#323: Thanksgiving Debate + Cozy Fall Home

0:00 Emma You're listening to the Beautiful Mess podcast, your cozy comfort listen. I'm your host Emma Chapman. Elsie And I'm your host Elsie Larson. Emma And this week we're chatting about Thanksgiving dishes, discussing a hot take about why Thanksgiving is the worst meal of the year, and answering questions about rugs. We'll also share a book report, so grab your warm beverage and let's get cozy together.

0:08 Elsie Love, love. Okay, so before we jump in, we have a rug question from Mandy. She says, "I've heard you both mention rugs over the years. Have we ever? This is one of my passions. Okay, and I'd love to hear your real life experience. How have natural fiber rugs held up compared to synthetic rugs, which is easier to clean and maintain. And are there any materials that you'd avoid if you're replacing all the rugs in your home today? What would you shop for for each room? Okay, love this question. So there's multi parts. So first, let's say how have the natural fibers held up compared to synthetic rugs. Okay, so natural fiber rugs go both ways for me. In my opinion, the best rug that you can buy is a real wool rug

0:16 because you can wash it. Like you can pretend that it is like your own hair. You could wash it with shampoo or soap. You know, you can take it out and hose it. You can. There's so many things you can do. It's almost always fixable. Even wine stains. Like there's a lot of potential for real wool wool rugs to age gracefully. And almost all vintage rugs that you see online, whether it's like a Turkish rug or an Oriental rug or a Moroccan rug, they're almost all made of wool, so I love all those types. However, in my opinion, the worst material you can get in the world is also a natural material, and that is a jute rug.

0:22 Jute rugs, unless you're talking about a bath mat or a rug in a room that you hardly ever use. Like if it's any foot traffic, you are gonna live to regret this rug. If your dog has an accident, if someone gets mud on it, whatever, it's ruined. Like there's just nothing. Like I, I hate jute rugs. So I very very rarely. I do think they're cute. They can be cute.

0:26 Emma They are kind of cute. Elsie I've fallen for them more times than I would like to admit. But yeah, that's probably the one that I avoid. Emma Yeah, I will say I do think jute. And correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it comes in different kind of levels. So the softer jute rugs that are almost more like a cotton to me are different from I think what you're talking about.

0:34 Elsie And you could wash them? Emma Is more of like they're hardy. They feel more like. Elsie Like straw almost. Emma Like straw almost. And those to me are kind of like if your dog has ever pooped on that rug, it is never coming out. It is just in there, and it is so annoying. It is the worst. But there are ones that are like these very soft. They're almost like cotton. Like they're just, but that's really different, and they're just different.

0:44 Elsie I haven't experienced that kind. Okay, and then synthetic rugs. So I love the rifle, the rifle paper company rugs. I've bought those for years, and then also in our kitchen, I have a couple of synthetic runners. And would they be prettier if I replace them with real vintage? Like yes, but they're so affordable. I was just thinking, like they have been in there a whole year, and they're perfect still because they're basically plastic. So any kind of plastic rug is the type of thing where, like, if you have a spill, the water's just going to sit on the top of it until you get a paper towel, and so those kind of rugs are also good. They serve a function. If you have a house with young kids and pets, you might want to

0:52 go for one of those rugs for a time. But yeah, I always am going to think that like something vintage or natural fiber is better if you have you know the opportunity. But you know, I still have little kids, and I have puppies still. They're not really puppies anymore, but they still behave as puppies. So my dog is old. He is an old man dog, and we still once in a while have accidents. Yeah, like it's just part of having pets, you know, and that's fine. Yeah. So yeah, clean and maintain. I I will say I I personally like the wool because, like the shaggy, traditional-looking rugs. Because I just like to like spot clean it really good, and then let it dry with a towel under it. And then if it's really bad, I'll take it on the porch and use

0:59 a sprayer and let it dry outdoors. But that's like you know a seasonal cleaning type of thing. So yeah, and I also think that rugs with busy patterns like are just more forgiving. So that's something to think about. Like rugs, vintage rugs with really light patterns that are almost white, where it's just like a little bit of like that's going to show a red wine stain and one that with a like big. Contrasty pattern is not probably going to show it, so I think that's all my opinions. But if I was going to start over, I mean, I pretty much did start over three years ago when we moved here because we sold a furnished house, and I, I think I just said what our rugs are, but like most of the rugs in our house are vintage or they're

1:06 made. There's some places on Etsy that make like custom Turkish rugs, yeah, and those are amazing. Emma I have one of those in my home. Elsie I think they're worth the splurge, and they are kind of a splurge because you get to pick the exact size. And so I have that in like our living room, our bedroom, and then I have several of the rifle rugs, which are they have different kinds, but I like their printed synthetic rugs. So if I'm going to get a printed rug, I will look at those first, just because they have the cutest patterns.

1:14 Emma Yeah, they do. Elsie And then I have a couple of other like our kitchen runner is synthetic rug, and that works perfectly well. Like it's not going to last a lifetime, but it is serving the need of the room right now, so, um, and then for porch rugs, I do kind of the plasticky ones over the jute, just because of what I just said about the the dirt and stuff. Like you just jute is like impossible.

1:21 Emma I like don't even hardly bother with outdoor rugs right now, but it's in part because my kids are just real dirt boys. Like we're in our our mud kitchen era, and there's just really we just don't even bother with that because I can just hose down the the back porch so much easier without a rug, so it's just a better fit for us. Yeah, I'm kind of the same. I really like natural fibers, but I think there's definitely a place for the unnatural plasticky fibers, especially if you have young kids and pets, which I do, and yeah, I also will say I am I'm a slow decorator anyway, but I definitely think it can pay to go slow on rugs, and I know it can make a room feel less cozy or like you know like if you're in your bedroom, like you place your

1:29 feet on the ground when you wake up in the morning. It's nice to have a rug, so you might be like, oh, I want to buy one right away as soon as you move in. But sometimes, like getting the wrong rug, it's one of those that, especially if you're buying something nicer, it can just you can feel really stuck with it. And so, if you make a choice that wasn't really the right size or it wasn't the right material for the space, then I think it's better to just go slow. And and I also think a lot of companies do this now, where you can get samples. So get the samples. One, you can show your partner because that's a big thing for me. If it's like I don't want to buy a rug, and then my partner's like, oh, you know, because it's like, oh, it's already

1:36 bought and returning. It's a whole thing. So I'm like, I'd rather just make sure that we're on the same page and we're looking at it and we see the pattern and we know how it's going to feel, so then it's like a done deal, you know. So the samples are really nice, but also you can you can like if you have a rug sample, you can spill some wine on it or water on it and see what you think. See if cleaning it works, and if not, then you can kind of just okay, you know what? This is going to be a high traffic area in our home, and we have a dog, and we have kid. We're not gonna. We're gonna get something else. Like this isn't quite the right fit. So I think that can be good to kind of test. But yeah, and sometimes you do

1:43 make a mistake, and you kind of have to just put it in a different room of your house, or yeah, just forgive yourself. Just forgive yourself and move on. But it happens. It's good to go slow, I think, because then you can kind of take some time to decide what you want. Elsie Yeah, I definitely agree with that. I think building your rooms in layers slowly is one of the best things you can do. Like if you can just get the bones, and then you can live with it for even like a month or two, then you can start adding things to it, and you can be just a little bit more sure about your decisions than making the decisions based on like before pictures or whatever. Like it makes a big difference.

1:51 Yeah, it does. Okay, so one of our listeners had the idea to do an autumn themed five senses. So it's what are you eating, drinking, smelling, watching, listening to, and wearing. This is so fun, and I did not pre do this, so I'm just gonna do. Emma I didn't either. We're just doing on the fly. Elsie Okay, eating. So last night I made apple cider slushies and baked brie with pie crust for our book club, and so that's what I'm eating. Love it. I and the and the baked brie was like in a little little pumpkin.

1:59 What do you call them? Like baking dish. Emma Oh yeah, those are so cute. Elsie You know, but it looked like a pumpkin from Home Goods. Like it just felt like Pinterest mom time. And then I'm Martha Stewart. I have a cool pan. That's how I feel. Yes. So that's eating and drinking, smelling. I have this special candle this year. Okay. So if you haven't heard, I have an aversion to food smelling candles, and most pumpkin candles are like kind of like pumpkin pie candles. Like they're not.

2:07 Emma Yeah. They border into like pumpkin cookies, pumpkin latte type smell. Elsie And I I hate them. She doesn't. I've tried and tried and tried. Like I've tried. I have. I've put in 20 years of buying pumpkin candles, and I just like hate how they smell for myself in my home. So I found this candle at at home, and it's called like heirloom pumpkin, and it smells like a dupe of the heirloom tomato candle, and it smells like earthy, like it kind of smells like yeah, like tomato. Or but when you think about it, a pumpkin is more similar to a tomato.

2:15 Emma It's a garden vegetable. Yeah, is it a vegetable or a fruit, I don't know. Elsie It has this like really pleasant like herbal, earthy fragrance. So that's what I'm burning for fall. And any second now, I also like have one that's kind of a cinnamony. Any second now, I'll switch to Christmas though because I like cannot wait.

2:21 Emma Yeah, no, I smelled this heirloom pumpkin in her bathroom, and I immediately was like, "Ooh, what's this candle?" So good. And you told me, and so then I next chance I had to go to at home, I went bought like three of them. So they're like all over my house now too because I loved it. Elsie Yeah.

2:27 Emma I actually like a pumpkin spice latte candle. I am the most basic you will ever meet. I love it, but this one was really nice. It was very. It smelled like our mom's garden. That's what I thought. I was like, this smells like being in mom's garden, but in kind of a fall time way. I don't know. I was really into it, so I immediately bought some too.

2:32 Elsie I don't know if it's really a false. I think it's like a summer scent, but in a fall package, and it made me feel like I was participating in fall, but in a way that I liked. And then watching, okay, I'm watching the new East of Eden TV series on Netflix, and it is incredible. I'm obsessed. I have one episode left, and it's been so fun listening to okay my cry. I have a crying song.

2:37 Emma Oh. Elsie It is called Neptune. It's by Sufjan Stevens and also like some collaborators. Um, but I only know Sufjan Stevens. But it's like my sad. Yeah, it's what I I listen to it almost every day, and I'm also listening to audio books. So it's audio book time. I'm about to start exit party. That's fun. I'm so excited. Um, and then wearing I am wearing Christie Dawn dresses like it's 1890. Like every like like I'm a cowgirl from 1890. That's what I'm wearing. Okay, your turn.

2:45 Emma She wants to dress like a trad wife. Elsie Yes, I don't want to be a trad wife. Emma Oh, I just got Nara Smith's book in the mail, her cookbook. I was looking through it this morning while my kids were watching PBS, so I was like so excited to bake something. Okay, what else for me? So I kind of same thing on the candle, but I also have pumpkin candles. Eating, drinking is first. Okay, what am I eating and drinking? Drinking. Okay, this is going to sound funny, but I have three things I'm kind of drinking right now. One is I kind of make this like collagen hot chocolate thing. Ooh, it's it's basically like protein powder, collagen protein powder. That's chocolate, and I blend it into like milk, hot milk, and I

2:56 make like a little one, and that's like my little afternoon. It's like a treat, but it's not. I'm not trying to be like it tastes just like hot chocolate. No, it doesn't. It tastes like protein hot chocolate. It sounds like almond mom stuff. Yeah, it's definitely like more of a healthy treat, so I'm I'm telling you the truth here, people. Okay, so that and then I this time of year I always break out the apple cider, just you know, but the apple cider and also teas, like any kind of cinnamon tea, I'm always into this time of year. And here's the thing that I've added. So my friend told me about this. I'm a little bit anemic. Here's something you should know about me. I've been anemic since college. It's a thing my doctors talk to me about. I'm

3:03 now like in a range where he's like, "You're good. You're like on the lighter range. Keep taking your supplements, but like you're okay." So anyway, one thing I've been trying though is I found these little. They're shaped like fish, and they fit in a coffee mug, and they're little cast iron fish that you can put into a soup that you're making or into like boiling water, and it just adds a little bit of iron to the soup. What?

3:07 It's a little crazy, but it's a real thing. It's a real thing that people do. Wow! And I was like, okay, well, I love soup and I make tea a lot, so I'll try that. And here's my review. I think it's great. It does make your tea taste a tiny bit like metal, a little bit. Like all the reviews online, right? Doesn't taste at all. I was like, it does like a tiny, tiny bit.

3:11 Elsie Do you think it could give you like dental trauma? Uh, Emma In what way? Oh yeah, you should not. So you don't leave it. Elsie Oh okay. Emma SO you put it in there. You put the hot water. You put your tea bag, and then when you take the tea bag out, I take it out too. Elsie Okay. Okay. Emma And there's instructions it comes with, like you should have a call instruction.

3:24 Elsie It's basically just simulating cooking in cast iron, right? Emma Yes, it's exactly the same thing. Elsie Okay. Emma Exactly the same thing. It's like cooking with cast iron. It's just a tiny piece of cast iron that you put into boiling water or soup. So I've been. Doing that with my tea as a way to try to get more iron, but yeah, Elsie, you couldn't see it because this is audio only. But like, she was mimicking, like tipping your cup up so it would hit your teeth. Don't leave it in your drink so that you're tipping your cup open and it won't hit your teeth. Don't don't do that. You take it out. Nobody's gonna do that. And much like a cast iron, you have to clean it kind of right away and like take care of it. Like I had a tiny bit of oil to mine, like like

3:37 a cast iron. You have to kind of care for it. That is an interesting invention. It's strange, but some friends told me about it, and I was like, okay, I'll look that up. And sure enough, it was a thing that was easy to buy, and that seemed to be like a lot of people know about this. So I was like, well, I'm anemic. I'll try it, and I drink tea all the time. So okay. So anyway, okay. So that eating this weekend, I'm so excited because I'm about to make my royal icing sugar cookies for Halloween. We're having a play day, and so I thought it'd be fun for the kids could decorate them all together. I love making those for every holiday, but I especially love the Halloween ones because I always give them like weird sprinkles like

3:44 bones and eyeballs and you know just silly things so that's always fun to me and then the next free moment I have I'm going to make Sally's baking addiction these like pumpkin crumb cookies that are on her website I like very excited for it I just haven't really had a free moment of baking to myself. I did a lot of cooking. We recently had our dad's like birthday weekend, so I was doing a lot of cooking for that. So I just haven't got around to this yet. But the next moment I have, I'm making those. I think my family will like them too, but they're honestly for me. Okay, what else? Watching. I actually don't really feel like we're watching a show right now. I'm very much just reading at night. That counts. I wish Bob's Burgers

3:51 would come back. We keep checking it for more episodes, and it feels like it's over now. So, if anyone has insider information, let me know because it's my favorite show of all time. Okay, and then wearing. I do have to say this: today is the first day that I'm wearing a sweater. How do you feel? Like myself again. It's so nice. It's been so hot, but today it was kind of rainy, so I was like, okay, today's the day.

3:55 And I have a great sweater collection. Elsie This morning we woke up to like the thunderstorm sounds, and it it put me in the perfect mood. Emma Me too. Yeah, and I have a few new ones that I like thrifted over the summer, and I've just been waiting and waiting, and I'm like, finally, sweater season! So I'm so excited for that.

4:01 Elsie Cute. Emma Just love being in a sweater all day. Okay, that's it on my next five spices. Elsie Okay, the next question. This one is from Tisha. She says she wants each of us to rank our favorite, our top list of favorite Thanksgiving sides, and then we need to compare when we agree and disagree.

4:08 Emma Okay, so these are like traditional sides. Elsie Yes, yes. Okay, I think I can do this off the top of my head. Can we be like traditional, but also just like what you want on your own? Yeah, like our own. You can be any. Okay, okay. I just meant like American because we do our whole themed Thanksgiving thing, which is a whole different, you know. Okay, so the thing that my favorite thing that is traditional American Thanksgiving is stuffing. I absolutely love stuffing, and it is like, yeah, it like the stuffing from a box, great. The stuffing that you make a fancy from a friend's fancy New York Times recipe or whatever, great. Like I don't even care like what it is. It's just like always good. And then my second thing is Emma has a recipe on a beautiful mess for stuffing

4:18 meatballs, where it's like half stuffing, half meatballs. So it's kind of the same thing, but those I can't explain it unless you're if you're into meatballs and you're into stuffing, which I am. It's a 10 out of 10 recipe. Emma Yeah. Well, some stuffings actually have meat in it. Like people will add a little bit of sausage. Some people stuffing recipes. So that's sort of where the idea came from. I was like, but what if it was cute?

4:24 Elsie Yeah. Emma Like it was like you know the meatballs. Elsie And then the thing I think should always be there that isn't usually that we had we had last year because last year we tried to do like Ralph Lauren themed Thanksgiving right is shrimp tried excuse me well no we did we did we had we we did it shrimp cocktail I want shrimp cocktail at every party of my whole life.

4:33 Emma In the martini glass? Elsie Yeah, in some kind of a special, like a silver tray or martini glass, like anything like that. I just love it. And yeah, if we eat at a steakhouse, I order every single time. It's just like my one of my happy foods. And then the food, should I do the food I don't like.

4:39 Emma Yeah, go ahead. I don't feel like it was asked of you, but I can tell you want to say it. So, no, it was asked. It was asked. Elsie The food that I don't like this traditional American Thanksgiving is the sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top. Emma Oh. Elsie I would rather die. Emma You know that side is kind of it's kind of like Jell-O salad. In that it's like almost a dessert, so it's sort of a weird one because I'm like, this could be served as a dessert, and I like sweet potatoes.

4:52 Elsie But there's always a million desserts. Emma There are. Elsie So why do you need that? Emma So I feel like that's why it ends up in the side dishes. Yeah, but I'm like, this is kind of a dessert in a way. Yeah, I don't know. Elsie We do make our family has this like Jello salad. It's also on a beautiful mess, and it is like a midwestern family recipe. It's a childhood memory, so I both think that it's disgusting and love it.

5:04 Emma Yeah, I have foods like that too, where I'm like, this is gross, but I love it. Yeah. Okay, so my top sides is I love, love, love, love, love, and look forward to constantly baked macaroni and cheese. I love baked macaroni and cheese. I love all versions of it. To me, it's kind of a special dish, so I like it at holidays.

5:08 Elsie I like it. I like it with truffle. I like it with lobster. I like it with any crumble topping. Emma Yeah, crumble topping. It could have the more like broiled topping, kind of like almost cheese skin topping. I like that too. Elsie I did find though that like I made it once and I regretted it because sometimes you don't want to know how food is made.

5:16 Emma Now you know the secret. Yeah, you're like, holy, this is bad for you. Elsie It's worse than anything. Emma It's real bad for you. Yeah, that's why you should maybe keep it to holidays only. But it's so good. I love it so much. I love you, baked macaroni. Okay, and my favorite recipe of all time is on our website. A lot of these recipes are on our website. Okay, another one that I love. Speaking of carbs, I also love like really delicious dinner rolls, but they have to have honey butter. Ooh, honey butter to me just is Thanksgiving. I think it's because our great aunt Ina always had honey butter at her Thanksgivings, and that was and to me she was kind of like if there was a real life Martha Stewart, it was Aunt Ina.

5:27 Elsie Marigold can do that recipe this year. It will make her day. Emma Yeah, I love honey butter. So really good, you know, warm out of the oven rolls with honey butter. That to me is just like a top. And then I have to mention this because I like it, but this is my husband's favorite. So it's sort of one that I've worked on a lot because I like to make things that other people enjoy. It just feels good, but green bean casserole.

5:34 Elsie Oh yeah. Emma I personally really like it with fresh green beans. But I can get on board with the like dump dump can version too, which is more like what people tend to do, and that's great. I think what it is, honest? I love green beans generally, not so much canned, but like generally. But I really love French fried onions, and I feel like they don't come up enough. We should be using French fried onions more, in my opinion.

5:41 Elsie Bring bring in French fried onions to almost anything. I feel like Matthew McConaughey has like a tuna salad that has French fried onions in it or something, and I was like, his unhinged tuna salad was a beautiful thing. I thought I just love French fried onions. I think they're so good, and could go on more things for sure. So, yeah, yeah, I I prefer it with the fresh green beans, but whatever. Yeah, you know what I mean. Everyone has their thing.

5:47 Emma Say one we don't like. Anything that I don't like. I mean, I think like vegetables that don't hold up well, I don't tend to like like squash, things that get kind of like soggy. I tend to like more like cauliflower, broccoli, green beans, things that can almost like hold a bit of body to cooking, as opposed to something that just becomes mush. If I want mush. I just want to eat like macaroni and cheese. You know, I don't really want my vegetables to be mushy. I don't really like that very much.

5:53 Elsie You know what? I what I kind of don't like, but I'm afraid to say it because everyone loves it. Twice baked potatoes. Emma Really, you don't like twice baked potatoes? Elsie I think they're okay. I think they're fine. Emma Do you feel like it's just the effort that goes into them. You might as well just have a baked potato, or what? Like what? You don't like cheese and potatoes?

6:03 Elsie I think it's just not my. There's so many good ways in the world to eat a potato. I think it's just not my top potatoes. Emma There are so many good ways to eat a potato. That is true. Yeah, yeah. Elsie But when we were growing up, that was like the kind of like the midwestern. Emma There were like two pans of twice baked potatoes because they were gonna run out.

6:12 Elsie I was like doing a competition. Emma It was a flash sale on twice baked potatoes. Elsie Yeah. But yeah, every I don't know. I just think Thanksgiving is okay. Let's do the hot take because I think this goes perfectly into the hot take from Rebecca. Her hot take is Thanksgiving is the worst meal of the year, and then she has four points to back up her claim.

6:20 Emma Here is her four point TED talk on why Thanksgiving is the worst meal year. It's all mush, potatoes, sweet potatoes, casserole stuffing, green bean casserole, creamed corn, mac and cheese, and even the desserts. It's all mush. Elsie That's true. Emma Yeah, turkey is dry and bland without gravy. Can be that's for sure. The prep takes days, and you end up with a few bites of everything. You're either starving from saving your appetite, or you're already full from constantly snacking.

6:30 Elsie True, or drunk. Emma Or a little drunk by the time the food's ready. Elsie If you're me and Emma, you're just having fun. Emma Listen, I can't hold my liquor. I don't drink. Elsie Okay, I will say for Rebecca, my entire life until I was an adult, I would have hard agreed with this. I always was like, I don't get it. You know, like I just didn't get it. And I think that I will say that having it in my own house and doing it with Emma, where we are the grownups doing the preparation and setting the table, and we get to pick all the menu items. I will now defend Thanksgiving, and I think it's like a wonderful, very fulfilling, very fun activity.

6:44 Emma Now that I do it my way, it's great. Elsie My way or the highway. Emma So, do our kids like it? Who cares? We're doing it our way now. They get to have their day one day. Elsie Kind of. I mean, honestly, kind of. I don't know. I think that you have to find what works for you within it. But I don't disagree with any of her points. Actually, I think she has some points. What about you?

6:53 Emma Yeah, yeah. I do think turkey can be kind of eh if you're not careful. We've had good ones and we've had bad ones. I feel like we've done turkey enough times now that I'm like, it can be good ones. Elsie You know when people do like the smoked turkey. Emma It can be pretty interesting, yeah. And we also have lots of years where we kind of just do meatballs or something else because we're like, eh, turkey, eh, we'll do something else, you know, for like the main protein or whatever you want to. So yeah, and the prep does take days, but I don't really mind that because I enjoy cooking. I think people who don't enjoy cooking, what a nightmare of a holiday! If you're like in charge of this and you don't enjoy that, it's like what a chore. That's a bummer.

7:04 Elsie Honestly. To spend like the week before, or if I don't know, three days before with Marigold making pie and then making cookies and then making the Oreo truffles, I think, is like probably one of the best parts about it because it gives you an excuse to like make all this food because you know you're gonna have this big family celebration.

7:09 Emma And you almost have to think of that as part of the event and enjoy it as such. Otherwise, it is just a big chore. You should honestly just order stuff, you know, or whatever. Like, don't. Elsie That's true. There are so we we did part of that last year. We did like a halfway order William Sonoma Thanksgiving, and it was great.

7:15 Emma It was great. Yeah, it was great. Yeah. So do that. I mean, yeah, and yeah, and I also think end up with a few bites of everything. I kind of like that. Yeah, yeah. And I do think you should try to think about like leftover ideas. I feel like a lot of times people are like, "Don't waste food." Like you should feel guilty if you waste food. That's really not my point. If you want to get on that high horse, you ride it. But I just think it's fun to like think of like interesting things to make with stuff afterwards. Like one year I did this like turkey quiche. It's like a quiche had turkey in it. Like thinking of like ways you can use some of the leftovers in things the the coming days, and that's almost like something to look forward to there too.

7:23 Like almost like Thanksgiving was meal prep for the weekend for the holiday weekend. Anyway, I don't know. So yeah, and then yeah, I do think her point number four: you're either starving from saving your appetite for the meal, or you're already full, or we added already drunk. That's just kind of a you problem, though, right?

7:27 Elsie Yeah, I mean, no one's gonna stop you from eating breakfast on Thanksgiving Day. I think you just gotta do your own stuff. I I'm like never gonna think it's fun to wait until dinner to eat a meal. Like I, there's no meal that's that important to me. I'm gonna wait all day. Yeah, I'm gonna eat in the mid morning every single day of my life, or I'm gonna be in a bad mood. So that's just, you know.

7:32 Emma I actually kind of prefer being one of the cooks in part because I can kind of, I almost get like two meals. Elsie Yeah. Emma Where you're kind of like eating while you're making stuff, and then you get to sit down and have like a small meal. Elsie Yeah. Emma But I like that personally because I don't really like having a giant meal all at once. I don't. I don't usually eat a whole lot all at once. I like to eat a couple of you know smaller meals.

7:44 Elsie I have always been an appetizer sampler, and I always will be. Like I think that's like one of the greatest things you can do to yourself or do for yourself. Order every appetizer. It's such a joyful thing. Like especially if you don't feel like called to the menu, then just like you know, yeah. And I was like, like it's a holiday. I know people who are like, I just eat a good amount of turkey because I'm trying to eat some protein, and then I have myself three small slices of pie, and I'm like, "Yeah, man, do that! Like that sounds great." If that's like you're like, "I just a minute for the pie," then it's like, "Yeah, save yeah, save yourself for that." Then great. Like it's a holiday. Have fun. Like it's meant to be fun. Yeah, just find what

7:52 you like. Yeah, just do. Your way, do it your way. Um, I I do have to put in a good word because I already mentioned marigold. Nova's um signature recipe is the little smoky, where they're wrapped with croissants. What's it called? Emma Pig in a blanket. Elsie Yes, pig in a blanket, and it is her pride and joy. She loves making them. She should be proud of pigs and blankets. So cute, and so I think like finding a recipe that each person, especially if you have kids, but each person in your family can make that like makes them proud. Like nothing makes me proud really, except for my sugar cookies. And if I make my sugar cookies, I will be so proud. You know?

8:02 Emma Yeah. Elsie Like find your thing. Yeah. Yeah. Emma Yeah. Yeah. Get kids involved. If they're too little, don't get them involved. Just whatever. It's meant to be fun. It's meant to be a fun holiday. And if you hate cooking, just order everything. My God, don't put yourself through hell. Elsie But yeah, you can also just order Chinese food. You can do whatever you can.

8:12 Emma Do whatever you want. Pizza. Do pizza for Thanksgiving. Yeah, do whatever you want, man. Elsie Yes. Okay. So it's book report time. And you don't have one this week. Emma I don't. Elsie Okay, so my book report this week is Hollywood Ending by John Green. So I don't think that there is really a spoiler that's going to ruin this book for you, but I'll try to be considerate. Perfect. Yeah, I'll try to.

8:21 I'll try to do it perfectly. Um, it's not that kind of book. It is. I would call it a romance first and foremost. It's a romance, and it's also combined with one of my favorite things, which is watching people make something big. So, do you remember a couple years ago there was this book that Tom Hanks, the actor, made. Yeah, and it was like I think it was called like Making a Movie Masterpiece or something like that. And it was about like they were making a movie most of, and you got to see like all the different like what did the PAs do and what does the director do and how does it feel to be an actor. So this book had a lot of that because it was about a movie being made, and it also had a lot of scenes

8:28 where they were doing their press tour to promote the movie, which was very interesting. And it had a love story, adorable. And I just like want to say I consider John Green to be the millennial woman's prom king, yes, I think he. We all voted, and yes, yeah, we all voted. Yeah, I know he's maybe not technically a millennial. Doesn't matter. He still won, and he has that crown on his head. And yeah, I just I hope he writes more books like this because it was just an absolute delight to read, and the whole thing, I just was like, this book is only the second book I've read this year. Where the whole time I was just like, this is so cute. It's so sweet. It's so like it made me feel like you know, like such warm, happy,

8:35 good feelings. Not to say that it doesn't have anything dark in it, because it definitely does. But for the most part, it maybe it's just like my the spectrum of my palette, but it felt like very light and happy and full of optimism and hope. He does his cute lines, you know, about like human nature and like observation. Like I love, I love all of those. Like I remember there was one. There was like some like little random gossip quote about Bradley Cooper. Anyway, I just loved it. So can't wait for it to be a movie.

8:41 Emma It's also kind of about they're making a movie about Warhol, right? Yeah, Andy Warhol. So then it's also kind of like from what I read, it also deals a little bit with fame because the actors are dealing with their own rise to fame, or you know, cast around the movie. And then Warhol obviously was obsessed with fame as something from his work, among other things. But you know, did you feel like it hit on those subjects, or was it more a love story?

8:47 Elsie Yeah, no, it's definitely about the price of fame, and one of the actors is a former child star who is trying to become an adult actor, and the other one is doing their very first feature film. So you're seeing someone who's like done this for years, who in some ways is kind of like cynical to the business, and then another person who's like, this is my break. Out of their, yeah, very out of their element experiencing, and and yeah, fame is. Uh, I should have mentioned that it fame is a messed up thing, and it's like a wonderful theme to explore because I don't think people understand how dark it is. But this book will definitely give you a peek at that if you ever. I don't. I don't feel jealous of actors, and I

8:55 think that most people don't. But if you ever do, you should probably read a book like this so that you can understand that it's got a lot of cost to what they have to deal with in life. Anyway, I gave it five stars. Thought it was just. So sweet, and it was very easy to read. I I did the audio book, which has Julia Whalen and Zach Chastain, so it's like a dual POV. So they did two narrators, and yeah, anytime I just I haven't read a Julia Whalen book in a little while, and I was like, I'm home. Like it's so great.

9:00 Emma Yeah, no, she's she's the top. Yeah. When I hear she's doing one, I'm like, oh, this this is gonna be expected to be one of the best books of the year. Elsie Yes. And if you ever see John Green on social media, just pause and like, no matter what he's talking about, it's always fun. So I just love him.

9:06 Emma He's a charmer. Would love to meet him in real life. No, I'm very excited for this book. I've read so many of his other books, and this is his first adult novel, so that's exciting too, and just different. So excited to read it. Lovely. All right. Well, now it's time for a joke, or a fact, or a meditation with Nova.

9:10 Elsie Hey, Nova, what do you have for us this week? Nova Another meditation. Elsie Okay, Halloween theme. Halloween theme. Tell us more. Nova It's about your dream pumpkin day. Elsie Okay, let's do it. Nova I think I'm making this probably one of the best days I'd ever have because I kind of like pumpkins.

9:22 They're very cool. Elsie I like them too. Okay, I'm closing my eyes. Nova We always do a breathing exercise before, and now let's get into it. When you wake up, you go and you eat some breakfast. Your mom and dad say you're going to the pumpkin patch. So you get dressed and go to the pumpkin patch. You go and find your favorite pumpkin. It's very, very perfect. It doesn't have any dirt or smudges on it, or any soft or hard spots or brown spots, and it doesn't have any lumps or anything weird. It's one of the perfect, most perfect pumpkins of all. And then, after that, you go and you play for a while in the corn maze. You go and look at the scarecrows and go pet all the animals, if they had any, which they did, they had a few animals like a pig and a sheep and a cow. Then you go back

9:33 home, and you decide to carve that pumpkin. You make a very very fun face with a smile and two teeth, triangle eyes, and you even make a tiny nose, which is a triangle, and then you go and you put a candle in it, and it glows beautifully. Then you put it outside on your front porch, and then you wait for night. Eventually, the nighttime comes after a while, and you see your pumpkin glowing, and it is one of the best pumpkins on your block. You smile as you tiptoe into bed and fall asleep with happy pumpkin dreams. You can open your eyes, get used to the light, and think, what would be the best face you would put on a pumpkin if you could? Ooh, that's fun. If it was the most perfect pumpkin, what would be

9:40 the face you'd put on it? Elsie Love. You want to give them a a wish for the week to come. Nova Well, I wish that you all achieve something great, and I not too, not like too great. Yeah, but I mean, like, I hope you guys like achieve something. Like, I don't know, like if you were to like have your kid win an award or something, Elsie Yeah.

9:49 Nova Or like if you have your dog sit for the first time or something. Elsie That would be pretty cool. Nova Our dogs don't sit when we tell them to. You have to sit with them in the doggy pose to show them what we mean. Elsie Yeah. All right. Have a wonderful week. Nova Bye. Elsie Thank you so much for listening. We'll be back next week with an episode about thoughtful gift giving.

10:02 We would love to hear your episode ideas or suggestions. You can send us questions anytime at podcast@abeautifulmess.com, and you can also send us hot takes. We kind of always need more, and honestly, the hotter and more controversial, the better.