people set sleep timers.

 

Actually, it’s very cute; in our statistics I can see when…the percentage of people whose sleep timers…like, I can’t see…this is just generalized information, so I can’t see when your sleep timer went off, but I can see a percentage of people at thirty minutes, at forty-five minutes, and at sixty minutes kinda drop off.  So, that’s cool.  So, that’s a sleep timer.  You could listen on your smart speakers via Pocket Casts or Google Podcasts or TuneIn, and then you could just tell your smart speaker to set a sleep timer.  So, I don’t know what that tangent…but that’s the structure of the show.  Then the reason I make the podcast is because I’ve been there.  Tossing and turning?  Yep.  Mind racing?  Yep.  Trouble getting to sleep?  Yep.  Trouble staying asleep?  Oh boy, last night I had that trouble.

 

I was able to…I’ve been talking about this #laying that…I was really…I had woke up…any time you wake up after 3:00 but before 6:00, that’s like a different kind of sleeplessness.  The sleepness between 12:00 and…if you wake up between 12:00 and 4:00, that has one feel ‘cause it’s the deep, dark night, but this early…late dark night…or I don’t know what to call it.  I’ll have to think up a term, but that kinda thing, that’s the worst for me ‘cause I say well, what am I gonna do now?  It’s between 4:00 and 6:00.  But I’ve been trying this #laying and actually, it’s helping me have some more hope or faith in things ‘cause really, what I do is I say well, I’m just gonna…you’ve heard me talk about it.

 

It kinda reminds me of…there was this show called Seinfeld that was really popular in the 80s…or in the 90s, and there was a character, David Puddy.  There was one time he was flying with his girlfriend Elaine somewhere, and he just sat in his seat and stared at the back of the seat in front of him.  She said what…do you need a magazine?  No, I’m just gonna sit here.  You don’t need something to do?  He goes no, I’m just gonna sit here.  I’m good.  That’s kinda what #laying is; you just lay there.  It does take some practice, and luckily with meditation or mindfulness…but usually I’m not even meditating.  I’m just saying well, I’m just gonna lay here, see if I could be comfortable, think of something nice, and try to relax and not try to fall asleep.  I’m just gonna lay here and see if I fall asleep, be comfortable, and stay relaxed.

 

I mean, that’s the key thing for me, is like okay, let’s just…let’s stay relaxed here.  It doesn’t always work.  I don’t even know it works the majority of the time, but last night it did work and I said, wow.  Then I woke up at the time I normally get up.  So, what was my point?  Oh, if you’re having trouble sleep…whatever you’re having trouble…sleeping is, the reason I…one of the main reasons I make the show is ‘cause I know how it feels and I know the frustration.  I know the agony.  I know the loneliness that can happen at certain hours or they’re just…disappointment; I mean, that’s how I felt today.  So, if I can help with that, it would be my honor because the thing is, you deserve a good night’s sleep.  You deserve some rest so that you can live your life and you can live it more fully and it can be more manageable.

 

That’s what I want for you and if that happens, one, it gives my life purpose but two, it makes our world a better place.  Now, incrementally, but it’s true.  If you’re rested and a little bit better, my world’s a better place to be in, and knowing I can help with that is really an honor.  Now, the flip side is I can’t do it for everybody, so give this show a few tries.  If it doesn’t work for you though, there’s a…I have sleepwithmepodcast.com/nothankyou and there’s other sleep podcasts on there you could check out, too.  So, that’s another option.  But you know, that’s why I make the show.  I want you to get some rest and I’m glad you’re here.  I really appreciate you checking the podcast out and taking the time.  I work really hard, I yearn and I strive.  I really hope I can help you fall asleep, and here’s a couple of ways I’m able to be here for you twice a week.

 

Alright everybody, it’s Scoots here and as promised or as I unexpectedly…as I didn’t expect, we’re gonna be…we have a special guest host coming on from the Cusack family, Reginald Cusack, old Reggie…or ole…O-L-E Reggie Cusack of the Cusack family who’s a designer, who’s gonna be talking about a new shop they’ve opened in…over in the transverse plane.  It’s called These Are a Few of My Favorite Rolls.  So, Reggie, why don’t you go over with us the concept and everything?  Tell us everything about it.  Oh, also, this is influenced by Night Five of the Baker’s Dozen from 726…I don’t even know what year it was now.  2020…2018?  2016, 2017?  Phish set from the Baker’s Dozen…were the shows they did one summer in Madison Square Garden.  So, without further ado, Mr. Reginald Cusack.  Oh, thank you, Scooter.

 

Thank you, everyone.  So good to be here to tell you about our new location, our new concept; These Are a Few of My Favorite Rolls.  It’s more than just a shop where we sell rolls.  It will be a place where you could go and fill…it’ll be a community space, obviously, a performance.  It’ll have opportunities for expression and being yourself and so many things.  So, the concept would be…it’s a bakery, and the sign…’cause a lot of people, especially Scooter, would say well, how are you gonna fit all that on a sign?  [00:20:00] I’d say well, it’s a giant roll or…we also sell buns, but we’re using a roll in a very wide usage of the word ‘roll’.  But so, it’ll say…it’ll be small, so you’d have to be looking at it to see These Are a Few of My Favorite Rolls, and then it’ll say Rolls in big, and Favorite will be slightly smaller than Roll.

 

I do have to say that we will be…we will…I’m not a expert on the song These Are A Few of My Favorite Things, so we are exploring well, will we have…so, we’re not…it’s not influenced by the song but we’re aware that some people may have that…expectations, so we will carry those things but that’s not really where my heart is, though it would be exciting; Whiskers on Kittens, Raindrops on Roses.  Those are all rolls we’ll have, yeah.  Bright paper packages tied up with string.  That, I think people would do when they check out.  They say well, here’s your bright paper packages tied up with string.  I don’t even know if that’s the lyrics.  Yeah.  Will we have Dog Bites?  Of course we will.  They’ll probably be spicy because…to have some bite to them, like a…we did debate this, my sister and I, but like a cinnamon or…yes.

 

We’re going…ideally the locations we open up in, we will be able to work with the community.  We’ll have…this will be an opportunity and we’re open to saying well, we’d like to…what if we…we have…already have a bakery; it’s a family bakery and our family’s part Vietnamese and part German, and those are the…and I say well, we can work with you.  We’d love to be in partnership with you.  When you do restaurants beyond your world, on the other side of the transverse plane, I mean, we have one in a little place called Transylvania, so…and not the one from the movies.  So, not what you’re thinking.  But people say well, I prefer that.  I say okay, well, we’ve got that going.

 

It would be a place you would go when you’re feeling sad, but we do…so, These Are a Few of My Favorite Rolls…we’ll also…the employees and the coworkers will have a chance to play a role.  Now, again, this is something my sister and I are disagreeing about because she says…and I know she’s wrong, so you could support me, or she’s not…she says cosplay is over, or she’s over cosplay.  She also kinda believes that it’s not widespread…I said well, it’s not gonna be a cosplay restaurant or a bakery…community space, coffee shop, my dear.  But we will allow…we will encourage cosplay, both…within certain parameters because that is a favorite role.  A lot of people say well, is your favorite role Iago or…?  Then some people would say well, which Iago?

 

Oh, you’re talking about Shakespearean and oh, I’m talking about Disanian.  I say well, I’m talking about neither.  Oh, okay.  Let’s have a…that’s the kind of thing you would sit down at These Are a Few of My Favorite Rolls and have a discussion about.  Now, I don’t know about plush, and I would say stay away from our displays.  Or maybe we’ll just have to…maybe that’ll be a creative constraint; we’ll have to make our displays cosplay-friendly so that people aren’t…that things aren’t getting knocked off when people…so, we will have certain things.  I don’t know.  This is a concept.  I said, this is a concept.  We’re still in the blue sky phases, though now we’ve moved on now that I’m announcing it on air.

 

I’m presuming that people will be lining up…if there was a way to line up at the transverse plane, to say well, where…and they’d say well, the problem is the bureaucracy of Scooter’s imagination.  If you’ve ever seen Brazil, that’s got nothing on Scooter’s mind.  There’s books in there that’ll never be published but are in the phases of being published.  So, we do have to get through that bureaucracy as well.  Oh, you want to know more about Scooter’s…well, there’s just a lot of piles of things, and then you get moved from…Scooter says well, I’m gonna…don’t worry Reginald, I’m gonna get to that pile of stuff.  But usually what Scooter does is he just…he says well, say I took this one pile and I made three piles out of it.  Now I’m gonna pile them into one pile.  I say okay, maybe a few years from now, Scooter.

 

Thank you for that.  So, but we’re excited because it’ll be a place where you could perform.  That’s what I’m…you could sing, but you could also…we’re thinking about having themed nights, and again, this is not something we’re fully in agreement on in my home.  When I say home, I mean the Cusack corporate offices.  I say, don’t make me call up one of the other…one of the famous Cusacks and have them weigh in on this.  Because I say well, if low-traffic times…like, what are the lowest…?  I don’t know.  I’ve never run a cafe or a bakery before but we’d say okay, well, if it’s a little bit slow, that would be the nights or the days or the afternoons where we’d have themed nights where you could go as your favorite role.  We could make those either community-driven experiences or we could have them be more curated.

 

We don’t know.  The Dickens Fair comes up.  But you know, I was thinking more of like, A Night on the Holodeck…it would be one thing.  Then we would have some of your favorite roles.  You’d say well, which Holodeck?  We say well, it’s a Holodeck, so you could be from any Star…you could be visiting from the Enterprise, whichever Enterprise you’re on, or…you could be visiting the Holodecks.  You say well, that’s why Riker’s there and Janeway.  You know what I’m saying?  That’s how you could compensate for that in your mind ‘cause you say well, I’m the William Riker.  That other William Riker is just a guest on this Holodeck for my…well, let me do a talk to that Riker and find out more.  Or maybe I shouldn’t.

 

So, those are just some of the concepts, but we want to roll out some of the…These Are a Few of My Favorite Rolls is what this episode’s call…and the place will be called.  But I don’t come on this show just to talk about generalities, even though those were very specific things that I’m excited about.  I’m excited but I’m also excited about these rolls because I’ve been working on them my whole life.  So, these are…when you say Reginald, what are…what do you mean when you say these are my…a few of my favorite rolls contextually?  I mean that…and you say well, are they your favorite rolls to eat or your favorite rolls to make or your favorite rolls to prepare?  Your favorite rolls to concoct or to serve to others?  I would say yes to all of those.  So, I want you to close your eyes and imagine a roll.

 

Again, we make these rolls from the inside out, not the outside in, just like everything we do at Cusack Enterprises.  You know, we’ve had many successful concepts we’ve communicated; Happily Enrobed, and now Your Favorite Rolls.  But I want you to picture a roll or see what picture comes up for you, but see when…on your inside, how it would feel to have something…it’s winter.  It’s a beautiful winter.  The winter is so beautiful, it is almost a spiritual experience.  I said almost to allow some vagueness for however you want to define that.  There’s something more about this winter.  Not only does it feel special and nearly spiritual or transcendent; there’s also a taste of nostalgia in there.  We call this roll the White Winter Hymnal.  [00:30:00] It’s a song that has been sung and covered, so sung again.

 

It’s a butterflake roll, which means it’s influenced by New England and the winters in New England, as beautiful as they are.  It’s made from several layers of dough that are arranged vertically and separated by thin butter layers.  Then what we do is we cook it in a muffin cup and the layers fan out at the top.  It’s been called a fantan roll, or a Yankee buttermilk roll.  But this one, of course, we take some time to add some colors and some non-specific things so that as it fans out, it’s like…when you look at it on a plate, a bone-white plate in this case, the roll is rising out of the plate like something rising out of the snow.  One of those trees you might see in a field and though it’s barren of leaves, it’s not barren in your heart.  It’s full of emotion, full of love of the winter, and it’s there in front of you.  You feel good when you see it.

 

Oh, but wait ‘til you eat it.  That is the White Winter Hymnal.  That’s a roll I’m…obviously I’m excited to tell you about.  Now, next up is…now, this is a roll…okay, how do I make you think about this?  Now, these rolls, these ones are gonna come in different shapes, but one thing we know is if…while this type of concept could work anywhere, a lot of times Cusack-based businesses, or CBBs as we call them, are better based in a…we do well in urban areas because we feel like the vibrancy and the interaction influence the location, but also provide a business for us.  But you know, that can come with some things like traffic, like noise.

 

Now, we consider that vibrant and it’s good, but you know, I’ve gotten caught in a traffic jam before, or I’ve been on a bus that is running behind schedule either picking me up or dropping me off.  So, we’re calling this collection of rolls, which you would get all…you would get a plate of these rolls.  They would come as a group and we call it Cars, Trucks, and Buses.  Now, these are considered…now, this is a miniaturized bap roll.  It’s a tender roll, it’s soft, it does contain…it’s rich with butter and lard.  We were going to shape them with the idea that you’re eating the traffic in some sense.  But we also have ones dated…different types of bap rolls again based on the influence of the areas we are.  So, it would be three different types, and we could change it.  You say well, the…there’s just Car, Truck, and Bus.  I say no, no, no.

 

You say okay, well, what if it was different regions of the UK or Europe or Vietnamese?  Or you say oh, like that family…I say well, you have some Vietnamese influences and some German influences.  Okay, let’s take those and combine them.  Oh, let’s make this season…these are the…this…so, this is the bus we have here and this is what’s…oh, there’s raisins inside.  Oh, and then there’s a car with currants, or you say well, that’s more…that one has a little bit of…and again, the salesmanship that could go on with that kinda thing, it would be very exciting.  Now, this next roll is called…it’s a roll; I call it My Soul.  But I do call it that…we do call it that just because I said well, that’s…I said, my soul in a roll.  I just like how it sounds.  Now that I’ve gone on a sleep podcast, I say…I don’t know.  So, this is a very simple roll.

 

Now, it’s a roll…and again, Scooter does have influence on our business.  I’m not gonna lie.  I heard him pondering one time about a kaiser roll and that he didn’t…he said okay, do those exist west of the Mississippi or was that something that was just a regional roll that was popular in Syracuse or was that pop…and I said, I don’t…Scooter, I don’t know the answers to those questions, but I do know that that’s the roll we’ve created.  It looks simple but the technique…so, it’s a soft roll and again, this is something we could prepare…something for…you could have it plain or with butter or with cheese, or you could have it as a sandwich.  We’ll say My Soul, and then it’ll say oh, that’s the kaiser roll, but this is what it looks like.

 

The top is very distinct because it’s made by folding four corners of a square inward so their points meet in the center of the roll.  It’s a soft, non-sweet roll, very good for sandwiches.  Sometimes it would have poppy seeds or sesame seeds or different variants; caraway.  But that is the roll we’re calling My Soul.  I guess in some ways you say okay, this is just a simple roll.  I don’t know, I find it playful to me.  Okay, next up is another roll that we’re doing.  This is called Roses Are Free, and the style of this roll is a Parker House roll, and…because again, these are my…a few of my favorite rolls.  This will be a rose-forward roll, but not overwhelming with rose.  It’d be evocative, so we don’t want it to taste…we want it to be rose-forward but not rose in your face.

 

So, what you do to prepare the roll is you flatten a ball of dough with a rolling pin, make it into an oval, fold the oval in half.  But the ingredients…you know, this will have ingredients, like this one is buttery and soft but we make it so it’s gonna be slightly sweet which makes that rose more comfortable.  Then it’s crispy on the outside, so the idea is to stop and smell the roses.  Again, we could design the top rose-like.  But so that when you break it up, that the aromatic of the rose is like you’re stopping and smelling the roses.  The Roses are Free.  So, that is something we’re excited about.  Now, this next roll or collection of rolls or buns if you will, in this case, is a sticky bun.  It’s called The Very Long Fuse because we’re going to be selling these in trays.

 

Now, you could…now, you can buy them by yourselves and we’ll say, do you want us to cut the fuse?  Just say cut the fuse.  But so, a sticky bun is a breakfast or sweet roll or dessert roll.  It’s rolled pieces of dough, brown sugar, cinnamon, that we make into a flat row…loaf.  Then we have something that…usually it has frosting on it, and that is the fuse.  It’s long; it’s…we do it in a way that it looks like one long fuse.  I don’t know, I think it would just be fun to say, cut you a fuse, gov’na?  So, that’s just something I’m excited about.  After that, our next roll is called the Gumbo, and it is a…we’re taking something which is…this one is one of our lunch rolls.  It’s a bun, technically, a Hong Kong style bun with gumbo on the inside.  Again, we will be buying…we won’t be making the gumbo in-house.

 

The goal would be to purchase the gumbo on a daily basis from a local proprietor or wherever our restaurant is made to have partnerships.  [00:40:00] This way, we could say we had…did have time to stash the gumbo in a bun.  Because you say, there’s gumbo inside that bun.  I’d say there is, and we’ve made the bun…again, we designed it even though it’s traditionally a Hong Kong bun, we did make some alterations on the inside of the bun and we will work with the liquids…levels to make sure it’s not a damp or soggy bun but that it’s still…again, it’s something…again, our test kitchens will be running.  But one we’re very, very, very excited about.  Now, this next roll is called the Yarmouth Road.  Some people might say Yarmouth Road, what does that mean?  I’d say well, it’s the name of a bun.

 

It’s technically a roll and that’s again gonna be used for a sandwich.  It’s basically a hoagie roll, and that’ll be again used…but it’d be Yarmouth Road, so you could…you’ll see that.  You say well, I’d like that sandwich and it comes in a Yarmouth Road.  It’d be pictures; we believe in pictures.  ‘Cause you say well, what kind of bun…what’s a hoagie?  I say okay, there’s a picture and here’s an actual physical representation of the bun.  Now, personally I like the idea of combining something like an onion roll with that hoagie roll for the Yarmouth roll…Road.  Yarmouth roll…rolled.  I was rolling down the Yarmouth roll.  So, I don’t know, again, she says can’t you keep it simple?  I say well, you’re the realist and I’m the…this is some sister that hasn’t appeared on the…it’s an imaginary sister, actually.

 

So, I have a twin sister.  I have a sister who I work with that I love working with.  She’s been on the podcast before, but I also have a sister in my mind, a twin sister, and that’s how I work with my internal critic.  So, when I’m speaking, this is all existing within me, and that’s okay.  We’re all people.  We’re all doing our best, whether you’re a maker of rolls or a maker of roads or you’re just listening and relaxing in bed.  It’s okay to be a person because we all are people.  So, next up is something for the morning.  It’s again around that…now, these are called…what are they called?  Donut holes is what they’re known as in other places, but not here.  We’re calling them Pebbles and Marbles.  Ideally we will have a method to give them a beautiful luster.

 

I think that we should have a pastry artist, an artiste in…so that these do look like…I mean, almost like planetoids or marbles or pebbles so that they’re delightful to view and not just to consume.  Again, we have to weigh out those costs and the time involved.  But I just think it’s another thing that could really add to the experience.  Again, it could be seasonal.  You say well, Venus is…now you can view it, so…okay, so these are the Pebbles and Marbles we have.  Ideally, it would be shorthand for our regular customers.  They say give me twenty-four of this month’s Pebbles and Marbles.  So, that’s just another one.  I don’t know, that’s just another thing we’re working on.  Now, this next one is called The Farmhouse, and originally this type of roll is known as a nudger.

 

It’s a long…and we’re gonna use these…’cause you say well, I’d like my sandwich in something a little bit more whole wheaty.  So, we’re using this nudger.  We’re making it…it used to be…it could be a soft white or brown roll.  These are popular in Liverpool, similar to a long finger roll, which means the roll was three times longer than it is wide.  So, you could get your sandwich in one of those which is not that different than a hoagie roll.  We’re not exactly…because we’re not…it won’t be…it’ll be a little bit longer than three…than it is wide.  But we could do that; it could be like, a little sandwich…not a slider ‘cause a slider’s ovular.  So, I don’t know.  But it’ll have…it’ll be very…it won’t be dense; it’ll be as airy as we can make it, but it’ll be a whole wheat roll, 100% whole wheat.

 

That again will be another offering with sandwiches and things like that, or breakfast, or dinner you could come in for, and that is The Farmhouse, just because that’s evocative of a…when you associate whole wheat.  Now, next up is called…what we’re calling…I’m calling The Tube, or just Tube though, not The Tube, which could be confusing.  My sister, she says well, that should have to be a London-type roll, then.  I said well, I had my own ideas about it.  What do you consider a London roll?  She says, isn’t that your job to figure…?  I say okay, well, maybe I’ll just stick with my version, then.  I’m a big fan of the lotus seed bun, so I said well, what if there was a long tube-like…instead of a lotus seed bun, it was a bit like a bun but prepared like a tube.  So, something…like, you might think of a finger-like pastry.

 

So, this is a sweet bun.  It’s steamed, prepared by…steamed.  It’s yeast-leven dough, it has lotus seed paste in there.  I just like Tube.  It’ll look like a tube.  That’s just something I wanted to do; I want to have a roll that looks like a tube and…because it’s These Are My Favorite Rolls.  You say well, what is it?  I say well, it’s like a lotus seed bun.  It’s delicious.  We could have many tubes to try out because some regions may say well, I don’t know what lotus seed tastes like and I don’t…and I say okay, well, here’s a little sample.  This is a little Tube.  Go ahead and try it.  I think what you’ll find is that you like it a lot and you’ll be ordering.  You’ll say give me a dozen Tubes, man.  I’d say, what are you here…you’re not here pulling Tubes out of my restaurant, are you?  So, that’s Tube.

 

Next on our proposal list is a roll I’m calling Carnini.  Carnini is more…it’s something a little bit lumpy.  It’s a roll we prepare in a muffin tin or muffin tins.  It’s small pieces…so, you say, why does Carnini look like a lumpy something?  I say well, actually, it is lumpy in some sense.  When you taste it, it’s not lumpy.  Oh, is it light and airy.  But we take little balls of dough and we place them all in a muffin tin and then as it bakes, the dough…the little balls fuse together and form a bun or a roll, in this case.  Oh, but this is gonna be one of our most airy doughs.  So, you say there’s nothing better than a Carnini with some butter.  You rip it open.  It’s one of those ones hot out of the oven and you put the bun on there…or the butter on and it’s steaming.  You might even do nonsense [GIBBERISH] when you eat it.

 

You say, what did you even say?  [GIBBERISH] is so good.  I say oh yeah, it’s a lumpy roll, but Carnini, it makes a lumpy roll visually.  But so, I think you’ll enjoy that one.  I hope you do.  After that, our next roll is called the Mr. Completely, and the Mr. Completely is actually a pack, another pack, because this we could sell all year long, but I particularly am thinking during the spring and summer and early autumn season.  It may be a character…[00:50:00] and I’ve gotten some internal and external push-back from the idea of having characters, but I picture a character named Mr. Completely who is a bit of a foible, the archetypal patriarch in some sense, but with so many…where you say well, that’s…and I say yeah, it’s a bit of a caricature, whatever that word is.  So, this is a set.

 

You say, give me two packs of Mr. Completely.  It’s for when you BBQ, and not a fancy BBQ.  It’s basically hamburger buns and hot dog buns.  You might say who…anyway, tell us a little bit…and I say well, the hamburger bun, it only dates back to 1916.  Walter Anderson, who ended up co-founding White Castle, was credited with inventing the hamburger bun.  But we’ll also have hot dog buns.  They’ll be…I don’t know.  Just to make it easier when…and more fun to order, but also fresh-baked.  Once you’ve had these breads from our…you’ll say, these are…the Mr. Completely comes with hamburger and hot dog buns, and these are a few of my favorite rolls.  I guess secretly I am hoping that Mr. Completely catches on and that people would pretend to be Mr. Completely.  I just think that would be fun for me.

 

Now, this next roll is called 1999 and if you’re like me and you wear the purple and you always feel like on New Year’s Eve you want to party like it’s 1999 because you feel so strongly about Prince…and maybe we’ll sell this on a purple plate or something, but it’s really…it’s a traditional hot cross bun which is a sweet spiced bun.  When I think of Prince, that’s what I think of; sweet, spiced, and buns.  We make it with some…well, there’s…the first varietal would be an apple cinnamon, but we do plan on again basing it on seasonal availability.  We could have…for Prince’s birthday, we could try something with a purple…I don’t know, what could we do?  A taro or maybe some beet…just a little bit…I don’t know, but we would…again, the hot cross bun, it could…and we…of course we’d do one for those who practice Good Friday.

 

That would be a different hot cross bun.  But yeah, so that would be for 1999, because it is so sweet and spicy and it has…it’ll have a nice icing on it.  So, that’s 1999.  Then another bun we’re gonna have is steamed buns.  Not steamed…not Prince’s buns…Prince’s buns may be steamy, but steamed buns which will be again for breakfast and lunch.  You say, again, we’ll be working ideally with local vendors and even local restaurants to say okay, well, this is the filling we’re doing in this steamed bun.  This is our breakfast steamed bun, this is our dessert steamed bun.  You know, a lot of people are familiar with a BBQ beef steamed bun, but we’re going to take this to the next level.  But you could just order an order of steam.  Say, give me a steam with a side of…with a tea…you know, of tea and steam.

 

Again, we’ll have today’s…and we’re gonna be working too to make sure we have offerings that are vegan and vegetarian and gluten-free every day so you have plenty of choices.  Whatever your preference is, you say hey, give me that gluten-free, vegan steam with a side of…with some steamy water.  I say, you got it.  Double steam coming up.  Now, our next roll again will be sold in packs so you could buy it individually, called No Quarter.  Again, this is gonna…something that comes with a tradition, and we’re going to have…one of the ways we’re gonna make things fun is to have our own printer locally, ideally.  We’re gonna do parchment paper with instructions about the history of the rolls we’re making and the influence of the…what the…the ingredients, the influences, why they’re titled the way they are, and also fun things.

 

The whole idea of going…These Are a Few of My Favorite Rolls is to have something…another favorite experience.  So, No Quarter is just simply initially a tray of dinner rolls.  I mean, they will be the best dinner rolls you’ve ever had.  The idea is that the dinner rolls are pull-apart dinner rolls.  But it comes with a sheet of paper talking about how, as…just like people pull apart the wishbone, that you should pull apart these rolls together as a part of a…just a short apology service and say okay, I’m sorry for any ways I’ve hurt you.  Then everybody pulls their rolls apart.  They all say it at once together, and maybe they all create space in their heart.  It’s not to get too deep into it; you don’t want to start getting really deep into an immense process at the beginning of dinner when you’re pulling apart rolls.

 

It is more of a symbolic thing, though it should have some depth and feeling to it.  That’s No Quarter.  Now, we can’t have rolls without having a little bit of fun, so the next roll is called Character Zero, and the reason it’s called Character Zero is because it’ll be…this again will be something we’ll be working with a local restaurant with.  It’ll be prepared sushi rolls.  Again, it depends on their location, how close they are, whether they’re prepared that day or just one day before, which we know isn’t perfect but it’ll be our character of the month.  Like, a Character Zero.  So, who is the primary character?  What employee chose their favorite roll?  Then it’ll be a sushi roll each month inspired by Character Zero.  I don’t know, that’s something I’m excited about ‘cause you say well…and it gives you more options.

 

Obviously we’ll probably have a couple of more traditional sushi rolls that we’ll work with them to prepare, or maybe we get to the success point where we have our own sushi chef right there preparing those rolls from scratch and acting out those roles.  I don’t know, that could be fun, don’t you think?  So, there’s that and then, what else do we have?  Oh, and then the…then of course donuts, our roll or bun, in my mind at least.  One thing…we’ll have those maybe just on the weekends but we will have one donut we always carry that we…now, this is going to be a global search for me.  It’ll be called Powder Finger and it will be a simple…it’ll be the greatest powdered donut ever made, ever known on…this will be everyone’s favorite roll.  You’ll say well, that’s…it’s like a donut.  I say well, no, because we shaped it like a bun.

 

Will it have filling?  I don’t know the answer to that because I haven’t discovered that, because I say well, it has to be…it has to leave your fingers powdery; Powder Fingers, but it has to be something…because so many of…I want to re…I don’t want to re…I want to re-invigorate powdered donuts because I feel like mass commercialization and then fancy flavors, which those are two things that are real; you can’t…I’m…I feel…we don’t…let’s not get into all-or-nothing thinking about them, but at some point the powdered donut just became something that is like well, if it’s a plain donut or a powdered donut, I’ll take the powdered…if you’re all out of the other ones, then I guess I’ll have that.  At least to me, and I don’t know if there’s other people out there that feel that way.

 

Then you may say well, Reginald, were you ever in love [01:00:00] with a powdered donut?  I’d say, I’d like to be.  I’d like to live in a world where I lust after a powdered donut for…in a food-based way, with…again, not conspicuous consumption.  I’m only having a Powdered Finger once a month, but where in the back of my mind I say well, that’s right.  On the third Sunday of the month, that’s when I had my powdered…my Powder Finger.  I searched the globe and it wasn’t ‘til I found this one chef who had combined all of these influences and added these few personal touches that made this the greatest powdered donut that has ever existed in the world.  You could buy…you could buy theirs, but you could also get…they’ve been gracious enough to teach me in the ways of…’cause I don’t know if that’s out there.

 

Probably somewhere.  But that’s what I’d like to be…so, that’s just a couple of the ideas for our place, These Are a Few of My Favorite Rolls.  Ideally, word-of-mouth would work like that.  I want to show you These Are A Few of My Favorite…mom, I’ve been waiting to show you this place.  I know you’re gonna love it.  Come on in and then we can all dress…it’s Mizaki night, so we could all dress as our favorite characters.  We don’t even have to dress as them; we could perform as them, we could just pretend we’re them.  Maybe there’s a film festival going on, maybe there’s a fanfiction contest, maybe there’s performative aspects.  The soundtracks playing, things like that.  Again, you say well, then there’s rolls in…those are a few of…those wouldn’t be your favorite rolls because they would be more temporal.

 

You say well, I don’t want to miss out on that roll, Totoroll.  Holy cow, I don’t want to miss out on the Totoroll.  You know, I’m…that’s my friend, Totoroll.  So, that was the kinda fun things I want to do, so it’s not just your…you say, I love going there.  It’s like when I go there, everyone knows my name because I’m wearing a name tag based on the character I’m playing when I’m there, ‘cause that would be one of the things we would advise, is…makes it easier to communicate with your character.  It’s, again, a stealth way to do it.  You say…’cause some people just aren’t that great or they don’t want to dress up.  If you don’t want to participate, we will…you could just put Pass on your name tag.

 

You’ll say, today I’m playing…instead of hello, my name is…today I’m playing the role of…and then you put it, and you could put…and again, we’ll have Sharpies, so it’ll be easy to see.  So, you say oh, okay, Captain Janeway; not as I would have…but now I can imagine I’m speaking with Captain Janeway.  Oh, you could even put that; Captain Janeway era, this, this, this, or season…that is the…your favorite role that you’re playing.  So, These Are a Few of My Favorite Rolls.  My favorite role is being here to introduce ideas to you in a sleepy way and to explore these outer concepts of things where you thought well, are they just baking those roll…does anybody care about powdered donuts or kaiser rolls anymore?

 

Does anybody want to push the limits of roll…and there are people out there doing it in your neighborhood, not that far away.  So, for the time being, go and patronize those small businesses where people are working with passion and creativity and spark, and find your favorite role to be their customer and supporter and discoverer of new rolls, however you might define it.  Goodnight from the Cusack family of businesses.  Thank you.

 

[END OF RECORDING]

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