Andru and Allegra revisit some classic tales from the AWYLATT canon.
We're back with a new episode of Aw, Would You Look at the Time revisiting some old stories with some new updates.
Our first guest on the show Stefano Da Fre, a film director debuting his new short docudrama Stolen Dough about "a young Italian American chef who, at the age of 18, invented and patented Stuffed Crust Pizza."
This story may sound familiar to listeners of the podcast, as we had interviewed that chef — Anthony Mongiello — in the 2019 episode "The Stuffed Crust Pizza episode." After Allegra and I watched Stolen Dough, we set up an interview with Da Fre to talk about his experience working with Mr. Mongiello on the film.
"[Anthony] loves the film." says Da Fre. "He honestly says to me, pulls me aside, and always says, you know, it's better than I thought it was going to be."
Stolen Dough has been debuting at film festivals in the United States, and is set to be released on streaming servies "soon."
The next update we have on the show is related to The French Dressing regulation episode we published in 2019. Since that episode aired, the FDA has revoked the standard of identity for French dressing and no longer requires manufacturers to stick to a specific set of ingredients to call their dressing "French."
In our 2019 episode, we spoke to Jeff Shaner, owner of Mullen's Dressing, a local salad dressing company in Palestine, Illinois. Shaner explained that because of the FDA requirements, the original recipe Mullen's French dressing had to be called "imitation" dressing, mostly because it did not contain "enough oil" in it. This led to Mullen's selling both an FDA compliant French dressing (with a blue label) and the original recipe "imitation" (with a green label).
Now that French dressing has been deregulated, will Mullen's change course? According to the new owner of Mullen's Dressing Penny Shaw, there may be a rebranding coming soon.
Shaw spoke to Allegra and I for this episode, where she detailed some of her plans for the dressings. "Where I'm leaning towards right now is calling it 'John Mullen's original French dressing, AKA imitation.' Keep the label green and see how that looks in five years."
That may mean the end of the blue label dressing too. Shaw tells us most customers prefer the green label anyway, and that eventually the blue will be taken off shelves. "That was [John Mullen's] intention, right? It wasn't like he intended to ever have this lots of oil blue dressing."
Shortly after the sale of Mullens, former owner Jeff Shaner sadly passed away. If you would like to plant a memorial tree in his honor, you may do so here.
The last update on this episode is about that old church that I wanted to buy from the 2020 episode "I wanted to buy a church this year."
Listeners may remember when I become obsessed with a single family house outside of Pittsburgh with a big church on the property. At the time, my big problem was getting any reasonable mortgage lender to loan me money. This year, the house for sale at more afforable price that it was actually possible for me to purchase my dream home. I won't spoil what happens, but here are some photos I took while I was there.
Thank you for listening! I hope to be back with another episode soon.
