We try Kraft's new four cheese and original cheddar frozen offerings, and Reser's white cheddar and original. We discuss Billy Joel's outbursts, tape to tape editing, sugar, game console mods, and Gloria sneaks us a new mac.
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FunTranscript
00:00 - Frankie, we got some frozen and fresh today on Boxed Mac.
00:02 (upbeat music)
00:05 - Frozen and fresh?
00:16 - Frozen, fresh.
00:17 - Oh yeah, it's an unusual thing
00:18 that we do frozen Macs or refrigerated Macs.
00:21 - Yeah, I mean, we've done some over the years,
00:23 but by far it's boxed Mac.
00:25 - And the reason is 'cause normally they're sent to us
00:27 or whatever else.
00:28 I remember when we first started the show,
00:30 I think we thought that one of the ground rules
00:32 was that it could never be a frozen
00:33 'cause we were trying to find the best boxed Mac.
00:36 Of course, the mission has expanded into all Mac and cheese.
00:39 - Many dimensions.
00:40 - Yeah, so when Kraft does something new,
00:42 we learn about it and it's worth trying.
00:44 - Yes.
00:45 - 'Cause the fact is,
00:46 Kraft continues to be a leader in Mac and cheese.
00:48 - Absolutely.
00:49 - So they have these kind of large style deluxe frozen.
00:53 - Yeah.
00:54 - Which EJ got from Target, I think.
00:55 And then I saw the stuff I've never seen before
00:57 at Stop and Shop, Reeser's, Resser's Fine Foods.
01:01 - Yeah.
01:02 - There's a white cheddar and there's a standard.
01:03 - I think I know about how they're gonna be.
01:04 They're gonna be fine.
01:05 The noodles will be a little wimpy.
01:07 I'm hoping that Kraft has really done something unique
01:09 and it's not just gonna be stofers
01:10 with a slightly different flavor.
01:11 - Is there a unique prep or is it just like?
01:13 - I think it's just toss her in and eat her.
01:15 My microwave is fairly slow
01:17 and we can't cook these all at the same time.
01:19 - Okay.
01:20 - It's gotta be a cereal line operation here.
01:21 - Would you have ever bought these on your own?
01:23 - No, no.
01:25 - Are you put off by frozen Macs generally?
01:27 - Just get Michelinas a lot for that.
01:29 That was a favorite of mine.
01:30 - Lean Cuisine?
01:31 - Lean Cuisine too.
01:32 The Lean Cuisine Mac's pretty good
01:33 for the number of calories.
01:34 - Put them in, come on.
01:35 - All right, well I'm trying to like, you know.
01:37 - Don't elongate, I'll take care of that.
01:38 - Okay, you'll stretch it out.
01:40 I believe these were $3.50 by the way.
01:42 - $3.50.
01:43 - $3.50.
01:44 - $3.50.
01:46 - Hearty macaroni and cheese made with creamy cheese sauce,
01:49 home style comfort made easy.
01:51 What if they're super good?
01:52 - Then they might make their way into my freezer.
01:54 - Remember Bob Evans?
01:56 - Oh yeah.
01:56 - It was really good.
01:57 - It's amazing.
01:59 - No, it's really good.
02:00 - It's incredible.
02:01 - But the thing is, I've gone back to Bob since then.
02:04 It hasn't been quite as good.
02:05 I don't know if we just had a magical batch.
02:07 - This is an area I really struggle.
02:09 Food formulations change, taste buds change,
02:12 time changes, individual batches change.
02:16 You can't like control for small variations.
02:19 - No.
02:20 - This is how you end up with like,
02:20 you try a Mac six years apart and you loved it
02:22 and then you hated it.
02:23 - Yeah.
02:24 - And you're fighting yourself nonstop.
02:25 - Just recently Stouffer's was reformulated
02:27 to remove all the butter in it because butter is expensive.
02:30 They replaced it with margarine
02:31 and the difference is subtle, but there.
02:33 And you do that two or three times
02:35 over the course of a couple of years
02:36 and suddenly you got a completely different product.
02:38 - We've talked about this a lot in the past
02:39 that butter has worked its way out of most products.
02:42 - Which is really sad because butter is delicious
02:44 and it's way better for you
02:45 than just a bunch of chemical margarine.
02:47 - It's my observation that everybody got much fatter
02:51 after 1999 and things that existed before 1999
02:56 include McDonald's, prepared food, takeout.
02:59 A lot of the things that they lay at the feet of,
03:01 like, oh, here's why everybody got really fat.
03:03 So what changed after 1999?
03:05 Sugar.
03:05 - Oh yeah, well, from the 80s,
03:07 they thought fat was the cause of all the problems.
03:09 And then they said, oh, but everything's fat free.
03:11 Twizzlers are labeled fat free.
03:13 Plus you have the tendency towards increased processing.
03:16 Whereas like a Twinkie before was processed,
03:19 but now it's made up of like nothing but chemicals.
03:22 - That's a big Twinkie.
03:24 - You might remember in the late 90s, early 2000s,
03:27 you could go to McDonald's and get a half gallon soda.
03:30 The supersized soda was 64 ounces.
03:32 That's like a thousand calories worth.
03:34 They don't do any of that stuff anymore, certainly.
03:36 - I would never suggest that personal responsibility
03:39 isn't a major factor and the culture isn't a major factor.
03:42 But when you go from nobody is humongous
03:45 to everybody is humongous, something changed.
03:48 - It's a sleight of hand.
03:49 - Yeah.
03:50 - You didn't realize that they replaced
03:51 a lot of other things with sugar.
03:52 - Yeah.
03:53 Do you see those pictures where people abroad
03:55 have pictures of what the American section looks like?
03:58 And it's just like-
03:59 - Yes, like ranch dressing and pop tarts.
04:01 Yeah.
04:02 - Yeah, it's embarrassing.
04:03 - The reason that we got in this discussion
04:04 was 'cause Nina was arguing pretty hard
04:06 that cheese was a major factor.
04:08 And I don't believe it is.
04:09 - The French eat a lot of cheese.
04:11 - And I thought cheese was ever present
04:12 throughout the 90s.
04:13 - Yeah, it absolutely was.
04:14 But the problem isn't the cheese itself.
04:16 It's what you do with the cheese.
04:17 It's macaroni and cheese.
04:18 We're the problem, hi.
04:19 ♪ It's me, hi ♪
04:22 ♪ I'm the problem, it's me ♪
04:23 - Because if you remember in those food pyramids
04:25 that kind of persisted in the 80s,
04:27 carbs were the base, right?
04:29 You can't overeat proteins, but it's hard.
04:31 - Yeah.
04:32 - It's real work.
04:33 - Go ahead and try.
04:34 - Get a whole roasted chicken and just eat it.
04:35 - Yeah.
04:36 - You will make your way through that chicken.
04:36 Give yourself a 16 inch pizza, you can get through it.
04:39 - Yeah, Chinese food.
04:40 - Yeah.
04:41 - So there you go, there's our health discussion.
04:43 - Yeah, you know.
04:44 - Have you ever been like a huge fan of juices?
04:46 - No, I hate juice.
04:47 - And the one that I've never have been able to get behind
04:50 is grapefruit juice.
04:52 - It's not a good juice.
04:53 - Grapefruits in general.
04:55 - Yeah.
04:55 - I remember, I used to get made fun of by my family
04:57 for saying this, like grapefruit juice
04:59 tastes like dirty fingers.
05:01 (laughing)
05:03 And they were like, what does that mean?
05:05 How many dirty fingers are you tasting?
05:06 Well, when you're a child and you're playing in dirt
05:08 and stuff and you taste your own fingers.
05:11 You know that kind of that filth and that dirt that's bitter?
05:13 Now I haven't tasted that in a long time
05:15 'cause I'm a grownup, but when I was a child,
05:16 I remember like being like,
05:18 ew, my fingers are gross right now.
05:19 The earthy bitterness of the grapefruit tastes like that.
05:22 - Yeah.
05:23 - It's not an especially sweet fruit.
05:24 - People would just dump sugar on it.
05:26 Yeah, that's the only way to make it tolerable, I guess.
05:28 - Yeah.
05:29 - Is to just dump sugar.
05:30 - You could probably acquire a taste for it,
05:32 much like people acquire a taste for black coffee.
05:34 - Yeah, or anything.
05:35 - But it's not for me.
05:36 I don't like, I still to this day don't like bitter tastes.
05:38 - No, I don't either.
05:39 - One of the things that EJ and I talk about
05:41 on our podcast all the time is modding consoles.
05:44 - Yeah.
05:45 - We're not taking care of our families.
05:46 This is where we derive our happiness.
05:48 - There's a lot of exciting things going on.
05:49 A GameCube one with an M2 drive,
05:52 it plugs into the bottom of the unit
05:53 and replaces the very expensive and hard to find hard drive.
05:56 And you can also run game images off it.
05:58 - Oh my God.
05:58 - Just super cool.
05:59 - Is it cheap?
06:00 - No, like I think it's 150-ish, you know.
06:02 - For like an easy mod?
06:03 - Yeah, just pop it in on the outside on the expansion port.
06:06 - For a long time, I used to think like modding consoles
06:08 isn't gonna be fun for me
06:09 because I'd have to make them HDMI capable.
06:12 And I got over that
06:13 and instead just bought some old TVs.
06:15 - Yeah.
06:16 - And made it more about just connecting to old TVs.
06:18 - Absolutely.
06:19 - And now of course EJ overachieves.
06:20 - Yeah.
06:21 - He goes, "Yeah, but with the old TV,
06:21 we should use S-Video."
06:23 (both laughing)
06:24 - Even Frankie was able to do it.
06:26 And he doesn't even know what an RGB is.
06:28 He thinks this is a dead Supreme Court justice.
06:32 That's RBG, Frankie.
06:34 Notorious RBG.
06:36 Ah, he doesn't give a scart.
06:38 - But yeah, I now have an SNES, an N64,
06:42 an NES, and a Genesis, all with Everdrives,
06:45 all with wireless controllers.
06:46 - That is an awesome collection right there.
06:48 - With CRTs.
06:49 Do I play any of them?
06:50 No, the modding is the-
06:51 - No, that's like me with the computers.
06:53 - Now I hear feedback nonstop.
06:55 - Yeah.
06:56 - That we need to do more Pewtersmiths.
06:57 If you were to do another episode,
06:59 do you have any concepts, Pewtersmith concepts?
07:01 - A thousand.
07:02 - Really?
07:02 - Oh, (beep)
07:03 - I'm so- - What went behind?
07:04 - I have so many projects
07:06 that I've like bought all the parts for,
07:07 just haven't done.
07:08 I have an Amiga 1200,
07:09 which is a fairly rare computer to begin with.
07:11 And then I have a processor board for it
07:13 that brings it to the absolute highest processor
07:16 you could get for an Amiga.
07:17 And it could play things like Quake.
07:18 I know, you know, Quake, ooh, but no.
07:20 It's pretty exciting for an Amiga.
07:21 That would be an awesome video too.
07:23 Like I have the video effects cards,
07:25 which were used in lots of productions.
07:27 They're basically video switchers that go in the Amiga.
07:29 And you can do, you know,
07:30 all the fancy star wipes and graphic titles
07:32 and all that stuff that you could do in that era.
07:34 - I do miss my high school video days.
07:37 That was a lot of fun.
07:38 Everybody always talks about tape to tape.
07:40 Tape to tape is an exciting time
07:41 because it was so horrible.
07:43 So for those who don't know,
07:44 so if you're in your mid twenties
07:46 and you've never heard of this idea of having two VCRs,
07:49 but really ideally two tape decks.
07:51 You can do it with two VCRs,
07:53 but really what you would want
07:53 is these purpose-built tape decks
07:56 where they actually,
07:56 instead of like a fast forward and rewind,
07:58 they had dials where you could sort of get frame perfect
08:02 and make in and out points on the source VHS.
08:06 And you would make an edit on the destination VHS.
08:09 It was called linear editing
08:10 because if you messed up the edit,
08:12 you had to go back to the very beginning of the edit
08:14 and start over again.
08:15 This is how news was produced for a long time.
08:17 Because you shot it that day,
08:19 you need to get it out that day.
08:20 So I remember, have you ever seen this device?
08:23 Our high school video teacher,
08:24 who was also a videographer for Fox News in Boston.
08:27 - That's right.
08:28 - He came in one day with this briefcase,
08:30 pops it open and it's a linear editor,
08:32 but it's a digital linear editor, portable.
08:36 And it was mini DV to mini DV.
08:38 And so in the truck, they would edit tape to tape,
08:42 but mini DV to mini DV.
08:43 And I was like,
08:44 well, why not just do non-linear in the computer?
08:46 He's like, we don't have time.
08:47 - Yeah, has to get out.
08:48 'Cause you had to capture of course at that time
08:50 in real time, it was not, you know.
08:51 - Nowadays it'd be an SD card,
08:53 you'd plop it in, you'd edit it and you'd be done.
08:55 But back then it still was like,
08:56 well, no, I wanna edit on the way home.
08:57 - There was always these cool Sony devices
08:59 that were just a deck and a screen.
09:02 It's like a portable mini DV player
09:05 that you could just like use to review footage,
09:08 you know, away from a camera.
09:09 And I always thought they were so cool.
09:10 - Are we actually gonna try these?
09:11 - Oh yeah, why not?
09:13 - This box is a macaroni and cheese,
09:16 unicorn macaroni and cheese.
09:18 And my dad does this show called "Box Pack".
09:21 I don't know if you've seen it before.
09:22 And he said, don't put it on the show.
09:25 And we're gonna prank him by putting it on the show.
09:27 Come on.
09:29 - Uh-oh, it's Gloria.
09:30 - Who's this?
09:31 - Hi Gloria.
09:32 - What the heck is this?
09:33 - Why Gloria's here?
09:35 - (indistinct)
09:37 - What is this?
09:39 - She gave us a box of macaroni and cheese.
09:41 - A box of macaroni and cheese.
09:42 - Unicorn style.
09:44 - Live on "Box Pack".
09:45 - So this is.
09:46 - Home style, rich and creamy deluxe original cheddar.
09:50 - Don't like it?
09:52 - Not really.
09:53 - The cheese is not like turned all the way up.
09:54 It's nothing special.
09:56 - It's basic.
09:57 Sour cream is the dominant taste I get.
10:00 It's just too subtle for me.
10:01 You know what I think it needs?
10:02 It needs a little salt.
10:03 Do you mind if I?
10:04 - If you insist.
10:06 Oh my God, how much?
10:07 - Just a little.
10:08 - This is classic John Hunt stuff.
10:09 - Just a bit.
10:09 - This dude used to,
10:11 I must've said this a few million times.
10:12 Whenever we go to OCB and get the mac and cheese,
10:15 which was very similar to this by the way,
10:16 he would decorate it in pepper.
10:18 There was a time when John wouldn't eat mac and cheese
10:19 unless I had pepper all over it.
10:20 - That's true.
10:21 - Now that I'm saying it out loud,
10:22 pepper would go pretty well in this.
10:23 Well, why don't we go ahead and try the next one
10:25 before we start peppering things.
10:27 And we got two more macs.
10:28 - We do.
10:29 I didn't put them in.
10:29 I got distracted by Gloria.
10:30 And where's she gone now?
10:31 I mean, I feel like I'm missing out.
10:32 - I hope she comes back.
10:33 So this is the four cheese.
10:35 You know, honestly,
10:36 the original and the four cheese for the normal deluxe's,
10:38 I don't know the difference.
10:39 - Yeah, very, very small.
10:40 More flavor in this one.
10:43 - I like the first one better.
10:44 - There's a sour cheese here.
10:46 - Yeah.
10:46 - Something heady, kind of briny, you know.
10:48 - A blend of cheddar, mozzarella,
10:50 Parmesan and Asiago cheeses.
10:52 - The Asiago and Parmesan are high in this.
10:54 I don't love either of them.
10:56 - No, I agree.
10:57 Well, this one's pretty good.
10:58 - I think I like this one a little more.
11:00 - This one, this is the kind of thing
11:01 I would definitely get at OCB.
11:02 We're talking about OCB here though.
11:03 - Dude, there was a time when going to OCB
11:05 and having a bunch of Mac was heaven to me.
11:08 - Yeah. - Heaven.
11:09 - Start conversations with children
11:10 by saying something like this.
11:12 - What grade are you in at school?
11:14 - Or this.
11:15 - Have you decided what dessert you're gonna have?
11:18 - Or this.
11:19 - Do you like hot fudge sundaes?
11:20 - The pasta was clearly not salted
11:22 when it was originally cooked.
11:23 - I definitely taste that, that's right.
11:25 There's a time I would have mocked you for that statement.
11:27 - Yeah, but now.
11:28 - I'm older, I'm wiser.
11:29 I've done a lot more market research.
11:32 And let me say, I love the spoon too, by the way.
11:34 The spoon's making it all the better.
11:35 - You must wanna try it.
11:36 Unfortunately, you don't have your own spoon.
11:37 - You can use one of the house spoons.
11:39 - Original cheddar? - Yeah.
11:41 - And you salt it a little bit, not much.
11:43 - Yeah, it's good.
11:44 - I wouldn't buy this product.
11:46 - I would not buy it,
11:47 but I'm not gonna buy like any frozen Mac.
11:50 - No?
11:51 - Mac and cheese is so easy to make.
11:52 - It's not much fun.
11:54 So easy.
11:55 - I think I like the original better.
11:56 There's too much going on here.
11:57 - It doesn't taste anything like the four cheese box.
11:59 - Nothing at all.
12:00 - Whereas the original I think does.
12:02 - They're both weak.
12:02 I would skip.
12:04 - See, it interests everybody
12:05 because it comes in a big box.
12:06 - Yeah, it's got the name, the craft name on it.
12:09 - Have you ever seen an amazing clip
12:11 of Billy Joel screaming at the audience?
12:13 It's very funny.
12:14 He's playing one of his songs and there's hecklers
12:18 and he keeps going, "Shut up!"
12:19 But he doesn't like lose a beat.
12:20 - Yeah.
12:21 ♪ Toby, there's a number I can always dial ♪
12:23 ♪ Let me do my show for Christ's sake ♪
12:25 ♪ Why does it always seem to hit me ♪
12:27 ♪ In the middle of the night ♪
12:29 ♪ Stop it ♪
12:30 - He never lets it completely ruin the performance.
12:32 But boy, does he bring it to the brink.
12:34 - He's pissed, but he's not gonna stop performing.
12:36 - All of his rage outs are to the beat of his own song.
12:40 ♪ In the middle of the night ♪
12:41 ♪ Stop it ♪
12:42 (upbeat music)
12:43 ♪ I should have been the better man ♪
12:44 ♪ If I hadn't hit a poor man ♪
12:49 ♪ Better baby, just believe me ♪
12:50 ♪ It's the next best thing I can do ♪
12:52 - And I've gotten Gloria to impersonate this
12:54 and it is very funny.
12:55 ♪ But I still haven't found ♪
12:59 ♪ What I'm looking for ♪
13:01 Shut up!
13:01 (laughing)
13:02 ♪ But I still haven't found what I'm looking for ♪
13:06 (screaming)
13:06 - Yeah, I don't know.
13:08 I don't hate this.
13:09 If I was Zach, I'd go, "Hmm, I kinda like it."
13:11 If I was Matt, I would say,
13:12 "It's got kind of like an interesting aroma,
13:14 "like kind of a creamy, I like it."
13:18 How's it going in there?
13:19 - Good, we're almost done.
13:20 ♪ In the middle of the night ♪
13:22 - Shut up!
13:23 Gloria and Joy!
13:24 - And I'm returned.
13:25 - Welcome to Box Mac.
13:26 - We're live on the air!
13:27 - Did you like my unicorn macaroni?
13:29 I loved it, it's awesome.
13:30 - It all started yesterday night.
13:33 - Yesterday night?
13:34 - I wanted to bring that to your party.
13:37 But dad said no, I couldn't ride it.
13:39 But then, today I thought, let's sneak it in.
13:43 - Let's sneak it in, what a good idea!
13:46 - So, all right, John, bring 'em over.
13:47 - Okay.
13:48 - And can you bring mine over to me?
13:50 - Your macaroni and cheese, we didn't cook it yet,
13:51 but it's right on there, we can bring the box out.
13:53 - We're not cooking that right now, babe.
13:55 - These are ricers.
13:55 We've got white mac, which is cavatappi,
13:58 in a creamy white cheddar sauce.
14:00 And we've got this, which I think is like
14:01 the original formulation.
14:03 - You wanna try original?
14:03 - Sure.
14:04 - Again, I got these from Stop and Shop.
14:05 - Refrigerated.
14:07 - Chemical?
14:08 - Yeah.
14:08 - What is that, it's kind of like a chemical cream?
14:11 - It's not good.
14:12 I don't know what chemical you use
14:13 to make things taste like cream.
14:15 Very strange.
14:16 - I don't hate it.
14:16 I did not expect it to be that chemically.
14:18 - I think it's a preservative.
14:19 It's that same preservative that they use
14:21 to make the beef macs taste like beef stew,
14:23 they just use a lot less of it.
14:24 - Yeah, it definitely doesn't taste like beef stew.
14:26 - It tastes like some kind of cleaner.
14:28 I bet this will be worse.
14:29 - Let's try it.
14:31 - Same chemical, but there's more cheese.
14:34 - And the chemical is pretty strong still.
14:36 And they've just done it, so this has good shelf life.
14:37 They're designed to sit for almost a month on the shelf.
14:40 - So I definitely wouldn't buy these.
14:42 - No.
14:42 - I would buy the frozen craft maybe.
14:44 - Maybe, but I'm still gonna recommend Stouffer's,
14:47 even the reformulated Stouffer's over those.
14:49 Or even the Lean Cuisine Mac
14:51 is better than those in my opinion.
14:52 - Okay, all right, there it is.
14:53 We tried the new frozen craft.
14:55 - Yeah, we tried it.
14:56 We didn't like it that much.
14:59 - Goodbye.
14:59 - Goodbye.
15:00 ♪ I'm gonna take control, that is all of my emotion ♪
15:03 ♪ Stop blinding the audience ♪
15:04 ♪ Why does it always seem to hit me ♪
15:06 ♪ In the middle of the night ♪
15:08 ♪ Stop it ♪
15:09 ♪ Told me there's a number I can always dial ♪
15:11 ♪ Let me do my show, for Christ's sake ♪
15:13 ♪ Just let it sink, oh ♪