So my experience at MFC wasn’t exactly food related BUT I have mentioned it so I thought I would offer you a little recap of my time there and try to keep it as food related as possible.

A friend asked me, when I returned to Philly, if I was sad it was all over. I surprised myself when I answered no. Yes, I had an amazing time and while I was there I didn’t want to leave but the great thing about MFC is that you are inspired by all the awesomeness you have witnessed that you rush home motivated to be more awesome yourself.

This talk by Andrew WK was my very favorite part of MaxFunCon. He talks about food a little bit but he also talks about joy. I was a mix of insane laughter and emotional rawness during his talk. I almost jumped out of my seat, raised my hands and yelled HALLELUJAH! Fortunately or unfortunately, for those sitting next to me, I just howled with laughter and had tears welling up in my eyes. I was a good mess.

Food is a great experience because you get to consume it, right? So it’s one of the few things that you could actually eat that you love.

I talked with Bill Corbett and Michael J Nelson from RiffTrax about burgers! First I got to sit in on their RiffTrax session where they walked us through their process of movie riffing and then we got to do a little bit of it ourselves. My mind was a little slow that morning, I blame the Malort, so while I didn’t offer anything funny I laughed a lot to help encourage folks. That’s something! You should totally check out this RiffTrax short, Families: Food and Eating. Oh so back to burger talkin’ with Jess, while I was waiting in line for something I ended up standing next to Bill Corbett and Michael J Nelson, it only feels right to use their full names. They noticed the @burgerbaroness on my name-tag and asked what that was all about and thus burger talkin’ began. Bill Corbett mentioned the Juicy Lucy, which I knew a thing or two about. Michael J Nelson talked about how he likes to use a cast iron pan to make burgers for his kids. Yes! MaxFunCon could have ended just then and I would have been completely satisfied.

RiffTrax dudes

Pub Quiz with John Hodgman and Elephant Larry. My love for Hodgman is no secret. I was no help to my team for most of the pub quiz questions. Disneyland, comic books and the Yankees are not a part of my areas of expertise. SEE WHAT I DID THERE?! BUT I believe my contribution to the apples category helped my team get 2nd place. I know a thing or two about apples. It pays to spend your high school summers  in Yakima, WA. I was happy to meet fellow Philadelphian and pub quiz teammate @theindigi.

Pub Quiz host John Hodgman

Lonelysandwich – ok not technically a food thing  but the  word sandwich is there and he likes burgers. He is also my favorite of the You Look Nice Today dudes. Don’t get me wrong, Merlin and Scott are wonderful but I am a sucker for a good beard. Their live show was one of the funniest moments of the weekend so you should totally check it out. Oh and you can hear my annoying cackle. PLEASE  START LISTENING TO THIS PODCAST, IF YOU DON’T ALREADY! IF YOU DO, LET’S HAVE A SHIRLEY TEMPLE OF DOOM TOGETHER! Really this is just an excuse for me to share this picture.

The Sandwich and the Baroness, NBC's next buddy cop series.

And this one.

My favorite podcasters

I am grateful to Jesse Thorn for putting this amazing weekend together. Everyone I met were incredibly kind and talented. SERIOUSLY, MOST AMAZING GROUP OF PEOPLE IN ONE PLACE EVER. This post doesn’t even cover half of the great stuff that I experienced over the weekend but it’s the most food related. We did eat and drink well all weekend. BOOZE!! There was even a burger lunch. I could have died from happiness. I must give a little shout out to my roomies, Lauren and Leanne, because they made my weekend even better. Meaning we had dance parties in between scheduled MFC events.

I will definitely be back next year. That’s a warning and a promise.

To keep the memories of this amazing weekend in my heart forever or at least on a wall at home, I just bought this great print, drawn by new Twitter pal @wolfhard. Pretty much sums up my emotions perfectly. You can purchase one for yourself at the MaxFunStore.

Flickr set!

Todd Barry is a sensitive guy, really sensitive. Other guys will patiently read your poetry if you ask, but Todd will actually ask you if you write poetry before you bring it up. And if you don’t, he’ll encourage you to do so. He’ll call you up daily and say things like “Hope you’re writing poetry today!” That said, Todd still has it in him to be “mega manly.” Like when he walked into this East Village restaurant and ordered a bowl of “meat soup.” Hearty, delicious meat soup. The perfect way to fuel up before diving into a seventh re-read of The Collected Poems of Octavio Paz, 1957-1987: Bilingual Edition.

Kindly borrowed from http://www.toddbarry.com/receipt_museum.html

This is just one of his receipts, you should totally stop over at his Receipt Museum and check out the rest. Also buy his records and go see him perform live.

I’d also like to note that he ordered a turkey burger. It’s a kind of burger so this is totally relevant to the scope of this blog.

*You can see on my Last.fm chart for last week that I listened to Todd Barry more than anything else. That’s a thing.

I just booked my flight to LA for MaxFunCon and in celebration of this I am writing another MFC related post. Can you feel the excitement! This is quite possibly the best cure for bummer snow days at work.

Jordan, Jesse, Go! or JJGo has become one of my favorite podcasts. Shamefully, while I have been a fan of The Sound of Young America for many years, I only came around to JJGo since their live show in Philly last September. I regret not loving this podcast sooner but better late than never. Jesse Thorn and Jordan Morris make a wonderful duo of hilarity and they have  great guests coming from the world of comedy.

I am sharing with you the thing that started it all for me which was their visit to Philly for the Fringe fest. This is sligthly FWTS related because it involves Philly and a hoagie (as seen in the picture above). While the Philly part starts 20 minutes into the audio, you should also listen to the first half because it features Jim Gaffigan and who doesn’t love that guy. The hoagie intervention at the end of the podcast is my favorite part because it features both JJGo and the dudes from You Look Nice Today, another of my favorite podcasts and MaxFunCon performers. For us suckers at work during a day where we should all be celebrating the snow in a bar, listen and enjoy.

Jordan, Jesse, Go! – Burlington Coat Factory

My Flickr set from the night.

You should totally read the interview first. I’ll wait.

Now that you’re done I’m going to list some of the highlights for me:

• Maron knows a thing or two about burgers, “Well there are different kinds of burgers…you’ve got your fast food type of burger, or diner type of burger or you’ve got your fancy burger.”
• Maron likes In-N-Out. I don’t think I have to go any further with that, you all know how I feel about INO.
• Maron  finds cooking meditative, “I find cooking very meditative and it captures my focus and I do it to step down all of my anxieties. We have very little control over most things in life but if you get going with cooking at least you have control for a half-hour.” So very true. I love cooking when I’m feeling stressed.

The whole interview is great and I can’t thank Marc, from Burgatory, enough for sharing it with us. I have been listening to Maron’s podcast for awhile now and it’s one of my favorites. You should totally subscribe to it ASAP. Thanks to WTFpod, I watch this video at least once a day. It is the funniest thing to come out of 2009.

And while I am linking to youtube videos, you should also check out Maron’s Angry Chef web series.

This interview is a great segue into a series that I hope to do where I highlight different food related items that are connected with folks performing at MaxFunCon. As I mentioned before, I AM ATTENDING MAXFUNCON!  You know who is going to be at MaxFunCon (MFC)? Marc Maron. See how it’s all related? I always hoped to somehow combine my love of food with my love of comedy and I hope to do that with this series as well as continue building up my excitment for MFC.

I have been telling a lot of people that I will be attending MFC because I pretty much can’t think about anything else. About 98.2% ask me what it is so I will explain it to you all now. As stated on the MFC website:

“MaximumFunCon is a gathering of creative people who wish to be more awesome”

That’s all you really need to know. Awesome people getting together to be even more awesome. It is hosted by Jesse Thorn America’s Radio Sweetheart™  and lord of  Maximunfun.org. Basically Jesse has gotten some of his amazing and talented friends together for a weekend of entertainment and fun. Even better he has given us, Johnny Q Public, the opportunity to be a a part of this amazing weekend.

Here is the list of performers:

Jad Abumrad
Maria Bamford
Will Boehlke
Clifford & Kidd
Dr. Cocktail
Jonathan Coulton
Julia Crookston
Elephant Larry
John Hodgman
Rian Johnson
Jordan, Jesse, Go!
Kasper Hauser
Al Madrigal
Marc Maron
Never Not Funny
Jimmy Pardo
Neal Pollack
Jenny Ryan
Andrew WK
You Look Nice Today

If this sounds like something you would enjoy, which it totally should or we shouldn’t be on speaking terms anymore, you should register to come.  The price includes all food, beverages, lodging and entertainment for the entire weekend. I hear it get’s very boozy, the food is excellent AND DID I MENTION THE ENTERTAINMENT! I would love to see some Philly folks at MFC. We could do the Mummer’s strut or something, show them how we do in the Illadelph.

Thanks TVGuide!

Banks: You know revenge is a dish best served cold Jack like sashimi or pizza.

Jack: You prefer cold pizza?

Banks: The morning after, it’s the best.

Jack: Better than hot pizza? That’s insane.

Banks: You don’t tell me what kind of pizza to like!

Oh and I created a clip of it via Hulu just so you could enjoy it.

It’s catchy right? The idea is whenever you are craving a smoke just put something on the smoker. With all the money you’ll be saving on not buying cigarettes you might just be able to buy a whole pig.

Sorry for the fluff post. I have at least 3 drafts in progress but can’t seem to settle down and write them.

Do you happen to have a food psa your might want to share?

Also because I am still reeling from the Monster’s of Podcasting show and it is slightly food related, you should listen to this early episode of Jordan, Jesse Go! They have a detailed discussion about candy bars and Dr. Pepper. I like my comedy mixed with a good dose of junk food. Very low calorie.

“A cheeseburger walks into a bar. He sits down next to a lady and says “Hey baby, wanna check out whats between my buns?” The woman says “You’re so cheesy.”

I imagined he looks something like this.

I lol’ed at the reference desk.

bestweekever.tv – video blog with PFT, Paul’s lunch

Me and PFT would have the most awesome cooking show. Le sigh.