Hyperfixmas

Summary

Hyperfixed: "Hyperfixmas" – Podcast Summary

Podcast: Hyperfixed
Host: Alex Goldman (& team), Radiotopia
Episode Title: Hyperfixmas
Release Date: December 18, 2025

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Overview of the Episode

"Hyperfixmas" is Hyperfixed’s end-of-year episode, featuring thoughtful retrospectives, listener updates, and corrections to past stories. Host Alex Goldman and the team highlight their favorite strange adventures and revisit two particularly memorable listener stories: the case of ominous icing packaging ("Only to be Consumed in Canada") and a listener’s journey rebuilding her life after a wildfire ("The Thing About Losing Everything"). The episode closes with a detailed correction to an early episode on converting American baking measurements for use in the UK. Throughout, the show’s humorous, warm, and deeply human tone shines as Alex Goldman checks in with past guests and reflects on what it means to solve – or live with – life’s little and big problems.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Supporting Hyperfixed & Radiotopia (00:03–03:35)

• Podcast Funding Choice: Alex addresses a listener’s concern about the price of premium membership. He suggests donating to Radiotopia as an alternative to support multiple shows, including Hyperfixed.

• Radiotopia Contributions: Donations to Radiotopia help many shows and are matched dollar-for-dollar through Dec 31 by a PRX donor.
  — Quote:

  "If the idea of a premium Hyperfixed membership is just not your bag, I encourage you to support Radiotopia because we wouldn't exist without them." (Alex Goldman, 01:47)

• Announcements: Alex promotes the show’s 24-hour Twitch pledge drive (Dec 19th) and new merch, with discounts for premium members.
  — Quote:

  "If you become a premium Hyperfix member during that time, you will be able to request a song from me live, any song, and I will have to play it." (Alex Goldman, 03:43)

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2. Year-in-Review & Introduction to Listener Updates (03:35–07:00)

• Reflecting on the Year: Alex describes Hyperfixed’s first year, covering a variety of listener-submitted problems—from the cat drug black market to why public toilets are terrible or why Red Delicious apples persist despite their mediocrity.
• Lingerer Problems: Sometimes Hyperfixed’s stories keep developing after episodes air, and this episode revisits those with updates, corrections, or new insights.

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3. "Only to be Consumed in Canada": The Icing Label Saga (07:00–14:43)

Episode Recap

• Original Listener Letter: An (from Canada) noticed the holiday cookie icing label said "only to be consumed with other foods," and asked Hyperfixed for clarification.

Update Segment

• Direct Listener Impact: After months of investigation—and reaching company CEO Joe Ens—An’s feedback led to a new, less scary label for the icing.

  • Old label: "Only to be consumed with other foods" (ominous).
  • New label: "Use on your favorite dessert!" (friendly and clear).

• Listener’s Reaction:

  "That's so exciting." (An, 10:18)
  "I couldn't imagine a better wording." (An, 13:30)

• Inside Scoop Rebuffed: Hyperfixed tried to interview Signature Brands’ marketing (to An’s delight), but was declined.
  — Quote:

  "Our listeners are exactly the kind of people who want to hear the inner workings of their marketing strategy." (Alex Goldman, 12:47)

• Shelf Reality: The update won’t be in stores until summer 2026, so the old label may still be found through this winter.

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4. "The Thing About Losing Everything": Grief, Recovery, and Rebuilding After Fire (14:43–35:24)

Episode Recap

• Ali’s Backstory: Listener Ali lost everything in the devastating 2025 Eaton wildfire in Los Angeles. The original episode chronicled her search for music lost on an iPod and the challenges of recovering identity after disaster.

Months Later: Checking In

• Physical Recovery:

  • Debris mostly cleared; landscape "incomparable," neither barren nor ordinary, with remnants of civilization scattered.
  • Rebuilding underway for some neighbors, often depending on financial resources or trauma response.

• Emotional State:
  — Quote:

  "It still doesn't feel like our apartment... I like the feeling of like, oh, I’m ready to just get back to my home. And that feeling was very confusing this time because... I don't want to go to that weird apartment where, like, none of my stuff is." (Ali, 22:26)

• Trauma and Normalcy:

  • "Normal days" surprise Ali more than her distress did at first.
  • She recounts a vivid PTSD flashback, where mariachi music from a neighbor briefly anchored her back to reality. — Quote:

  "The mariachi music really, like, came in and just floated kind of through the window. ...it’s just kind of, like, familiar in a way that nothing else around me was familiar in that moment." (Ali, 25:57)

• Bureaucracy & Rebuilding:

  • Complex insurance shortfalls, disaster loans, and the challenge of replacing what was lost (including unique vintage features of her home).
  • Full rebuilding expected to span at least three years; insurance covers rent for a limited time. — Quote:

  "When your home burns down, you can't live there anymore, but you still have to pay that mortgage. And then you have to rent somewhere." (Ali, 30:03)

• Music and Memory:

  • Despite recovering her old iPod’s music, Ali hasn’t been able to listen to it.
    — Quote:

  "It's almost like I can't go there. It's like, too painful to have these pockets of my past that can exist when the rest of it doesn't." (Ali, 32:17)

• Looking Ahead:

  • Alex asks if there will be a time to check in again. Ali offers, "Anytime in the next 30 years... I'm sure I'll have updates for you about rebuilding a town post fire." (Ali, 34:35)

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5. "Eva Needs to Measure": A Baking Correction & Butter Deep Dive (35:24 – 46:21)

Original Story Recap

• Eva’s Dilemma: An American expat in the UK, Eva struggled with converting American recipe cup measurements (volume) to European kitchen-friendly grams (weight), especially for butter, finding wildly different online answers.

Correction and Explanation

• Initial Oversight:

  • Hyperfixed initially reported that conversion was nearly impossible due to imprecise measuring devices, but missed a crucial factor: American and European butters have different fat contents and characteristics.

• Expert Insight (Claire Robinson, Food Network host — 42:17):

  • US butter is regulated at 80% butterfat; European butters: 82–90%.
  • Higher fat = denser, richer baked goods.

  — Quote:

  "When she's working with an American recipe, that recipe is made usually with an American butter, which is standard... 80% butterfat. In Europe, it's regulated at 82 to 90% butter fat. That's the big difference. I mean, huge difference." (Claire Robinson, 42:17)

• Further Nuance (Gina Mode, Dairy Researcher — 43:47):

  • European butters are mostly "cultured," with bacteria giving a tangier, more aromatic flavor.
  • Cow diet affects butter color and consistency (grass-fed in EU = yellower, softer butter).

• Best Practices for Eva:

  • For an authentic American cookie, find a neutral American-style, uncultured, 80% butterfat butter if possible.
  • Closest alternative: Use butter at 82% fat in the UK.

  — Quote:

  "So 82 to me is kind of that standard where it's a perfect blend. ...You're not going to make it so dense that you're going to ruin the recipe." (Claire Robinson, 45:38)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Show’s Self-Deprecating Vibe:

  "We're doing it all on our own without any help. I mean, you guys help. This is getting long. I apologize. All I'm saying is that we're very happy to be making the show. Okay, don't get weird about it. I know I'm the one who's being weird about it. And reset." (Alex Goldman, 04:27)

• Icing Label Turnaround:

  "Use on your favorite dessert! It could not be more diametrically opposed to the way it originally came out. The way it originally came out sounded like a threat. This sounds like a damn party." (Alex Goldman, 11:13)

• Listener Pride:

  "This is really great. I look forward to decorating some cookies one last time with the only to be consumed labelling on them this winter and then never again." (An, 14:27)

• PTSD and Recovery:

  "Most days it doesn’t even feel like I’m starting as a person from scratch. ... that sense of who I am is still missing." (Ali, 33:20)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Segment | Timestamps | |-----------------------------------------------|--------------------| | Funding & Announcements | 00:03 – 03:35 | | Year-in-Review & Setup | 03:35 – 07:00 | | Icing Label Listener Update (An, Canada) | 07:00 – 14:43 | | Wildfire Recovery Update (Ali, Los Angeles) | 14:43 – 35:24 | | Correction: American V. European Butter (Eva) | 35:24 – 46:21 | | Closing Reflections | 46:21 – end |

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Closing Thoughts

The "Hyperfixmas" episode perfectly encapsulates what makes Hyperfixed unique: quirky, relatable problems; genuine listener engagement; and compassionate, in-depth storytelling. Alex and his team welcome each update and correction as a chance to deepen their connection with the audience and right past mistakes—setting the bar for end-of-year podcast retrospectives.

For fans and newcomers alike, this episode is both a festive celebration and an open-hearted look at how little vexations—whether on a cookie label, in a kitchen abroad, or in the aftermath of disaster—shape our lives, and how curiosity and community can make those annoyances just a little bit lighter.

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Further Information:

• hyperfixedpod.com for problems, bonus episodes, and merch
• radiotopia.fm for more from network members

Hyperfixed returns in 2026 with more stories, solutions, and Alex Goldman’s perpetually overconfident problem-solving.

Transcript

[Alex Goldman]

Hey everyone, this is Alex. So the other day I got an email from a very nice listener who basically said to me like, hey, I like hyperfixed. I want to support it. It is hard for me to justify spending $60 a year on a single show. And you know, as much as I'd like everyone to become a premium Hyperfix member, I get it. And you know, as the media landscape gets more and more inhospitable to creators, people are needing to choose what to support and when. And the idea of spending, you know, $60 a year on a single show isn't for everyone. So right now we are in the middle of the fall Radiotopia fundraiser and I just wanted to spotlight that as an alternative to people who want to support not just my show, but a number of shows with a one time or recurring donation. If you don't know what Radiotopia does for us on top of selling our ads and they help us with promotion, they connect us with collaborators, they help us purchase ads for big stories, they help me with submissions for award shows. And you know, Radiotopia is the home of some of my favorite podcasts of all time. From limited run series like Appearances to Ear Hustle and Articles of Interest, Kitchen Sister, Song Exploder, Memory palace and you know, of course Yowei Shaw's proxy with whom we collaborated a couple months ago. You can donate one time or monthly at any level to Radiotopia and 100% of that money will go to supporting all of those shows as well as Hyper Fixed and dozens of others. Your contributions to Radiotopia are tax deductible. And from now until December 31, 2025, every gift to Radiotopia will be matched one to one, up to $50,000 by a generous PRX donor. So if the idea of a premium Hyper fixed membership is just not your bag, I encourage you to support Radiotopia because we wouldn't exist without them. You can go to radiotopia.org donate to support and thank you so much for listening.

[Sponsor Voice]

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[Alex Goldman]

Hey, two things before we start. First, on Friday, December 19th at 12:00pm Eastern Time, I am going to go live on Twitch for the first ever Hyper Fixed pledge drive. I will be on Twitch for 24 hours with all my music gear plugged in. And if you become a premium Hyperfix member during that time, you will be able to request a song from me live, any song, and I will have to play it. That's 24 hours starting at noon Eastern on Friday, December 19th. Also, hyperfixed officially has merch. We have shirts and sweatshirts and hoodies and coffee mugs and hats. And you can order them all by going to shop.hyperfixedpod.com and if you are a premium Hyperfix member, you get 15% off. So yeah, 24 hour pledge drive December 19th and merch available at shop.hyperfixpod.com 15% off for premium members. That's it. Here's the show. Hi, I'm Alex Goldman, and this is Hyperfixed. Each week on our show, listeners write in with their problems, big and small, and I solve them. Or at least I try. And if I don't, I at least give a good reason why I can't. This week, Hyper fixmas. Ah, December. That time of year when people gather together to celebrate the coming new year and reflect upon the year that's passed. And here at Hyperfixed, that's exactly what we're doing. For the last couple months, the Hyperfix team and I have been reminiscing about the episodes that we produced this year. Our first full year as a show, which, honestly, look, I'm pretty proud of it. I'm excited that we made a show and we're still doing it. We're doing it all on our own without any help. I mean, you guys help. This is getting long. I apologize. All I'm saying is that we're very happy to be making the show. Okay, don't get weird about it. I know I'm the one who's being weird about it. And reset. By our calculations, we answered about 21 big and small problems. And in the process, we found ourselves walking along some fairly unusual paths. Sometimes the problems we chased were so big that it meant learning about whole new worlds. Like the time we investigated the cat drug black market. Or when we discovered the meaning behind a mysterious gold plated metal from the vaudeville magic circuit. Other times we tackled problems that initially seemed small and silly. Like when we tried to figure out why public toilets are so crappy, pun intended. Or why red delicious apples are so ubiquitous despite the fact that they are so not delicious. And then there was that one where the word diarrhea was uttered 24 times in 30 minutes. And while that wasn't a goal of mine, I'm really proud to have accomplished it. So, yeah, it's been a pretty solid first year. We're all very stoked about the work we have ahead of us. But before we start talking about the future, there's a few last things we want to take care of. Because the thing is that sometimes, maybe even a lot of times, our stories keep going long after we hit publish on the episode. Sometimes they keep developing. Sometimes we just can't stop thinking about them. And sometimes we realize there's something that we got wrong. So today you're gonna hear a little something from each one of those categories. Sound good? Great. If it doesn't sound good, I'm sorry. But here we. An. How are you?

[An (Listener from Canada)]

I'm pretty good, thanks. Alex, how are you doing?

[Alex Goldman]

You know, the same as always. I always have something to complain about, but let's just say for the sake of brevity, let's say good. This is on the listener that prompted the only to be Consumed in Canada episode that we aired back in March. And if you're meeting them for the first time, congratulations. They are pure joy in human form. An lives in Canada in a communal house with a bunch of other people who plan and do adorably creative activities together. For example, when we spoke to them in November, they had just started a film noir screening series that they were calling Noir Fember.

[An (Listener from Canada)]

So all movies that were directed and or written by women, which is fun because a lot of the classic noirs have, you know, problems. So it's, it's fun to experience a feminine perspective on the similar problems.

[Alex Goldman]

See, I told you they're cute. In addition to movie nights, they do communal music nights, communal art nights, and communal cooking nights, which is what they were doing when they made the discovery that led them to write into us. Now, if you didn't listen to that episode, pause and go do that right now. But if you did listen to that episode, here's a little refresher. Last year, an and their housemates were gathered in their kitchen for an evening of holiday cookie decorating. They had tubes of Betty Crocker icing and special nozzles for piping it onto their cookies. And in the middle of the holiday merriment, an noticed an odd label on the back of the tube of icing. It was written in bright red capital letters and it said, only to be consumed with other foods. And that seemed strangely ominous for a product as seemingly benign as decorative icing. So naturally, an had some questions, like.

[An (Listener from Canada)]

How much other food do you need to have proportionally before you are consuming it on its own? So I'm not running afoul of this particular disclaimer.

[Alex Goldman]

And to find the answer to those questions, we spent months ping ponging between customer service agents in the Betty Crocker conglomerate until eventually we learned that Betty Crocker doesn't even make Betty Crocker icing. It's made by a company called Signature Brands. And when we finally reach the top of that sugary bureaucratic mountain, the CEO of Signature Brands, Joe ens, answered Ahn's question about the label. Joe told us that he was equally confused by this language and he assured us that there was nothing dangerous about the icing. He also said that he was going to ask his marketing team about revising the language to be something a little clearer and, you know, less terrifying. But the thing is that when we published that episode, we still didn't know what language the marketing team decided to go with or if they were actually planning on following through with this change. That is, until one month ago when we reached back out to Joe ens. And when we got that information, we wanted to tell on about this new label that they single handedly inspired. So very quickly, I wanted to give you a little update, which is why we reached out to you. Nine months later, we reached back out to Joanne's and he told us, because of you, because of your concern, they made the change. They have made a change to the.

[An (Listener from Canada)]

Packaging that's so exciting.

[Alex Goldman]

And I'm going to share with you.

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

Wait, Alex, before you share the image.

[Alex Goldman]

That'S Hyperfix producer Amor Yates on I'm.

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

Curious, what do you think the change is?

[Alex Goldman]

I want this to be a total flight of fancy. Tell us what you think happened. Tell us what you think happened. I'm very curious.

[An (Listener from Canada)]

I mean, I think they should just write do not glerp on it, and then we'd be all good.

[Alex Goldman]

If this joke means nothing to you, definitely go back to listen to our Betty Crocker episode, which we will link in our show notes.

[An (Listener from Canada)]

Maybe, like, this is intended for use as a decoration element or something like that. Just to be clear that you're supposed to put it on something, but not to say, like, only for use, because I think the only was a really big, big part of it.

[Alex Goldman]

All right, are you ready?

[An (Listener from Canada)]

I'm ready.

[Alex Goldman]

Okay, let me just figure out how to share my screen now. This will take two seconds. Here we go. What it says is use on your favorite dessert. It could not be more diametrically opposed to the way it originally came out. The way it originally came out sounded like a threat. This sounds like a damn party.

[An (Listener from Canada)]

I like that They've also made it, like, black, and it's at the bottom. It's not in the red text that looks like warning. Yeah.

[Alex Goldman]

The red text says, refrigerate after opening. Store in a cool place. Use at room temperature. This just wants you to get down and have a blast. It's like, such a sharp difference in tone, I think. But I really do feel like if they were trying to calibrate this to seem not so threatening. Use on your favorite dessert with an exclamation point at the end. Way better.

[An (Listener from Canada)]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

The other thing on is we reached out to Joe and asked if we could interview Joe, because obviously we put in that call to action before, and he declined. He said he doesn't think our audience would be particularly interested in the marketing and packaging details at Signature Brands. But I just felt like that was worth mentioning to you because we were hoping to go fully on the inside at Signature Brands and talk to. Who exactly was the person who decided use on your favorite desserts?

[Alex Goldman]

It makes me feel like he didn't actually listen to the episode because if he listened to it, he would know that. That our listeners are exactly the kind of people who want to hear the inner workings of their marketing strategy.

[An (Listener from Canada)]

I would love to hear the inner workings of the marketing strategy, and I appreciate y' all going the mile to. To try and make it happen.

[Alex Goldman]

You hear that, Joe? The people simply need to know. So as the person who came to us with this problem, do you feel satisfied with the rewording? Does it feel like what you wanted? I mean, you didn't want anything. You just wanted to understand, but now understanding what they meant, do you feel like they have gotten more closer to what they meant and what it should sound like.

[An (Listener from Canada)]

Yeah, I think this is actually a great rewording because it is clear about the intended use, which is, I think, what they were trying to be clear about. But it's not kind of scary to look at or disorienting to look at. Yeah, I think, like, I couldn't imagine a better wording.

[Alex Goldman]

That's great. That's a ringing endorsement. The only other thing I should mention with regards to the use on your favorite dessert label is that it will not hit the shelves until summer of next year. So you might still go to the store and see some. Not to be eaten. What is.

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

Wow.

[Alex Goldman]

I don't even remember.

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

Only to be consumed with other foods.

[Alex Goldman]

Thank you. Only to be consumed with other foods. But it will be fixed, and it's all because of you.

[An (Listener from Canada)]

This is really great. I look forward to decorating some cookies one last time with the only to be consumed labeling on them this winter and then never again.

[Alex Goldman]

Amazing.

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

Thank you so much. On.

[Alex Goldman]

Yeah, thank you so much. We really appreciate it. After I got off the call with an, we had another call that we wanted to make, not because we had any new developments on our end, but because we wanted to hear about any new developments on their end. And that phone call was to a listener named Ali, who appeared in an episode called the Thing About Losing Everything. Ali initially wrote to us about a problem that was fairly easy for me to solve. She asked if I could help her access some music on an old ipod, music from her younger years growing up in Colorado. But the reason why this music and her ability to access it was so important to her was because earlier this year, during the devastating Los Angeles wildfires in January, Allie lost her home in the Eaton fire along with everything in it, in one night, all the objects and heirlooms and records that helped shape her life and identity were just gone forever. And during our intake interview, Ali described to me what it felt like to be living with that singular type of grief while simultaneously juggling the logistics of trying to rebuild her community. I think about that conversation all the time, so I wanted to see how she was doing several months later.

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

Headphones. No headphones. We don't care. We do care.

[Alex Goldman]

Don't care. Whatever's comfortable for you.

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

Recording in progress.

[Alex Goldman]

Thank you for doing this. I really appreciate it. I'm not going to keep you too long, I don't think.

[Sponsor Voice]

No problem.

[Alex Goldman]

All right, well, my first question is, how have you been since we talked last. The last time I spoke with Ali, was back in May. Her episode aired on June 5, and surprisingly, Ally knows exactly what she was doing that day.

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

June 5, I had Covid for the first time ever.

[Sponsor Voice]

Really?

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

Yes, because I was in. I remember I was in Colorado visiting my parents. I got Covid from my friend's book release. And then this episode came out. And I think, like, my mom or my husband listened to it. People in my family listened to it before I did. I was so sick. It was brutal. So, yes, that's why I know exactly that on June 5, I did have Covid. Yeah.

[Alex Goldman]

Well, okay, now that you don't have Covid, catch us up. Because, like, things were crazy then, I can imagine that they probably have not slowed down much in terms of craziness.

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

They haven't. They have shifted. The. The weirdness of fire recovery has shifted. So I think the recovery landscape has become a little bit more clear in terms of, like, all of the debris has been removed from the burn zone for the most part. There are some commercial properties and maybe some, like, multifamily housing properties that the debris has not been removed. But the majority of the debris has been removed from the area. So even just driving back up to home is a little less. It's. It's disturbing in a different way than it was before.

[Alex Goldman]

What does it look like now that all the debris is gone?

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

I can't even really describe it. It's a little incomparable to anything I've ever seen because it's not just like empty land. It's not just like a field of nothing. It's still. It's like remaining trees. It's trees that are like, partially burned but are going to survive. There's a lot of fencing that people have put up to like, protect their lots. There's a lot of, like, contractor signs and stuff like that. My husband goes up to the lot more often than I do, but we go up there pretty regularly to water the trees that survived. So we got like a hundred foot long hose because you don't have a front and back of the house anymore where there's like a. Like a hose bib to plug into. So we have the hose bib in the front of the house where the water meter is. And then we had to get this like massively huge hose in order to reach the trees in the back.

[Alex Goldman]

I know that these two things aren't remotely comparable, so I wanted to apologize in advance before I said this out loud, but when I was a kid, my parents would take me every year to a cottage on Lake Michigan. That they would rent and it was basically eminent domained by the government. Like they were like, hey, you know, we're going to turn this into a national park and you guys are allowed to keep it for X number of years. And then we're going to tear it down. And part of what was striking about the landscape, at least for a while after they did in fact tear it down, was just how barren, like how the absence of the thing. There were all of these markers of where the houses in this area used to be, but they're all gone. Are there like pieces of what resemble civilization there that are now gone?

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

Yeah, it's so like when the Army Corps of Engineers takes debris after a fire, they don't take everything. They take just what is in what they call the ash footprint. So just basically like where the house had stood and then like a certain perimeter outside of that in case, you know, like our roof burned off and like flew maybe like five feet south of where our house was. So they like, you know, take that stuff. But our cinder block walls that lined our property were heavily damaged and they took part of those walls, but only to access other neighbors properties. Not really. Yeah, so there's like parts of walls, parts of fences. They don't take driveways and like pools, people's pools are still there with fences around them. So yeah, it's just a. It's weird. It's like it's hard to know where you are because I feel like usually we sort of instinctively move through space based on visual markers that are familiar to us.

[Alex Goldman]

Yes.

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

People I know who are like third generation Altadena are like, I get lost up there now like when I try to go to someone's lot because I can't. There's no, like that one house on the corner or, you know, like all you have left are street signs. But most people, if you're really familiar with the place, you're not paying attention to the street signs. You just know where to go based on just these like visual cues that you sort of subconsciously internalize. And all those cues are gone. It's disorienting. But people are coming back. There are some houses that are framed out, some houses that have the like Tyvek plastic kind of stuff on them. Some roofs are up. We have a neighbor up the street whose house is pretty much done, pretty much rebuilt.

[Alex Goldman]

That's really exciting.

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

Yeah, it's complicated. It's like the people who are able to rebuild quicker seem to be the people who have the financial means to not have to Wait for insurance.

[Alex Goldman]

Right.

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

And it also kind of makes you feel a little behind when in reality, like, you kind of have to move at the pace of the bureaucratic systems around you, especially if you don't have those financial means, and then people who are moving slower. I mean, trauma impacts everybody in different ways. I think some people's trauma was like, I have to rebuild this right now or I'll die. I think that was, like, a feeling people are having, and then other people are like, I can't even think about this. And, like, just now, I'm getting calls from neighbors like, all right, I'm ready to think about rebuilding. Where do I start?

[Alex Goldman]

How is it? I mean, I know that, you know, healing is not linear. What is your emotional state like around all of this?

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

I think I'm sort of getting used to it more. We've been in this apartment now for, like, I honestly don't know how many months since January, so almost a year.

[Alex Goldman]

Right.

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

It still doesn't feel like our apartment. We went on a. On a big road trip through Northern California in August, right before the new semester started. And it was very weird to feel like, okay, I'm ready to go home, but to not feel like there was a home to go to. You know, like, usually when you go out of town, like, for me, I don't love to travel a lot, so, like, I like the feeling of, like, oh, I'm ready to just get back to my home. And that feeling was very confusing this time because it was like, well, I don't want to go to that weird apartment where, like, none of my stuff is. I mean, we have a ton of stuff now, but, like, it's all new stuff, so it still doesn't feel like our stuff, but it's also the only stuff we have, so it does feel like our stuff. I think that's part of the complication of it at this point, too. Just like, what. What is all this? Oh, this is mine.

[Alex Goldman]

Right?

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

Okay.

[Alex Goldman]

Are there, like, bright spots or moments that feel like life is returning to what it used to be? In some ways, I mean, I think I'm.

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

I'm more surprised by the fact that I feel normal most days than, like, the level of distress that I felt in the first week. Two weeks. I don't really remember that time. Cognitive. Like, I can't really tell you much of what happened during that time.

[Alex Goldman]

Right.

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

I know we got a lot done during that time because I know that in those two weeks, we found a place to live, we bought a new car, we filed Insurance claims. There's a ton of stuff that we did. Got clothes, all that stuff, but I don't remember. I only have the physical evidence of having done that stuff. I don't really remember making those choices or doing that stuff. So that has subsided a bit. I'm a little more conscious and present. I do think the PTSD is setting in a little bit. I did have a pretty severe trauma flashback the other night where I kind of, like. I don't really know the language, but just was, like, not in the present moment and was fully back in that, like, first day after.

[Alex Goldman]

What is that? What does that feel like or look like? What was the experience like, if you don't mind me asking? Because I know that's a lot.

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

Yeah, no, I don't mind. It was weird. It was like I felt a little, like, agitated all day. I couldn't really describe it. Maybe a little, like, energetic or not necessarily bad. But then as the day went on and as the night went on, we were, like, watching the Great British Bake off because it's a soothing thing to watch in the evening. And I just started to get more and more uncomfortable, and I paused it, and I just started kind of pacing around, and I was like, I don't know what's wrong. I feel really weird. And then the next thing I knew, I was, like, upside down on the couch with my weighted blanket on me, like, trying to, like, come back to reality and just feeling like I don't like looking around. You know, like, when you have, like, PTSD episodes, there are, like, certain sensory things that you can do to bring, you know, back, like, smell something or, like, turn your head from left to right. You know, the, like. Name five things you can see and four things you can smell. All that stuff. Then my husband was really trying to kind of get me back online, and I just couldn't. But then I heard mariachi music coming from the neighbor's house, and it, like, that was music that was played a lot in the neighborhood I kind of spent my adulthood in. And so that sort of, like, weirdly brought me back. I was like, oh, I know where I am.

[Alex Goldman]

That's a lot, though.

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

I didn't know where I was.

[Alex Goldman]

Yeah, that is terrifying.

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

Yeah. But the mariachi music really, like, came in and just floated kind of through the window. And I was sort of like, oh, yeah. Because that. I mean, my neighbors in my old neighborhood, they would. I mean, multiple days a week, but especially, like, every Sunday, there was, like, ranchera music and mariachi music and stuff. So it's just kind of, like, familiar in a way that nothing else around me was familiar in that moment.

[Alex Goldman]

Right. What is the bureaucratic situation for you right now? Like, where are you at with the rebuilding of your house and all of the things that you've been going through?

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

Yeah, it's going fairly smoothly as as much as I could have hoped. So we hired a design build firm that we like. They it's an architect working with a builder. And so we go through the design process where, like, the architect and the builder are kind of both there for the whole process. So they know what our budget is based on, what our insurance payout is, which is our insurance is, you know, quite a bit less than what it actually costs to rebuild the exact same house that we had.

[Alex Goldman]

Yes.

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

This is the case for many people in Altadena. I would say most people are underinsured. And so there's like, this government disaster loan you can get at 2.5%. So it's like a good interest rate. It is additional debt that you take on on top of whatever debt you already have, and you have to qualify for it. They frame it like it's a solution to these problems. But in reality, if you are, like a fixed income senior or, you know, for whatever reason, like, if you were like, maxed out on your mortgage spending every month, like, you can't really take on additional debt.

[Alex Goldman]

Right.

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

You also can't use that money for anything other than exactly what you had. And that's tricky because a lot of these people's. A lot of houses like ours were built a long time ago with sometimes with materials that are actually, like, much higher quality than exist today.

[Alex Goldman]

Right.

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

Like growth wood, which is much more expensive now, but was more readily available.

[Alex Goldman]

And is much sturdier. Right.

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

Like, and much sturdier. Much, much sturdier. Yeah, much like less impervious to termites and to all kinds of stu stuff. So it's like this tricky thing where they want you to insurance and the SBA want you to rebuild the house that you had. And for most people, that's great. We just want the house we had back. Like, we're not trying to do. Some people, you know, want to make some changes, but the majority of us are just like, just give me the house I had. But the house you had was made with materials that are priced very differently now. Sometimes, like, those things have depreciated. Insurance measures them as having depreciated because they were old. When in reality, like, if I try to get vintage 1960s bathroom tile which is what we had. Maybe insurance considers that tile, like less valuable because it's old. But, like, maybe interior design specialists understand that that's like a rare kind of tile that they is really hard to get. So it's going to be really expensive. So if we go to just build exactly what we had, like, do I just buy like cheap, crappy tile that exists now, or do I try to get the 1960s vintage tile? You know, so it's like all these weird kinds of considerations of how much something is worth. And then insurance will only pay for what they think your house was worth. And then the SBA disaster loan will also only pay for, like, replacing what you had. So I think that's the challenging part of the bureaucracy is like, we don't even really know our budget because we don't even really know what money is actually going to be available to us in terms of what insurance will approve and what the SBA will approve. But we did just, we're just, honestly, we're just going ahead and trying to figure it out as we go and trying to figure out, like, I mean, I. How are we going to pay for this? How are we going to. I don't know, but we're just taking it one step at a time.

[Alex Goldman]

Allie tells me that once all is said and done, the zone permitting stuff is sorted and their building plans are approved, they likely won't be able to break ground until spring, and that construction on her home won't be done until the end of 2027, hopefully, because that's also when the rental coverage on their insurance runs out. Is your rental unit paid for at least partially by insurance?

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

Paid for fully by insurance, because like, when you own a home, you have a mortgage, and then when your home burns down, you can't live there anymore, but you still have to pay that mortgage. And then you have to rent somewhere, presumably, I mean, to live. And so insurance has what's called loss of use coverage. And so they covered or additional living expenses. I think it's called loss of use technically. But yeah, they will pay for a comparable to what you had living space to rent. The tricky part is in Los Angeles, we had a three bedroom, two bathroom house with a huge lot. So the place we live now is half. It's an apartment, it's half the size of our house, square footage, there's no real yard. And it's the same price as our mortgage.

[Alex Goldman]

Jesus Christ.

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

So we could get a bigger place. Insurance would allow us, even if it was much more expensive than our mortgage. But. But then we'll run out of that money because they don't just cover it indefinitely. You have, like, a limit on that.

[Alex Goldman]

Yeah.

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

On how much spend.

[Alex Goldman]

So the other question I had. Have you been listening to the music that we recovered from your ipod?

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

I haven't been listening to music.

[Alex Goldman]

Interesting. Why not?

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

Don't know. Okay. Okay. What I have been listening to is hyper fixed, and it's just so great. Yesterday I was listening to the, like, bonus episode with the guy you interviewed about nostalgia, and it was, like, blowing my mind because he was talking about how, like, objects and, like, content, media, whatever, are the thing that, like, allow us to kind of access the past in a way that kind of allows us to have hope for the future. And when you lose everything that was a reminder of your past, it's like you, like, can't access that nostalgia to an extent anymore. And so there's this, like, absence of the things that allow me to connect to my past, which then disallows me from sort of imagining a future. And music is something that would allow me to connect to my past and something that still is accessible either through my ipod or through streaming services. But it's almost like I can't go there. It's like, too. It's like, too painful to have these pockets of my past that can exist when the rest of it doesn't.

[Alex Goldman]

That makes a lot of sense, but I'm really sorry to hear that. That also sounds really agonizing.

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

It's tough.

[Alex Goldman]

Do you envision. And this is an impossible question to answer. I just want to get out ahead of. Of that, because I'm asking you an impossible question, but do you, like, envision a time at which you will feel able to access that stuff again? I mean, maybe not through physical objects, but through, you know, just, like, the trauma of it will have sort of subsided enough that you will be able to. To think about the world of the past, even though there isn't a physical archive of it anymore. Or are you just, like, are you starting as a person from scratch? Does that make sense?

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Most days it is. It. It doesn't even feel like I'm starting as a person from scratch because it doesn't feel like I'm starting as a person. Like, my sense of personhood is still relatively absent. I feel like I'm a being that moves through the world and does the tasks I need to do. I meet with the architect and I go teach writing to my students at my job, and I call my mom and whatever and go to the grocery store. But that sense of who I am is still missing.

[Alex Goldman]

Is there a point at which you think it would be good to check back in with you?

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

So it's going to be like at least a three year process for just like, just for our home to be rebuilt, like from the day the fire started to when we move home. I imagine if it's the end of 2027 and the fire started at the beginning of 2025, that's like three years from like when we lost the house to when we move home. You know, I don't know how long hyper fix is going to run for. Hopefully you get like, you know, a 30 year, this American life length run out of you.

[Alex Goldman]

Hopefully.

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

I would personally love that. But anytime the next 30 years, if you want to check back in, I'm sure I'll have updates for you about rebuilding a town post fire.

[Alex Goldman]

Sounds good. All right, well, I think that's all the questions I have. I really appreciate it, Ali. I'm glad that you are making progress, however slowly, and I am really hoping that you find your way back to, you know, find your way back to yourself, I guess.

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

Yeah. It's great to talk to you. I'll be here rebuilding everything. So.

[Alex Goldman]

After the break, we have one last update for you. An amendment or correction that we need to make to one of our very first stories. So stick around, we'll be right back.

[An (Listener from Canada)]

You should tell the people who we.

[Alex Goldman]

Are and what our new show is.

[An (Listener from Canada)]

I'm Robert Smith, this is Jacob Goldstein.

[Alex Goldman]

And we used to host a show called Planet Money.

[An (Listener from Canada)]

And now we're back making this new podcast about the best ideas and people and businesses in history and stuff. Some of the worst people, horrible ideas, and destructive companies in the history of business.

[Alex Goldman]

We struggled to come up with a.

[An (Listener from Canada)]

Name, decided to call it business History.

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

You know why?

[Sponsor Voice]

Why?

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

Because it's a show about the history of business.

[Alex Goldman]

Available everywhere you get your podcasts. This episode of Hyperfixed is brought to you by Gusto. As we all know, Gusto means having joie de vivre and enjoying yourself, which, if you've ever listened to Hyperfix, is not really my vibe. But nothing gives me the will to live and a zest for life quite like payroll and benefits software. Gusto is an online payroll and benefits software for small businesses. It's all in one remote, friendly, and incredibly easy to use so you can pay, hire onboard, and support your team from anywhere. It's the number one payroll software according to G2 for fall 2025 and trusted by over 430 as the new year begins, a lot of us are trying to get our business operations together and honestly, having payroll, benefits and HR handled by Gusto feels like starting the year with a clean desk and an organized inbox. Honestly, it would be my dream to one day hire a bookkeeper for Hyperfixed, one without adhd. But for now, I'm all we've got, so I'll personally do just about anything to make it more frictionless. Small business life means like hustling, figuring it all out most of the time on your own. But you don't have to spend your evenings guessing at tax forms or tracking down onboarding docs. Gusto handles all of that so you can spend time on the parts of your business that you actually love. Like talking into a microphone. Try gusto [e-mail] hyperfixed and get three months free when you run your first payroll. That's three months of free payroll at gusto.com hyperfixed one more time gusto.com hyperfixed. This episode of Hyperfixed is brought to you by Quince. So you might notice by the timbre of my voice that I am very sick. And as I record this, it is bitter cold outside and on those bitter cold winter days, nothing makes me feel less awful than warm and comfortable clothes. And that's why I buy from Quints. Quince pieces are crafted from premium materials and built to hold up without the luxury markup. Quince makes the essentials every guy needs. Mongolian cashmere sweaters for $50, Italian wool coats that look and feel designer, and denim and chinos that fit just right. By cutting out the middleman and traditional markups, Quint delivers the same quality as luxury brands at a fraction of the price. I personally got the Responsible down hooded Parka, which makes me feel deliriously warm and cozy instead of just delirious from the flu, which I have. You should be thankful that I am editing out my coughs. Get your wardrobe sorted and your gift list handled with quints. Don't wait. Go to quints.com hyperfixed for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Quince free shipping and 365 day returns. Quints.com hyper fixed quints it makes me feel slightly less ill. Welcome back to the show. So before the break I mentioned that we're doing things a little bit differently this week. In honor of the holiday season and in celebration of this, our last mainfeed episode of the year, we are looking back on problems that we've solved and checking in with some friends we've made along the way. But the truth is that there's only one story we've needed to correct almost as long as it's been in the world. That story is called Eva Needs to Measure. And it was the second story we ever released. The story of that story began with a woman named Eva who moved from the US to the UK when she was just a little kid. And although she had taken on the accent and the mannerisms of her new home country, there was still one piece of American culture to which Eva feels intensely devoted. It's baked goods. The cookies, cakes, and sweet little squares that line American bake sale tables. Eva loves them all. But the thing is, Eva is also a scientist, the kind of person who's very precise about measurements. And it's those two things, her love of American baked goods and her affinity for scientific precision, that led her to a problem.

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

The problem is that obviously, in America, things are measured in cups, and that's a volume. And in England, we measure things in grams. And the problem starts when you're trying to make an American recipe in England, and you need to look up, okay, so this recipe says, it's a cup of butterfly. How much does a cup of butter weigh? And then you look that up and you find out that according to different websites, there are about five different answers.

[Alex Goldman]

So Eva came to us because she wanted a number one precise, exact measurement for the number of grams in a cup of butter to ensure that when she baked an American peanut butter cookie, or whatever it is that she happened to be baking, that she could feel confident in her calculations and know for sure that that what came out of the oven was exactly what was supposed to and how it was supposed to. But what we discovered was that number Eva wanted was truly elusive. And when we reported back, we told her that volume measuring devices, like measuring cups and spoons are often unreliable. There's no governing body that comes through to assess whether or not each cup is truly a cup or if it's just in the ballpark of a cup. And the same is essentially true for weight measuring devices, like at home scales. So between those two variable measurements, we told Eva it seemed nearly impossible to ensure that she would ever get a perfect conversion of cups to grams. But, folks, that is only a small portion of the answer. There was one other thing that we learned in the course of our reporting on that episode, or should I say, there was one thing that we were told about, but for whatever reason, we didn't internalize it and we didn't report it back to Eva. And this thing plays an even more consequential role in the struggle to convert cups to grams.

[Claire Robinson (Food Network host and cook)]

I would say the difference in the recipes, when she's working with an American recipe, that recipe is made usually with an American butter, which IS standard, is 80% butter fat. So the USDA regulates butter at 80% in the United States, and in Europe, it's regulated at 82 to 90% butter fat.

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

So the.

[Claire Robinson (Food Network host and cook)]

So that's the big difference. I mean, huge difference.

[Alex Goldman]

This is Claire Robinson. You might know her as the longtime host of the Food Network show Five Ingredient Fix. But she's also a French trained cook who is low key, obsessed with butter. And what she's saying here is that the biggest issue with trying to convert an American cup of butter for use in a British kitchen is that the butter itself is different. By law, European butter is required to have a higher percentage of butter fat. Sometimes it's up to 10% higher. And that difference can have a massive effect on your final product.

[Claire Robinson (Food Network host and cook)]

So when you're baking with a higher butter fat content, you're just going to get a denser product at the end, so your cookies will be more buttery. Now, it doesn't. It's not that it doesn't work. It'll work.

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

It'll still taste great.

[Claire Robinson (Food Network host and cook)]

As a matter of fact, it'll probably taste better. What's going to change for her will.

[Alex Goldman]

Be the texture and fat content is not the only difference between American and European butters. We learned from a researcher named Gina Mode, who works at the center for Dairy Research at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. The flavor of these two butters is different as well.

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

So the majority of the European butter is cultured, while the majority of American butter is not. And cultured butter is when live bacteria cultures are added to pasteurized cream and it's fermented before the churning process begins. So the bacteria consume the lactose in the cream, producing lactic acid. And this results in an aromatic, tangy, acidic flavor similar to sour cream. And this is also going to have a slightly softer body.

[Alex Goldman]

And Gina told me that this isn't the only variable that's going to affect the flavor of the butterfly. It's also impacted by what the cows that produce the milk that's made into the butter are eating.

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

So European butter tends to be from cows that are fed more grass, while the majority of American butter is from cows fed more hay and total mixed rations. And what the animals are eating affects the butter. So a grass based diet will give butter a more yellow color, some grassy flavor notes and a softer body compared to the total mixed ration diet.

[Alex Goldman]

So what this means is that those higher fat boulder flavored butters are going to work great in dishes where butter is the star. But if you want your butter to take a back seat to the other flavors in the dish, or if you're simply trying to make the most faithful recreation of an American peanut butter cookie, your best bet is to go with a more neutral American butter. Unfortunately for Ava, however, there isn't a lot of this neutral, uncultured hay fed American style butter getting imported to Europe. But at least in terms of fat content, Claire Robinson says she can get something close.

[Claire Robinson (Food Network host and cook)]

So what she can find in England would be 82% butter fat. So her butter fat is going to range between 82 and 90%. So 82 to me is kind of that standard where it's a perfect blend. It's balance, right? So you get more fat, more creaminess, more like richness, more texture, but you're not going to make it so dense that you're going to ruin the recipe. So I go for 82% butter fat in the United States. I would do the exact same thing if I was in the EU or in England.

[Alex Goldman]

So there you have it. That's the end of 2025. It's been an incredibly exciting year for us, full of amazing weird stories and we have plenty more in the chamber for next year. But before we go, I just wanted to say thank you on behalf of myself and Emma and Amor and Sari and Tony. It is an incredible privilege to get to wake up every day and make this show for you. And it absolutely wouldn't exist without your support and your kindness. People have donated their time and their energy to helping us solve problems in ways that I truly never imagined would be possible. And I just feel very lucky to have the community around the show that I do. And I hope it continues to get bigger and wider, weirder and more fun all the time. So we'll see you in 2020. Hyper Fixed is produced and edited by Emma Cortland, Amor Yates and Serious Offer Sukanek. It was engineered by Tony Williams. The music is by the mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder and me. You can get bonus episodes. Join our discord and much [e-mail] join and as I said at the top of the show we have merch. Now, shirts, sweatshirts, hats, mugs, you can get them [e-mail] that's shop.hyperfixpod.com Premium members get 15% off. Hyperfixed is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, creator owned listener supported podcast. Discover Audio with Vision at Radiotopia fm. Thanks so much for listening. Radiotopia.

[Ali (Listener who lost home in fire)]

From prx.