This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.comNancy and Sarah chat with the charming Bridget Phetasy, host of the podcast Walk-Ins Welcome and the YouTube show Dumpster Fire, her weekly take on the news-and-nonsense cycle. Bridget is ten years sober (tomorrow!), and we revisit her reckless youth with a discussion of her essay, “I Regret Being a Slut.” She also explains how motherhood snuck up in her 40s after she’d come to peace with not having kids. Also discussed:* What age does the good-time van start to break down?* The days when Sarah’s first morning question was, “Do I recognize this ceiling?”* Bridget asks of her daughter, “I have to serve you three meals a day for how long?”* Why Nancy is the Jane Goodall of sexual encounters* Bridget coins a term, “wasted womb syndrome,” and no one is happy about it* On second thought, let’s not smash the patriarchy* Why do celebrities go from making movies to making tequila? Hint: it’s the money* We don’t want to close our eyes to the horrors in Israel and Gaza, but when does bearing witness tilt over into rubbernecking?* Are buffaloes kind of sexy?* The most underrated season of The WireAnd much more!

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.comOur guest is Greg Lukianoff, president and CEO of FIRE (The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) and author of the new book, The Canceling of the American Mind, which he wrote with Ricki Schlott. The book is a “walk down trauma lane” of the past several years, covering the feeding frenzy to go after people with views other than your own — and how we get out of it. Greg can chart when this mess began, late 2013 and 2014. But why? And what monster has been created now? (One answer might be found in a bunch of college groups publicly supporting the mass murder of civilians in Israel.) Also discussed:* People who say cancel culture isn’t real* What is the actual scope of the problem?* “The horrible phenomena of Tumblr, out of which all terrible mental health ideas seem to have arisen…”* Yale University has one administrator for every four students. “That’s the same ratio the government recommends for childcare of infants under twelve months.”* What is the worst college for free speech?* The link between wealth and performative justice* People telling Greg, “We do not hire elite college graduates anymore…”* Matt Welch gets name-checked as “an autodidact”!* Steven Pinker, too big to cancel?* Book banning and other problems with the right* Why you want to send your kid to U of Chicago and UVA* What Taylor Swift and the Pope have in common

Good morning Pie Talk listeners. Waking up to the news that Hamas attacked Israel and that the country is now at war. I immediately texted my friend Yael Bar tur, who lives in NYC but is home in Tel Aviv visiting with family, a family I know and love. I had not yet read anything else, but for her tweet below. If you’re on Twitter, you can follow Yael, who will assuredly be posting updates.Ten minutes before I checked in with Yael I’d gone through the handwritten recipes I have sitting on top of the microwave, to choose what I would write about today. It would be kugel, because it’s delicious and easy; because October is a month of Jewish holidays, and because I had a funny story about the first time I ate it and got the recipe. Also, the last time I made one, it was for a Passover this spring hosted by Yael and her parents. Today, I told Yael I was sending all love and courage and faith, and that overnighting cookies seemed beside the point but…“Can I have the cookies when I get back?” she wrote.Of course, I told her, that today’s Pie Talk would be kugel, at which she responded with today’s subtitle: “Pies for peace!”Episode notes and recipe:The Bad Mother: A Novel, by Nancy RommelmannMichael Moynihan, yours truly, Yael Bar-Tur and Matt Welch at Israel Supreme Court, 2022The light in Israel, plus Michael shows appreciation for the Israeli militaryReporting from Israel 2022:* T-1: Israel* The Rabbi Offers His Broccoli* 15 Meals in 36 Hours* The Olive Trees* Hebron* You Don’t Know Anything* Yad VashemBill Schulz reads at Yael’s family Passover in NYC, 2023American Playhouse’s Roanoak, on which I met my daughter’s dad. We built those villages in swampland, weathered one hurricane and 10,000 chigger bites; I crashed a truck into a tree and got chased up a different tree by a wild boar. Two marriages ended, one baby was born, and I fell in love so hard I thought a train had fallen on me. Tim is not in any of the scenes of this clip (which I’ve never before seen), but during the opening scene (or one like it), he and two other guys in the longboat fished me out of the river when my over-the-shoulder hip-waders filled up and pulled me under. At 2:43 you can see, rear right carrying the wounded man, the man who would become my daughter’s godfather, and at 3:03, Tim’s dad and my daughter’s grandfather Will comes in, as the Chief, always cast as the Chief, both because that’s where Natives in film were back in 1985, and also, maybe, because he was 6’7”. Just after Tavie’s baptism, with her two non-Catholic godmothersI misspoke when I said, the priest pressed $220 into my dad’s hand. It was of course the other way around!Alison Segan’s Mother’s Kugel* 1 12-ounce bag egg noodles* 8 ounces cream cheese, softened* 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter softened, plus more for buttering the pan* 1 cup milk* 4 eggs* 1/2 cup white sugar* 1 teaspoon vanilla* 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon* 1/2 cup white raisins* Frosted Flakes cerealBoil noodles in boiling salted water until just cooked. While noodles are cooking, with a hand-mixer or standing mixer, blend the cream cheese and butter. Add all remaining ingredients (except noodles and Frosted Flakes) and blend until smooth. Combined drained noodles and cream cheese mixture, toss, and pour into an 8 x 12 (or so) buttered dish. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.Preheat oven to 350F. Unwrap noodles, sprinkle with a generous amount of Frosted Flakes, and bake for 1 hour, 15 minutes. Serve warm or cold. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit smokeempodcast.substack.com/subscribe

Nancy and Sarah discuss the Savior Complex and a controversial docu-series about a white missionary in Uganda. They explore the allegations against a baseball player, Trevor Bauer, and the discomfort of false accusations in the media. The dangers of missionary zeal and the activist group No White Saviors are also explored. Plus, Rudy Giuliani's drinking problem and the joys of an old-fashioned newspaper.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.comNancy and Sarah talk with Marisa Meltzer, author of the new book “Glossy: Ambition, Beauty, and the Inside Story of Emily Weiss’s Glossier.” The pretty-in-pink makeup brand Glossier became a phenomenon after it debuted in 2014, and the book tracks the rise and not-exactly-fall of its founder Emily Weiss — telegenic, driven, an MTV star at 22 — who built a billion-dollar company that exploded on Instagram and defined the effortlessly chic life young women coveted, at least for a time. How did she do it? Weiss has a “WASPier version of chutzpah,” as Meltzer puts it, and she somehow managed to survive the “Girlboss gotcha” purge that ousted other female CEOs.Also discussed:* The verboten intimacy of people’s make-up rituals* “Emily the super intern” on “The Hills”* How is makeup actually made?* #girlboss blah blah* The higher the pedestal, the longer the fall* The “zest for blood” that was 2020* Which actor is making Marisa hornier than she’s been in a while?* Nancy’s energy fields* Breast milk soap anyone?

Guest Dave Portnoy, certified douche-bro of Barstool Sports, comes out the winner in a viral standoff with the Washington Post. Other topics include the desert's scent, cringeworthy Portnoy phone call, unanswerable marriage questions, discomfort of single women, and the high cost of egg freezing.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.comThis week Nancy and Sarah butter up the prolific and enviably clever journalist/novelist Kat Rosenfield. Kat takes us back to the days of writing $15 posts for MTV News and through the confounding episode of her cancellation in the young-adult fiction world, which led to a stellar career as, among other things, a culture columnist at UnHerd and co-host of the podcast Feminine Chaos. She writes compulsively readable thrillers, too! Also discussed:* That time Kat was suspended from Twitter for telling someone to …* The YA lit dogpile that Kat wrote her way out of* Why she thinks most cancellations are “an overcoat over some personal beef”* Her obsession with the loss of social trust* Our conflict between wanting women to have the agency of their own choices and wanting to keep them safe* Ahhh, Howard Stern memories (and how apparently no woman should be over 120 pounds in the 90s)* The disappointing reveal of the Lauren Boebert footage* How to solve a problem like Russell Brand?* Age of consent and 16 year olds* The podcaster that makes Kat bite her lips* New Beauty Mark recommendations to make you smooth, soft and sleepyAnd much more!

Michael Moynihan, co-host of 'The Fifth Column' podcast, discusses the attempted LA Times takedown of a Bari Weiss debate. They talk about the importance of welcoming debate, Michael's interest in history, and why journalism school isn't recommended. They also mention Bill Maher, a new podcast on 80s New York crime, and the greatness of Shane Gillis.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.comIt’s September 11, and what does it say that neither of us recalled the date the minute we woke up? And what would it be like to wake up and find you are, perhaps, being made an example of? Danny Masterson, star of That 70s Show, found out last week, as did former Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio, each receiving what seem to be outsized sentences, in Masterson’s case, 30 years to life for rape, in Tarrio’s 22 years for seditious conspiracy. Were the men’s long sentences affected by their affiliations to Scientology and the Proud Boys, respectively, and a public hunger for a whipping boy? And what do Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis have to apologize for? (Hint: nothing.) Also discussed this episode:* What it was like for Sarah to be in Bolivia when the towers came down* An alleged LAPD/Scientology conspiracy seems unlikely …* But how did Scientologists thwart the victims in the Masterson case (in one case charging $15k for auditing)?* Thing we really didn’t want to know about Mackenzie Phillips* How “intentional” was January 6?* Men are turning away from college: Could the “bro-chure” bring them back?* The debut of Beauty Bump, a regular tidbit wherein Nancy and Sarah share the products/gizmos/routines that keep them soft and lovely (please do not disabuse us of this notion).* Gen Xers dig Olivia RodrigoAlso, tonight, September 11, Nancy will be reading at P & T Knitwear Bookstore, 180 Orchard St, 6:30-8pm. Come by and say hi!And don’t sleep on heading over to Apple podcasts to rate and review ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️!We become ever softer and lovelier when you become a paid subscriber

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.comNancy and Sarah are joined by Chaya Leah Sufrin, one-half of the wonderful “Ask a Jew” podcast, to talk about a subject she’s mostly avoided: Weight and her own body. Chaya Leah recently lost 45 pounds, which coincides with a season when Sarah was shedding weight too, making for one big conversation about diets, discipline, self-care versus self-neglect, and the mental health savior that is exercise. Topics include:* The forbidden TV show Chaya Leah used to sneak-watch as a young girl* The secret to weight loss is deciding to do it* How do you balance body positivity with, umm, reality?* Atkins, South Beach, Weight Watchers, Scarsdale, etc etc.* The Jane Fonda workout and the 80s VHS fitness craze* Vitamin B12 shots, yea or nay?* Everyone thinks Chaya Leah is on Ozempic (she’s not)* Nancy and Sarah share a fantasy and it involves … pills?* Chaya Leah’s crush on Elon Musk* Did the ADL go to the way of the ACLU?* Who Nancy wants to play her in the movieAnd much more!