What are a couple of moments from the date that really stand out to you that were most memorable?
Well, one of the most memorable moments was definitely when he told me that he dissected a cat in biology class, in AP biology class.
I have not stopped thinking about that.
This is The Sporkful.
It's not for foodies, it's for lovers.
I'm Dan Pashman.
Each week on our show, we obsess about food to get people to fall in love.
All right, not every week, but this week, back by popular demand for Valentine's Day, we are presenting The Sporkful Dating Game.
We asked those of you looking for love to fill out a Google form.
Then we painstakingly combed through the entries to find matches using our proprietary algorithm.
By which I mean we asked you what age range and what gender or genders you're looking for and where you live.
And we match people based on that.
Still, it's proprietary.
And we did this back in 2021 at the height of the pandemic.
We arranged two Zoom dates.
Unfortunately, neither of those matches led to a second date, so we're already 0 for 2 in our matchmaking exploits.
Can we do better this time?
Once again, we set up two blind dates, but this time in person.
One in New York, one in Chicago.
We recorded the whole dates, then we talked to the daters afterwards.
As an incentive, I promised the couples that if either of them gets married, I'll provide Cascatelli for their wedding.
So will their love smolder like a kebab on a hot grill?
Will they become as inseparable as the two slices of bread in a peanut butter sandwich?
Or will they repel each other, like oil and vinegar, a salad dressing that hasn't been properly emulsified?
First up, we have our New York date.
Let's meet our daters, Shehzad and Stacey.
I'm Shahzad, I'm 37.
I live in New York, grew up outside the city, and I'm a marketing director.
So for the past few years I've been running a business called Zorse, which means say it louder in Urdu and Hindi.
And I make what I call like South Asian arts inspired joy wear.
So here's a pet peeve of mine.
Restaurants that have insane cancellation fees.
If I cancel a plan with two days notice, you guys can fill that table.
For a first date, the main thing I'm looking for is, are we laughing?
If we're laughing, I feel good about everything else.
And I'm curious to explore future dates.
I'm Stacey, I'm 37, and I am a cookbook author, and I wrote a cookbook called 50 Pies, 50 States, where I baked a pie for every state in America when I was applying for my green card.
I think that when you visit a new bakery you have to get minimum six pastries, preferably three savory and three sweet, because then you kind of get like a full tasting menu.
When I go to a new restaurant, I just go in blind.
I don't do any social media looking up.
I don't look at the menu so I can like immerse myself in the experience.
When I'm going on a first date, what I'm looking for is just someone that's like down and mellow to hang out with.
And I'm always thinking in the back of my mind if they can hang out with my crazy friends.
We sent Shahzad and Stacey to Leland, a Mediterranean restaurant in Brooklyn.
You'll hear highlights from the date, mixed in with each dater's confessionals which I recorded with them afterwards.
Okay, let's get to the date.
Are you a sharer or you like your own mane?
Oh, sharing.
Sharing?
Okay.
Yeah.
All right.
I feel like, yeah, I'm a sharer because I like, I usually play food captain in my group.
So I usually order everything.
So yeah.
Food captain.
That's like when you, so all my friends like to turn their brain off, like during a dinner.
And then I'm the one.
You're the only one who listened to the specials when they were listening.
Yes, yes, that's me.
Oh yeah, that thing with artichokes.
How did Shahzad handle your food captaining?
He handled it very well.
He had a lot of input on like what he really wanted to eat too.
And so I included all of those things.
So I had already eaten at Leland before.
So I kind of knew like what the vibe was.
So it was really fun to see what he was excited about and if it was anything that I was also excited about, or if it's something that I tried before and really liked.
Dee's a good food captain.
I would recommend her.
I feel like if you have that nightmare scenario of a 12-person dinner party and people don't really know each other very well and everyone's being shy and bashful and no one wants to make decisions, she will make the right, optimal calls and not be ashamed to be like all right, this is how we're going to do it.
I think we should get the gildas.
All right, let's do that.
Let's do focaccia gildas salad, yeah.
And then what of the?
The mushroom toast is really good.
Do you like mushrooms?
I do okay, we should definitely get mushroom toast.
And then the potatoes sounded good.
The fish and the whole fish.
Oh my god, this is an amazing order, great.
So what do you do for work?
Uh, work in tech, do marketing?
Like it's kind of a corporate job that does the bills on the side.
I have a fashion company.
And so they make clothes that I think are really interesting.
I wasn't ever into fashion, but I just like kind of wanted to have a good creative platform.
So Stacey was the food captain.
Who would you say was the conversation captain?
Who took the lead on the conversation?
You know, I felt like we split it pretty well.
I feel like in a lot of dates I feel like I'm usually the bigger question asker and like conversation driver.
I think in this case, like Stacey is like super thoughtful and she was good at asking deeper questions.
So you felt like, in terms of who was asking questions and who was answering questions, it was about equal.
I would love to see the data of the transcript of if that's true or not.
There was no awkward moments or pauses.
He can talk a mile a minute.
So it was just, I can probably write a memoir about his life.
I know so much about him now.
Wow.
Did he ask you any questions about your life?
Not as much.
I think he was very interested to tell me about all the exciting things he's into like cocktails and hosting parties and the fashion line he started.
And I was very much happy to listen.
So, yeah.
I feel like cocktail making during the pandemic made me realize how I could play with flavors more.
And then I was living in the Hudson Valley at the time, and I got a better home bar.
And then I was like oh, I'm going to get nice.
And You know, I think sometimes maybe he was nervous and, just like you know, when people get nervous they ramble.
Or he was also just really excited to tell me about him and tell me about his life.
And I was ready to listen.
I tried to do some like leading questions that would maybe help him ask me more about my life.
Like I asked him questions. like what kind of music he really likes.
Cause music is a huge part of my life.
But yeah, it never really went that back way and that's okay too.
So is that the kind of music that you like?
Maybe like house music is like my biggest like focused, but they're the most accessible shows and accessible artists.
That's part of what it is.
There's a renaissance of house music right now, and especially in New York.
I can see some of it.
Like relationships and partnerships, there's always a front of house and a back of house person.
Front of house, meaning in a restaurant, that's the servers, the hosts, the people who are more extroverted.
And then you have the people who are kind of doing also very important work, but a little more behind the scenes.
Exactly.
Exactly.
And the back house person you know gets things going, chugs it along, may not want to have as much face time with the outside world as possible.
And I feel like he's very much a front of house person.
He's very, very extroverted.
And it's so funny and made me very quiet.
But I also like to listen.
So that works.
That kind of worked out, too.
But yeah, it felt really funny as a front-of-house person to be the back-of-house person for the evening.
Bluegrass and folk and, like, pop, you know, jazz standards at the time band.
It was, like, a very eclectic one.
I am very excited for you to try this mushroom toast.
It does look very pretty.
It is, like, covered in toast, the cheese, and the saoli.
Oh, wow, yeah.
Crispy.
You two shared a whole fish.
It's one thing to share certain kinds of food, but that's really you're kind of both.
You got to get your utensils in there.
There's some work involved.
How did that go, sharing the whole fish?
It went really well.
He was not as adventurous in the parts of the fish as I was.
The cheek is my favorite part on a fish.
I don't think I've even had, like, fish cheeks.
I don't think I have.
No?
Have the other side.
I'm going to have it.
It's like...
How do I dig into this?
Where am I digging into?
Use the spoon.
Okay.
And it's like right here.
Do you eat the eye?
I eat the eye, but you don't have to.
No, I'll try it.
Yeah, like all this meaty part.
One of the highlights culinarily for me was that I had never had fish cheek before.
And Stacey was like, oh, yeah.
Like, dig in right there.
Get that part.
It's the tastiest part.
And because she was willing to dig in and show me, I was like, all right, great.
And I dug in and it was like a beautiful little.
I can still remember that taste really distinctly.
The fish cheek is just... so smooth and like dissolves in your mouth in a certain way.
And I wouldn't have noticed it.
I probably would have been like oh, I'm a little grossed out by the head and I wouldn't have dug in.
And she was like, no, no, go for it.
All right.
I haven't really gotten that.
Is it this fat?
Is it this fatty thing?
Yeah.
I'll be honest, I'm not like into like whole food dissection, whole animal dissection, kind of vibe.
There you go.
I don't like suck the marrow out of bones, out of like beef bones and stuff like that, where it's a very like it's not just anything to do to eat that.
Oh, really?
It is?
It is, very much so.
I grew up seeing my dad do it, and I was like, I'm just not into this.
Not for you?
Hold on, let me just try this first.
So Shahzad, how do you think Stacey took your confession that you don't suck marrow out of the bones when given the opportunity?
I'd like to think that it came off as like one off little cute self-acknowledgement.
You know, I'm going to be frank, judged him pretty hard.
So you judged him because you felt like he wasn't being adventurous.
It's so funny because I felt he was so adventurous in so many other aspects of his life that it was funny that the adventurousness didn't translate into his way of eating.
I think just like at least suck the marrow out once, you know, like at least give it a shot.
I'm all for that kind of eating.
And yeah, it was like so funny to be to be just like, this is one thing that I do not do.
At what point in the date did you find out what she does for a living?
I mean, I made an effort not to ask, what do you do for a living?
Because I thought that's kind of like.
I prefer to keep it like on other topics, first and if it comes up, naturally.
But I think it was like three-fourths of the way through where more of her job came out.
He did not really find out much about me or what I did till dessert.
I figured it out.
Yeah, I used to bake pies at 4 and 20 Blackbirds for a couple years.
Holy shit, wow.
We might have run into each other in that context.
I've never worked in the store, only in the kitchen.
Oh, okay.
Have you gotten pie from there before?
Yeah, but also, yeah, it was like, there used to be a taxidermy museum right next to it.
Oh yes, the museum of whatever.
Yes, so I would have this thing where I would go to the taxidermy museum at 420 Blackburn.
Yes, my friend Sue, who is a tattoo artist, used to teach taxidermy classes there.
She taught the mouse class I always wanted to take.
Oh my god, the mice.
Yes.
Did you ever dissect animals in high school?
I don't think we, I think we did frog.
Okay.
Yeah.
I did frog, mice, and like cats.
Oh, you did cats in high school?
Yeah.
That's very morbid.
Where did you go to high school?
So he brings up dissecting a cat.
That's a choice to bring that up on a first date.
Like, what does that do to the vibe?
I think it changed the vibe a little bit.
I'd say I was just like, I am an animal girly.
I'm an animal lover.
We had finished, I believe, the whole fish at this point.
So there was maybe that's where the dissection conversation came from is that we had to, you know, take apart this whole fish together.
And that maybe triggered a memory of when the cat happened.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
I would recommend most people don't discuss dissection on a first date.
I...
I would say probably generally not a good topic.
So, okay, so then did you want to stay in food?
Like, did you want to, like... Oh, I am still working in food.
I wrote a pie cookbook called 50 Pies, 50 States, where I baked pie for every state in America when I was applying for my green card.
Okay, that makes more sense now.
I'm like, oh, because you have, like, a lot of regulation around food, food memory, taste memory.
I never, like, read cookbooks.
Oh, I read them covered.
Yeah.
Coming up, we'll hear Shahzad and Stacey's final thoughts on the date.
And we'll find out if they'll be seeing each other again.
Then we'll get to date number two.
What could go wrong on that one?
You definitely don't want to make your date sick the first time that you meet.
That's coming up.
Stick around.
It's time to open up a can of advertisements.
Welcome back to The Sporkful.
I'm Dan Pashman, and our big live show in Brooklyn is fast approaching.
March 19th at the Bell House with longtime friend of The Sporkful, Kenji Lopez-Alt, and comedy legend Judy Gold.
What a lineup!
It's March 19th, tickets are going fast, so get yours now at sporkful.com slash live.
Again, that's sporkful.com slash live.
Thanks, and see you there.
All right, back now to the Sporkful Dating Game.
You heard the highlights from Shahzad and Stacey's date.
Now it's time for final thoughts.
So throughout the meal, Stacey, did you feel any sparks?
Unfortunately, no sparks.
He was a very lovely guy, but he would be, you know, a great person for someone that's like very adventurous in the world.
So Shahzad, at any point in the date, did you feel any little bit of romance?
Were there any sparks?
I think that you can have moments of connection, but it definitely didn't like turn into, I think, a fire on both of our ends.
We were in a corner booth and she sat like kind of far off, like further than the like place settings even were.
And she didn't like move closer over time.
Has there been any contact since then between the two of you?
No contact since the date.
Did you exchange numbers or Instagram handles or something?
We did not.
Okay.
He didn't ask.
He did not ask.
And you didn't ask.
I did not ask.
Oh man, when you combine this result from our last dating game episode, we're now 0 for 3.
Which, frankly, only makes us slightly worse than the dating apps.
Now, before we get to our next date, we did actually set up a third date for this episode at one of my favorite restaurants in Philly Laser Wolf.
It's an Israeli-style grill house and the best part is that for appetizers you get all these incredible little salads, like probably 10 or 12 of them with hummus and pita.
There are so many flavors and spices and it just guarantees you always leave feeling like you're ride everything.
When our daters Jacob and Holly went to Laserwolf, they loved the food, they enjoyed the date, but they told us it wasn't going to lead to a second date, which means we're now 0 for 4.
So there's a lot riding on this next date in Chicago.
Let's meet our daters Viraj and Diego.
Hi, my name is Viraj.
I am 38 years old.
I work in higher education and I live in Chicago, Illinois.
My food pet peeve would definitely be when things are under salted.
My strategy for a new restaurant is I definitely want to do my research.
I check out social media.
I will look at menus beforehand, but I still go in with an open mind.
And my favorite thing to do is actually to share a lot of dishes to make sure I can try the most.
I'm really looking for someone that feels like a friend first and then we align on shared values and interests, but someone who's just excited to explore the world, try new things and have someone to do that with along the way.
Well, I'm really excited, but definitely a little bit nervous, to go on this date with the Spork Bowl.
I've been a fan of the podcast for years, and so just really excited for a new adventure.
My name is Diego.
I'm 36 years old.
I live in Chicago, Illinois, and I'm an attorney by trade.
Truffle oil can be a lot.
If there's a lot of stuff on the menu with truffle oil, I start to get a little bit skeptical about everything else that could be there.
My ideal first date is a good hang.
I like to spend time around people who are thoughtful respectful, kind of curious about the world around them.
I'm excited to go on a date for the Sportful.
I mean, it'll be a cool story.
And maybe it'll be something more.
We sent Viraj and Diego to a Korean barbecue restaurant called Perilla Fair.
Now let's get to the date.
Hi, Diego.
Hello.
Hi, I'm Viraj.
It's nice to meet you.
Diego, nice to meet you.
What were a couple of your first impressions?
I thought Diego was super nice and friendly.
I felt instantly comfortable when I sat down at the table and we immediately started chatting.
I said beforehand, like, oh, I'm, you know, at the very least hoping for a good hang.
And Viraj is definitely a good hang.
It's like wow, this is actually like probably the most interesting person that I've met, you know, through either the dating apps or being set up with somebody.
Maybe just hands down.
I should say we gave each pair of daters some food-related conversation starters, but we left it up to them if they wanted to use them.
It did print out the questions that they needed us to answer.
I was going to say, I wrote them down and I also have them right here.
I don't know if you want to begin with that.
No.
Well, I'd love to get to know you first.
Okay, I guess.
However you want to do it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Wow.
Or should we start with first ordering?
Yeah, I don't know.
I think we were both maybe a little nervous.
This is definitely a new situation for both of us.
Right.
You don't normally wear a microphone when going out on a first date.
It seems totally organic to me.
Totally.
I think it took us maybe a few minutes to kind of find our rhythm and to see how we wanted to approach it.
But I found it really easy to even just chat with him about how we wanted to go about having the conversation or making decisions on the food we got.
When you're looking at this menu, or any menu in general, what's your strategy?
Where do you start?
Usually I love sharing things.
I have no dietary restrictions blessed.
And so you know I'll take that into account.
If you know, the person I'm with has any dietary restrictions.
But I do love like family style ordering.
How about you?
I mean, that's the best way to go.
If possible, you get a chance to sample everything.
But I guess, yeah, we're both in the family style.
This is supposedly a good place to do it for that.
Agreed.
So that'll be nice.
Yeah.
Are you from Chicago?
No, I've been here for a while.
There were several similarities in terms of like, oh, like places that we've been to or things.
I grew up outside of Philadelphia, and my family's still there.
She spent a lot of time there.
She's from the western suburbs.
My dad's from the western suburbs.
My name is Calvin.
We're going to be helping you both out tonight.
And this is the first time in for you both?
Yes.
It is, yeah.
Typically I come over, let you know my name, find out some little tidbits of information and then let you know about me.
Yeah.
Now, seeing as though it's your first time.
The really long spiel at the top.
It was definitely a little overwhelming, but the server was also just so passionate about the food that it was hard not to get more excited about the meal.
So Stacey was the food captain.
Who would you say was the conversation captain who took the lead on the conversation?
Thank you.
All right.
Thank you.
Do you look at the menu beforehand or are you more kind of a show off?
I did for this.
Okay.
How about you?
Most of the time I'll take a look.
Yeah.
But in Scallion Pancake was one that I was like, oh, those are always great.
A hundred percent.
I would totally get that.
Yeah.
I was also looking at the rice cake for now.
It sounded pretty good.
There's two things.
And then honestly, one of the tasting plates probably sounds easiest.
Okay.
Let's do it.
And then he kind of sold me on the sundubu.
Yeah, I would agree.
It's really hard to turn.
I mean, that was such a sincere love he shared for that dish.
Yeah, definitely.
And I wouldn't mind having some salm as well.
Yeah, I think that sounds like a good order.
It was quite painless and actually seemed like we were on the same page and got a well-rounded experience for what the restaurant had to offer.
Did it feel like the two of you were compatible in deciding what to order?
Yeah, it honestly felt kind of like we were doing some improv, like a yes, and that we both kind of like threw out things that we were interested in and we were both open to trying some new things.
But editing as we went, it worked out to be a perfect menu ordering.
And I appreciated that he went with a couple of dishes that were not even on his radar, that I was like oh, I really want the sundubu.
Right.
And it worked out great.
They have our banchan here as well.
These are meant to be eaten on the road and not be put on the grill.
They're traditional Korean side dishes.
So this is going to be our back kimchi or white kimchi.
We use Korean pear, so it's not going to be spicy.
I like the banchan a lot.
Just like I think we should have.
We should have just like more banchan.
Like an appetizer sampler is a lot of fun.
I always forget about the banchan when I order at a Korean restaurant and I'm like, I'm so hungry.
I'm going to order this and that and this and that.
And then like the parade of banchan comes and I'm like, I forgot about this part.
And then all of a sudden you're kind of like, man, this table is really crowded.
Right.
In a good way.
Yeah.
I love it.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Food is great.
It was delicious.
I love having sides to compliment any dish.
It was really wonderful to have, you know, an array of like crunchy, spicy, sweet.
Yeah.
Have a meet, have a ride.
Oh, wonderful.
And the first to hit the table would be the L.A.
Galvi.
Awesome.
Were you all comfortable grilling on your own, or would you like a little bit of assistance?
I would prefer a little bit of help, actually.
I would recommend assistance, yeah.
Thank you.
I almost felt useless today.
Everybody's just been like, yeah, I'll do it on my own.
Oh, no.
Yeah.
I feel useless a lot.
It's OK.
You have a friend.
I won't steal the entire experience from you.
The server will come over and flip the meat and stuff for you.
So you let them do that.
Yeah.
And then, well, they do a little bit of it and then they kind of leave you to your own devices.
I did the first go around and then she did the next go around.
I don't know.
It seems to be fairly forgiving.
You're probably not going to overcook it or anything like that.
Is that what the concern was?
You were worried about, if you were in charge of turning it, that it would be cooked poorly, and then you would really have screwed up.
Oh, yeah.
I mean that's, that's always a fear, I guess, whenever you're, like you know, on the grill or otherwise, cooking.
I was definitely nervous that I was under cooking.
You definitely don't want to make your date sick the first time that you meet.
In the end, did you like having the grilling at your table a component to a first date?
Or would you rather have not had that stress?
I think I would have preferred to not have that stress.
It was fun to have it.
But then part of the experience in the restaurant is also that the server helped us with grilling the meat.
There was quite like several long periods where we were chatting with the server as well.
And it ended up feeling like we were on a date with three people.
Besides, oh, I used to live in Milwaukee for about six months.
Okay.
I went to Indiana for... And so it was just a funny addition to the meal.
I think that I would have preferred if we could have chatted a little bit more solo.
Without the server.
Without the server and without the additional stress of, like, poisoning, giving food poisoning.
This is fun.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I've been very lucky in some parts of my life to explore some pretty cool places that had pretty cool food.
Like I studied abroad in Oaxaca.
Oh, I just went there for New Year's.
Oh, very cool.
How was that?
It was incredible.
Yeah.
It truly was one of the best foodie trips I've ever taken in my life.
Yeah.
Yeah, the KCO is like, I do think about that a lot.
This is the Oaxacan string cheese.
Yeah.
I am occasionally like, you know, I could just stuff my suitcase full of cheese.
Yeah.
It can't be that wrong.
But yeah, I like that a lot.
Sounds like a dream, actually.
Tell me more about this suitcase full of cheese.
What kind of cheeses is it going to be?
Walk me through it.
Oh, man.
Well, it's basically like a Oaxacan string cheese.
It's like got a pretty mild flavor.
They make it into big strands and just. roll it up into a ball.
You know, a suitcase might be a little much, but like duffel bag, maybe.
Yeah.
A carry on.
Yeah, exactly.
Don't mind me.
I mean, if I could, I would have also brought back a suitcase full of cheese from my recent trip.
So I thought it was a funny comment to make.
So if, hypothetically speaking, the two of you ever went to Oaxaca together and Diego started packing a suitcase full of cheese, you would be like encouraging him or discouraging him.
I would trust him to make the decision that's right for him.
He would need to pack his own suitcase.
We're not sharing a suitcase.
So you don't want the cheese suitcase for yourself?
No, I'm good.
I mean, listen, if he successfully brings it back, I would happily have some of the cheese.
But you are managing that.
Would you like to try some?
I'll go ahead.
I was going to say if you want to.
Yeah, I can take over.
Absolutely.
How did it work out, though, the cooking?
It was delicious, ultimately, right?
We both, I think, cooked it a little bit differently.
You could taste the difference of, like, when we both took it off the grill.
But it was fun to compare notes on this together because I think we were both a little bit nervous about it.
What was the difference?
I think I cooked mine a little bit less.
So mine was maybe more of, like, a medium rare, and I think he did a solid medium.
Which do you prefer?
I prefer medium rare.
Okay.
Were there any moments in the date that felt a little bit romantic?
Any sparks?
You know, too early to tell, but I really enjoyed meeting Diego.
I would definitely want, like we have talked about, maybe finding a time to meet up again and kind of seeing where it goes.
When we connected over some of our other common interests, it was exciting.
It was nice to have some really great conversations with someone who I think we share some similar values there too.
Right.
And I have to say I think that knowing that you're being recorded, even if the sort of constant awareness sort of falls away, you might still be able to have a great conversation.
But that may sort of restrict the romance a little bit.
Yeah.
Sparks are a little hard to figure out in the moment when you're first meeting someone.
And how did you leave it at the end of the date?
We exchanged numbers and texted a little bit.
It's been just a few days.
And so I think we have talked about maybe finding another time to get together and we'll see.
Get together like a second date?
You know, unclear.
I think we'll kind of leave that to us to figure out.
Is there one that you prefer?
I'd be open to another date or to an official first date.
Right.
This was like the pre-date with the microphone.
So like a proper first date without people eavesdropping.
Absolutely.
And I would also be open to hanging out as friends and then taking it kind of one hangout at a time.
Right.
I don't know.
Go for it, Vera.
Just go for it.
It was really refreshing to meet someone in person and actually get to know them without having pre-screened a lot or a profile to go off of.
You know.
Right.
And having been matched by the most primitive algorithm on Earth, the Sporkfuls algorithm, which uses only three factors.
And I would say they resulted in a lovely evening.
So maybe you got something going here.
Were there any moments during the evening that felt maybe a little bit romantic?
Any sparks?
I don't know.
I would say maybe like as things went on, we seemed to really enjoy each other's company.
And so I'd say, you know maybe, while not fully romantic all the time, it was just like oh, this is like, this is really nice.
I really enjoyed hanging out with Eric.
I would be really surprised if we didn't hang out again.
Has there been any communication between the two of you since the date?
Yeah.
I mean just like she had mentioned like oh, it'd be great to hang out again, either a date or you know as friends, or something like that.
Did she say that?
Did she say either a date or as friends or she just said it'd be great to hang out again?
She did say that, like, you know, or as friends.
How did you read that?
I took it at face value.
I don't know if that was like necessarily like, oh, you know, would it be a date?
Would it not?
That would probably be something that we'd talk about.
If you saw her a second time, would you prefer that it be a date or as friends?
I think honestly at this point probably more as friends, but definitely with the eye towards potentially having something more.
I thought it was a really good first date.
There's somebody that I really liked hanging out with.
I'd be curious to see where it could go.
Well...
If I can throw in my two cents here, Diego, of course, I wasn't I wasn't on the date.
So you obviously know more about how it went and how it felt than I do.
I think you could interpret Viraj's text saying you know if you want to schedule something as a date or as friends, as her kind of like protecting herself.
But I don't think she would have suggested the possibility of it being a date if she was not interested in that.
That's totally fair.
So I think I would just politely encourage you to be like let's go on a date and go on a date without anyone recording it and see how that goes.
Well, I appreciate the input and, you know, we'll definitely keep you posted.
That's my friendly advice for you.
I appreciate it.
Plus, I just really want to make a real couple on this show.
That's it.
Yeah, I was going to say, I know you have a vested interest, but I do.
I am not completely impartial.
But yes, that is my honest read on that exchange.
Let me just check in with Emma real quick to see if there's anything else I should ask before we wrap up.
Of course.
I just want to chime in and say that I completely 100% agree with Dan's advice.
Yes.
Thank you, Emma.
Thank you.
I was thinking the same thing.
I'm like if she said it could be a date or friends, that means she's open to the possibility of it being a date.
That's right.
Come on, Diego.
Shoot your shot.
Let's go.
Team Sporkful is speaking with one voice here, Diego.
Yeah, we'll see.
All right, we're counting that one.
We are counting it.
We are now one for five.
Not bad.
I think that's a pretty good percentage.
Maybe it'll go up in future years.
Thank you so much to all of our daters.
As Diego said to me in our post-date chat, it was kind of an absurd experiment.
But I'll say it was an absurd experiment in the name of love and deliciousness, which is the best kind of experiment.
I also want to shout out the restaurants that hosted our dates Leland in Brooklyn, Perilla Fair in Chicago and Laser Wolf in Philadelphia.
Next week on the show I talk with a Muslim and a Jew about what to do when meatless pork products hit the shelves.
How will it affect how they think about what they eat and about themselves?
That's next week.
While you're waiting for that one, check out last week's very special crossover episode with the podcast Mike and Tom Eat Snacks.
That's the actors Michael Ian Black and Tom Cavanaugh.
And we debate all kinds of snacking, including a deep dive on the science of chip tipping.
Very important stuff.
Check it out.
And hey, did you know you can listen to The Sporkful on the SiriusXM app?
Yes, the SiriusXM app.
It has all your favorite podcasts, plus over 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, plus live sports coverage.
Does your podcasting app have that?
And there's interviews with A-list stars and so much more.
It's everything you want in a podcast app and music app all rolled into one.
And right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to SiriusXMcom slash Sporkful.
This show is produced by me, along with managing producer, Emma Morgenstern and senior producer Andres O'Hara.
Our editor is Camille Stanley.
Our engineer is Jared O'Connell.
Special thanks to Chantel Holder, Andrea Quinn, and Sean Ali.
Music help from Black Label Music.
The Sporkful is a production of SiriusXM Podcast.
Our executive producer is Camille Stanley.
Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.
And I'm Rachel Alfiero, in the city of brotherly love, reminding you to eat more, eat better and eat more better.
