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This is a special episode of the New Yorker Radio Hour. A pretty special episode, as a matter of fact. Something we've never tried before. And I'm not really gonna bet my paycheck that it works. It's the New Yorker Radio Hour Office Fridge challenge. And our contestant is Helen Rosner, food correspondent for the New Yorker. And we gave Helen a challenge. Make a meal from whatever she could find in there. Fearless and resourceful writer that she is, Helen accepted. I feel like I should clarify that. I don't come into the office that often. Like, this is not my home turf. So I'm learning about this kitchen as I go. And our producer, Rhiannon Corby, was there both to assist and to enforce the rules. The thing that's off limits is that fridge over there. Okay, this fridge, this fridge, this freezer. Anything on the counters? Yep, exactly. Great. You have one lifeline, which means we have a producer stationed at Target ready to receive a phone call from you. Appliances or ingredients, but only one thing. Yes. You're sure that people know I'm using their phone? People know. Okay, so we have our dairy section. I've got half and half fat free milk. That's going to be useless. 4 single serving packets of Smucker's Concord grape jelly. What I think is the remnants of a chocolate milkshake. Oh, this is a whole salad from Preg. Ooh. Ew. Pudding. It looks like this was once a Caesar salad with chicken. Maybe some sort of an iced tea or a juice. Yeah, it's like V8 or Bloody Mary mix or something like that. Oh, my God. It's a tomato juice. The dregs of a cup of chicken noodle soup. That could be useful. Sardines. Okay. Okay. This is the container of mysterious brown stuff that David Remnick told me not to open. Charred broccoli, some kind of grain, barley or something. I'm picking that up. Those mushrooms. I can't tell if those are mushrooms or chicken. Let's find out. So are you gonna make something from what you find here? Like, theoretically, yeah. You know what's wicked good is. Smell that. Oh, my God. That's fantastic. What is that? It's a garlicky sauce. Yeah. Like a chimichurri or something. Yeah, it was wicked. Yummy. This is heavy. Okay. It's a foil. Oh, that is mold. That is so much mold. It's kind of like this is science project level mold. Totally. Yeah. Do you want to look at the mold? Do you want to introduce yourself first? I was just going to tell you that you can turn off the beeping in the fridge. Oh, really? We've just been closing the door. Deborah, trees went to the rescue. Can you confirm the horrors of this mold? It's sort of beautiful. It looks like an artwork. It looks like a painting. I can't quite identify the original food item. There's corn and green beans. Is that a cauliflower, or is that a giant mold? Like, perhaps it was a burrito? Do they put green beans in burritos? No. Hi. Hi, Perk, do you have any delicious ingredients at your desk that you might contribute to the cause? I don't actually do. I do have some ingredients. What do you have? I have dried caterpillars from the African food market. You are kidding. They're real caterpillars. It's a plastic grocery bag full of caterpillars. Like, dried caterpillars. They're pretty big. They have these lovely yellow stripes on them. Actually, they've kept their colors. Do you just sit here and snack on them? You know, they're a little potent for that. Should we try them now? Yeah, you should try them. They've got a pretty strong, funky umami thing going on. Ooh, yeah. Yeah. That is not something you want to eat whole, but it's got a vibe. Can I have one caterpillar? You can have as many as you want. You want to take one? And so the plan now sort of is that we're gonna have a salad to start, which feels. Now that I'm saying it, it just sounds very lame. We're gonna have some kind of vegetable situation at the beginning. And the main course is probably going to be this roasted broccoli, which I'm gonna glaze with a reduction of the chicken stock that I poured out of this thing of chicken soup. And we're going to put it over a bed of this combination of beans, quinoa, and possibly farro from various other places that we've combined together. And then the thing I'm actually super excited about is I have dessert plans and a cocktail. Hello? Hey, Caroline. It's Helen calling from the kitchen. Hey, Helen. Are you still free to get me a Lifeline item from Target? Yes, definitely. Well, what I'm hoping for is an electric griddle. So not quite a hot plate, which you have to put a pot or pan on top of, but something where it's like you plug it in and you just pour your pancake batter right on top and you make pancakes on there. Okay. An electric griddle. Yeah. Thank you, Caroline. Thank you. Well, I Think. Yeah, I think we're gonna want some kind of booze. Preferably something high proof aqua. Do you know if any of the checkers have alcohol? I don't know right now. Yeah, we used to have moonshine, but I think we finished that. Who would be a likely person? Nick Troutwine has a lot of alcohol. Oh, Nick Troutwine has so much. Guys. So do you know Nick Trotwine? Yes. Okay, great. Hi. I'm supposed to make a three course meal out of things that are in the fridge. What are you making? Bread pudding. Delightful. And I've been told that you have alcohol. Yes, I have. Oh, you have fancy Japanese rye. You're welcome to whatever this you like. I have some Tullmore Dew. I have some Angostura bitters. Hell, yes. And I have some barbecue octopus potato chips that Carolyn Corman brought back from a reporting trip to Japan. I'll take the Chavez Regal. Okay. Do you know if anybody else in the office might have vodka? Bruce will have vodka. All right. To Bruce. Yeah. All right. Bruce is. He's kind of like the keeper of all the secrets. Okay. Yeah. No, at the New Yorker has been here for. Forever. Go. Hi, Bruce. I'm Bruce Diones. I work here. What? Are you listening to this? Yeah. That's a really good question, too. I have no idea. This might be John Pardi. It's probably John. Party. Cool. Can I borrow your vodka? Borrow my vodka? Yeah. Well, I'll give you back most of it. Can you tell us what kind of vodka this is? Skull shape? I have no idea. I got this from John McPhee. Can you read that? It's Crystal Head Vodka. Go ahead, open it. It'll be great. It'll be really good luck for all of us. I'm gonna try something that might be a horrible failure. There's this trick in some, like, high end Michelin star restaurants where you use a whipped cream foamer. You fill it with a batter and you spray this foamed raw batter into a Dixie cup and then you microwave it and then you peel the paper cup off of the batter and the result is this really beautiful light bread. And I'm kind of doing a bullshit version of that with our bread pudding. Hopefully the fat in the heavy cream will help us by congealing a little. Oh, you know, this might have worked. It's definitely dehydrating a little bit. You can see how it's pulling away from the edges and we're losing a lot of the watery effect. And it's starting to solidify a little. They're like little pucks of bread pudding. They are. Look at my perfect little bread pudding cakes. I can't believe that it actually is doing the thing that you thought it would do. You don't have enough confidence in me. I'm allowed to have no confidence in me, but you have to have confidence in me. My plan is that I'm going to take this broccoli that's a little flaccid, but at one point was roasted and presumably crispy. And I'm going to put the broccoli on the griddle and crisp that up. I'm putting the broccoli on the griddle and it's sizzling. It's sizzling. This is real cooking. Okay. I'm taking the bread puddings and I'm putting them on the griddle, hoping that we can kind of crisp them up. Okay. So to taste the meal and pronounce judgment, though I don't really know quite what we're judging, do I win things? I brought over Nomi Fry, who's a staff writer here at the New Yorker and loves food and is the best and also is walking by when we needed a judge. Okay. So I'm just gonna have a taste from everything, I guess. Yeah. Start with the first course, I guess. So here's what we have. The first course is a sardine salad. So those are just two sardines straight out of a can that we found in a cabinet on top of a bed of thinly sliced cucumbers and carrots that I marinated for about an hour in lemon juice, this really cool Korean mentaiko mayonnaise that we found, and a little bit of olive oil. And there's some tomatoes and cilantro from a several days old pret salad that we found in the fridge on the sides. And the pickled onions are also from that pret salad. Delicious. Thyme has only been kind to the pret salad these elements were taken from. So that's course number one. Course number two is charred broccoli on a bed of mixed grains and black beans, which were a combination of the same prep salad. That's where the beans came from. And the quinoa. And then the farro or whatever that grain is, is from a dig in bowl, which is also where the broccoli came from. But we re crisped the broccoli on the electric griddle that I used my emergency lifeline to make Caroline go buy at the store in the middle of this place process. And all of that has been tossed at various points like The. The grain and bean situation was reduced a little bit in the microwave with butter and some chicken stock that we pulled out of a container of chicken soup that we found in the fridge. Incredible. And then we put a little more of the reduced chicken stock on top, along with some chimichurri that was left over from an art department potluck yesterday that apparently went with arepas, I think. Okay, I'm gonna try a little bit of broccoli. This is actually good. Like, I would actually eat it. Like, you were lying about the first course, but this one is. No. No. I mean, no. And then for dessert, I made bread pudding out of stale hamburger buns that we let soak with some half and half. And a bunch of sugar packets, like 20 sugar packets. And then a sauce made out of cream and some whiskey that we stole from Nick Trout wine. And last but not least, I made a Bloody Mary using something that I think was tomato juice, a packet of hot sauce from Rachel Reederer. It's got a rim of McCormick salt free seasoning mixed with salt that we stole from Fergus and some crushed caterpillars that Burke Bilger just happens to keep at his desk. Here's David Rimnick. You have a crushed caterpillar. Where? In the. The rim. The rim. That's crushed caterpillar. All right. That has to be tasted. That has to be tasted. Wait a second. Crushed caterpillar. Oh, man. Oh. Oh. Maybe the vodka will make it better. Perfect. Should I try the bread pudding? Yeah, here I go. Extremely sweet. Maybe we added too many sugar. Extremely sweet, which is not a bad thing. The whiskey is good here. I'm having another bite after complaining that it was too sweet. Thank you. If you had to rank the dishes, how would you rank them? I mean, I would. You know, considering the circumstances, this would be an 11, but, you know, without that handicap, I would probably put it at an eight and a half maybe. That's amazing. Yeah, that's a solid B. Yeah, I would totally eat all of these. Like, if they were served to me at a restaurant, I would totally be like, yeah, this is pretty good. But then again, I'm really not a gourmand. Okay, thanks, you guys. Thank you for attesting. Does anyone else? Helen Rosner, food correspondent for the New Yorker. You can find her picks for the best cookbooks of 2019 and much more@newyorker.com.