Alternative Careers for Lawyers, with Lauren Fernandez; and “The All-Out Artery Clogger”

Episode Notes

Transcript

Jared Correia:  I’d like to take a moment to thank my mom for listening to every episode.  Now, my mom is the real reason you’re listening to the show right now, but the sponsors have a little something to do with it as well.  So, I’d like to thank our sponsors too, Clio Scorpion, TimeSolv, Alert Communications.  As the largest legal-only call center in the U.S., Alert Communication serves law firms and legal marketing agencies with new client intake.  Alert captures your response to all leads 24/7, 365 as an extension of your firm in both Spanish and English.  Alert uses proven intake methods, customizing responses as needed which earns the trust of clients and improves client retention.  To find out how Alert can help your law office, call (866) 827-5568 or visit alertcommunications.com/ltn.

[Music]

Male 1:   It’s the Legal Toolkit with Jarred Correia, with guest Lauren Fernandez, a round of the “The All-Out Artery Clogger”, and then —

Male 2:  I don’t know.  I was thinking maybe we grab some dinner, relax, watch a movie.  You know, just have some time together just you and me.

[Music]

Male 1:  But first your first, your host Jarred Correia.

Jared Correia:  The curtain slowly rises on another Legal Toolkit podcast.  Who knows what desires lurk in the hearts of lawyers.  We do and yes, it’s still called the Legal Toolkit podcast.  Even though I don’t know what a honing guide even is, I’m your host Jared Correia.  You’re stuck with me because David Ruprecht was unavailable since he was checking in on the current prices for beans.  I’m the CEO of Red Cave Law Firm Consulting, a business manager in consulting service for attorneys and Bar associations.  Find us online at redcavelegal.com.  I’m the COO of Gideon Software, Inc.  We will chatbots so law firms can convert more leads, conversational, document assembly tools, so law firms can build documents faster and more accurately.  You can find out more about Gideon at gideonlegal.com.

Now, before we get to our interview today with Lauren Fernandez, the CEO of Full Course, I want to take a moment to talk about cake or is it even cake, a national television — well streaming show, was recently released on Netflix called “Is It Cake?” and that’s the entire premise of the whole show.  Bakers bake cakes and those cakes are placed next to objects that the cake represents and it’s the contestants job to determine which is the cake in which is the actual object, like this is a shoe and this is a cake that looks like a shoe.  That’s it.  That’s all I think.  Now, this format does a lot of the host to do some cool things like to wield the machete and then use that machete to cut into the item that the contestant picked.  If it’s cake, there’s a satisfying point at which the knife runs completely through it.  If it’s not cake, well it’s kind of hard to cut through a shoe, you know, and that’s just devastating.

Netflix is actually kind of expert in developing shows like this.  Before this, they created another show called “The Floor is Lava.”  This was just like is a cake in some ways where they took a simple concept and built an entire premise around it.  So the basic idea is this, just like the kids game, the floor is lava, where the carpet or the grass is lava and you can’t step on it.  They played this at playgrounds and in your house with your kids, except Netflix blows this up a little bit and creates a large room with garish objects that people can climb on.  The lava is basically water with red food coloring and every room has its own theme.  Teams of three compete to see who can get from one side of the room to the other.  The team that moves the most people across wins and if there’s a tie, total time of the finishers is the tiebreaker.  When someone falls into the lava, the show is edited to make it look like they were actually swallowed up by lava and died a horrible death.  It’s pretty fucking delightful honestly, though must be annoying for the remaining contestants to wait for the producers to fish some loser out of the drink before they can continue to try to cross the room.  Anyway, when The Floor is Lava came out last summer, I binged it with my kids.  It took us only one day to watch all the episodes and I’m still pissed that I’m continuing to wait for season two.  Come on Netflix, what’s the deal?  I’ve considered these shows and thought to myself, “What does it say about our current culture, the inanity of these programs, the lack of attention span people have, the inability to hold onto multiple concepts at the same time.”

When I was a kid, I used to subscribe to Sports Illustrated.  Yes.  Yes, an actual magazine —

(00:05:00)

— and they had a small section each week called “This Week’s Sign of the Apocalypse” where they covered this batshit crazy stuff that happened in sports and the whole thing was tended to make you lose a little bit more faith in humanity each and every week, really lovely feature, right? But I don’t know, I don’t think trying to figure out whether something is a cake or a bowling ball or pretending that water with food coloring in it is lava is necessarily an indictment on our shared society.  Life is hard, confusing, annoying at turns and sometimes you just need to take a break from thinking about like anything at all.  Like there’s never been more information.  There’s never been more people talking to you that there are now and it’s okay to take a break.  And yeah, I’m down to read James Joyce’s Ulysses, but sometimes I just want to know whether it’s a fucking cake or not.  We can have both things and let’s be real, if Netflix existed in Dublin in the early 20 century, James Joyce would have turned Samuel Beckett onto it and then maybe it’s a little bit more palatable Waiting for Godot if you’re watching is a cake while you’re doing it.

Now, before we get to our conversation with Lauren Fernandez from Full Course, let’s cut into this week’s edition of the Clio legal trends report submitted by the one and only Joshua Lenon.

[Music]

Joshua Lenon:  What do firms with growing revenue have in common today?  They’re quicker to adopt client-centered legal technologies.  I’m Joshua Lenon, lawyer and resident at Clio and this is just one finding from our recent legal trends report.  Our research shows that firms with growing revenue, are 37% more likely to use online payment solutions and 41% more likely to use client portals to technologies that make it easier for clients to interact with their lawyers.  The data is clear.  Firms that find ways to make their services easier and more convenient for clients are the ones that see better client satisfaction and higher revenue.  For more information on what tools-successful firms are adopting, download Clio’s legal trends report for free at clio.com/trends.  That’s Clio, spelled C-L-I-O.com/trends.

Jared Correia:  All right.  Let’s dig in everybody.  It’s time to interview our guest.  My guest today is Lauren Fernandez.  She is the CEO of Full Course.  Lauren, thanks for coming into the podcast today.  How are you doing?

Lauren Fernandez:  Thank you.  I’m doing great.  How are you today?

Jared Correia:  Good, good.  We did a We did a presentation together.  Well, you carried it where we talked about like alternative careers for lawyers and you’ve have like a really interesting journey from being a lawyer to being something else.  You might be able to guess with the name full course, but I want to tease that out a little bit.  So talk to me about your law practice like how’d you get started, what did you do and then why did you give it up?  Like how could anyone possibly give up the dream of practicing law, right, right?

Lauren Fernandez:  Like a dream of being a general counsel too.  I mean, honestly, that was my goal.

Jared Correia:  Oh, even better.

Lauren Fernandez:  Yeah.  That was what I wanted.  I just got there at 33.  I should start by saying I have always been an entrepreneur.  When it came time for me to go to law school, one of the things that my — my parents were very sure to counsel me on was you need to make sure you’re going to a program that has a joint JD/MBA.  And so when I went to law school, I actually had an unfortunate death in the family when my mom passed away and I almost missed the deadline to apply for the MBA program and I’ll never forget her saying to me, you need to get this MBA, make sure you apply.  She really didn’t want me to be derailed by her illness at the time, so this is all in my first year of law school.  It was a lot.

Jared Correia:  That’s a lot to deal with, yeah.

Lauren Fernandez:  It was a lot to deal with and so for me, I never ever want to stop thinking about that promise I had made.  My mom said you’re going to be sitting behind a desk running a company.  Someday, you’re going to want that MBA.  So I did it.

Jared Correia:  She knew.

Lauren Fernandez:  I pushed through.  She knew.  She knew her kid and it was hard.  I’m not going to lie, this was in a really — that’s a dark space to come out of to be in a very competitive environment like law school, to be in an extremely competitive environment.  You know I’ll be professional and friendly of course, but business school is a very collaborative present environment that you do a lot of learning together.  That was such a cementing thing for me that even when I came out of the program and graduated and I guess 2006, I interviewed for both law and business jobs.

(00:10:02)

And one person said to me, “If you don’t go practice law right now, you’ll never have a chance to go back.”  The law is an apprenticeship.  You haven’t learned anything in law school.

Jared Correia:  Yeah.

Lauren Fernandez:  You need to go learn from some of the best in the industry how this is done and if you want to make an impact, that’s where you need to start.  So I sucked it up.  The economy was in the toilet.  I went and worked for one of Atlanta’s oldest and most well-respected IP boutiques.  I became an IP attorney.  I worked my heinie up, like I was a litigator.  I did their trademark stuff.  I did all the soft IP just to make it work and that was really how I began my journey in the law and I’m so grateful for that first experience and the Mentorship that I received from the senior attorneys at that law firm and it was through that, that I was given an opportunity to work part-time basically which seconded over to a large client which was an I-Care division of Novartis Pharmaceuticals.  So I went in-house without actually leaving my law firm job for a minute and then I actually ended up in-house full-time and that was really a truly a better fit for me.  I loved being able to understand the business, to be around that deeper understanding of multidisciplinary folks working on the same project of commercializing a product, to be working in over 140 countries, to have that level of much deeper responsibility and scope of work was just — I was home.  It just made so much sense to me.  I got a call one day to interview Focused Brands with their CEO and I thought my skills are so transferable I could help them with my skill set and learn about an industry which I think is more aligned with my personal — just my personal likes, you know.  I love being around people.  I love solving problems.  I very much enjoy food as an industry.  So it made sense to jump over to Focus Brands and start their legal team there.

Jared Correia:  So, you kind of feel into it, right?  You weren’t going out to be like, “Hey, I want to get into the food industry”, you found a fit and you went with it, it seems like.

Lauren Fernandez:  I did.  I did and I think the really key takeaway there is no yourself and I’ve said this several times through interviews.  I think to a lot of people, it would have made no sense to leave the amazing setup that is Novartis.  It’s a phenomenal company to work for, but something about it wasn’t 100% aligning with me and you know, you go through those and companies and you can write it out and then maybe the next promotion is better or the next project is there.  I just had this opportunity and I knew in my heart that it was going to be a better alignment for where I wanted to be.

Jared Correia:  And now you’ve got your own company, right, that’s food related.

Lauren Fernandez:  Yeah.  Yeah, so there was a bit of a pit stop in between I left Focus about seven years ago.

Jared Correia:  Yup.

Lauren Fernandez:  And I started, you know, just interviewing for other legal jobs and nothing really helped.

Jared Correia:  Oh, interesting.  You’re going to go and try and get a legal job before you find a wholly different company.  Interesting.

Lauren Fernandez:  Yes.  I did a couple of things.  So, I really loved the product of piece of what I was able to help with at Focus and help grow their licensing program.  I was looking to go do that at another restaurant company.  I’m like, this is so great, look at how much money we can add to the bottom line and lawyers adding value.  What’s better than that, right?  And it just wasn’t as easy as I thought it was going to be to find the same kind of environment where the lawyer was treated as a business strategist and adviser as opposed to someone who’s there to clean up a mess.  And during that period of time, I got several requests to do consulting work and so I started doing that type of work as an ad-hoc consultant, working for private equity groups who own restaurant brands, up-and-coming restaurant brands, larger restaurant brands, et cetera, but not as permanent placement which suited me just fine.  It gave me some time to really think about what I wanted to do next.  And as it were, I had decided to invest in a restaurant concept and I was looking and evaluating which restaurant to do that with as a franchisee and I met a partner who helped me form Origin Development Group.  So, I started a restaurant development firm with him and we ended up owning and operating 11 Chicken Salad Chick units.

Jared Correia:  Chicken Salad Chick, I like that.

Lauren Fernandez:  Yeah.  I didn’t buy just one restaurant.  I bought three and overnight became an operating partner and I joke about this, but I’m dead serious like I rolled up my law degree.  I put it away.  I got into a pair of non-slip clogs and a name tag that says Lauren on it and that was my job for three years and we built eight more restaurants and had a very successful exit at the end of 2018.  We sold our units back to the parent company and it was a phenomenal experience and very transformative for me and I put it right up there with my four years at Emory.

(00:15:10)

Jared Correia:  Oh, don’t tell the law schools that.  They’re not going to like that.

Lauren Fernandez:  Oh, I do though.  I’m such an experiential learner.  I mean that would be my — that’s always been my number one criticism law schools.  There’s not enough hands-on learning, but that’s a story for another day.

Jared Correia:  Yeah.

Lauren Fernandez:  I think that that really just transformed my think about the industry, about what being an entrepreneur in that industry means, what being a female and Hispanic entrepreneur in the industry look like.

Jared Correia:  Yeah.

Lauren Fernandez:  And after we sold our units, I had some money to reinvest in solving these problems and that is basically how I came up with the idea for Full Course.  Full Course really focuses on helping emerging restaurant owners who are independently owned and operated, grow and scale their business in a meaningful way where we’re achieving serious financial reward for them through a mix of product development, brick-and-mortar development and franchising.  And we come in not only as an investor in those early stages, but we help incubate and accelerate the growth by using our development team to deploy that capital for them.  So as a restaurant operator, you get to do what you do best, run your business.  You get to help from us in scaling it and in growing your team to help you run it as it’s growing while we focus on deploying that capital towards all these new revenue-generating activities.

Jared Correia:  All right.  Let me ask you like in terms of other attorneys, right?  I mean I don’t know about you, but every attorney I’ve ever spoken to it’s like Piano Man, right where everybody in the bar actually wants to do something else, like this guy wants to become a novelist, this guy wants to do this or that.  Every lawyer is like that.  They have like, “Oh, you know, but I would really like to do.”  So why is it that some people can like get over the hump and just do it and other people get stuck in their career they may not love, and I’m not saying that people — there are people out there who love practicing law, but there are a lot of lawyers out there who want to do or try something else.

Lauren Fernandez:  Yeah.  Okay, this is like the million-dollar question, right?  Because if you can answer this, it’s the reason why most people don’t jump from the law and I think the number one answer for this is the comfort of it.  So it is so much easier.  Someone goes, “What do you do?”  You go, “I’m a lawyer” and that’s just, you know, done.  I think there’s a certain amount of prestige to the profession.  I would like to think so certainly to the extent they —

Jared Correia:  Let’s hope, otherwise they paid a whole hell of a lot for a degree that doesn’t mean anything.

Lauren Fernandez:  And I still renew my Bar license every year and I keep current with CLE.  You know, I think there’s a deep reverence for what we do.  It is not easy to constantly be staying on top of ever-changing law and precedent to be assessing for risk the way that we do, to be finding white space for our clients.  It is either you know a revered profession for a reason.  It also comes with lots of really great trappings like decent salaries and benefits and all these other things.  And so when you think about making the jump to something that’s untested, the first thing that you have to overcome is this idea of you’re losing the prestige and panache of the title.  It just is what it is and then the second thing is the uncertainty of the income.  And so when I’m talking to lawyers who are unsatisfied in their jobs or unhappy in their careers, what I counsel them to do first before they think about any other alternative job for themselves is what is the least amount of money you actually have to make in a year to survive because a lot of us don’t ever do that exercise.  And I’ll tell you, I mean for me at the time that I made the leap from general counsel to restaurant owner and investor, I mean my run rate as a single person was like a third of what I was bringing home as a general counsel.  The reality was staring me in the face and so I think you have to unshackle yourself from the golden handcuffs first and foremost.  Then you have to love whatever it is that you want to do more than you care about what people think about you and your title.

Jared Correia:  I think it would be tough for a lot of lawyers to do what you ou did, which is like quit that gig and then go basically run a franchise.  I think that’d be really hard to do and good for you for doing it.  All right.  Let me ask the follow-up question which is I think the question that most people would ask next which is okay.  If I make the decision to go out and do some different, screw what everybody else says, how do you make it so that your skills as a lawyer working whatever new industry is or at least make it appear that way until you figure out what you’re doing, the transferable skills question is probably a common one.

Lauren Fernandez:  Yeah.  So, you ask lawyers what they’re good at.  They’re going to list out there areas of specialty.  They’re going to go M&A, employment law, —

(00:20:00)

— employment law, intellectual property.  But that’s not really what you’re good at.  What you’re good at and there’s a core thing, like group of things that you have been good at probably your whole life, public speaking, leading teams, organizing things like — and so I encourage lawyers to think about it less like what your legal experience has brought you and think about it more like what are the things that you bring to the table as a human and I know that that sounds a little oversimplified, but if you can shift your thinking and kind of get away from the constructs of how we talk about each other as lawyers.  You know, you don’t introduce yourself to another lawyer and go I’m an attorney.  You say, “I’m an intellectual property attorney, right?”  We know to identify each other, by our areas of specialty, and that’s a funny thing, right?

Jared Correia:  It’s really weird.

Lauren Fernandez:  So again, your talents are not your specialty.  Your talents are the things that make you exceptional when you were in grade school, when you are in high school, when you were in college and then later in law school to.  That core kind of foundation I think is highly transferable skills and most lawyers don’t realize this, but they know business better than most business people do because they have to understand their client’s needs whether they’re in private practice or in-house to be able to be good at their jobs and the Best lawyers I have ever seen are phenomenal business people because they just have a knack for understanding business.  And I think if you can look at those things as skill sets, it becomes a lot clearer how and where they may be transferable.  You know, the easiest thing to do is go to something adjacent and I shamelessly will admit that was part of my strategy, like I have food and beverage experience.  I have product of experience.  I was in the restaurant industry, so I had some decent street cred even when I was going to buy those Chicken Salad Chick Units and the territory, but I had zero ops experience compared to most, but that’s what a franchise system is for.  They trained me and I learned from some of the best people that we had in our own organization, our own managers.  And man, you just have to be humble enough to be willing to ask the questions and learn on your feet I guess.  Yeah.

Jared Correia:  Yeah, that’s amazing.  I think this is a really cool story.  I think people probably learned a lot just from listening to you for about out 15 minutes or so.  Will you come back in the next segment and talk a little bit more about food with me?

Lauren Fernandez:  Sure.  Absolutely.  Let’s do it.

Jared Correia:  All right.  So, we’ll take one final sponsor break so you can hear more about what our sponsors can do for your law practice.  Then, stay tuned for the Rump Roast.  It’s even more supple than the Roast Beast.

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[Music]

Jared Correia:  Welcome to the rear end of the Legal Toolkit.  As I said, this is the Rump Roast.  It’s a grab bag of short-form topics all of my choosing.  Why do I get to pick?  Because I’m the host.  So today, we’re going to play a new game I just invented called the All-Out Artery Clogger.  Lauren, I’m going to describe for you a menu item of fast food restaurant and all you have to do is tell me which restaurant serves it pretty easy.

Lauren Fernandez:  Oh dear.  Okay.  All right.

Jared Correia:  Comment on the menu item as well.  I’ve tried to pick really healthy choices here for you.  All right menu item number one, it’s called the Zinger Double Down King.  Here’s the description, this artery-clogging meal featured a bacon-topped beef patty sandwiched between two fried spicy chicken fillet buns.  So the chicken is the buns.  There’s no bun, then slathered and rich barbecue and white pepper sauces.  Though the lack of bread meant you cut back on carbs with this bad boy at a reported 750 calories.  It wasn’t exactly waistline friendly.  Got to love fast food.  All right.  So who makes the Zinger Double Down King chicken buns and a burger in the middle, Boston Marke, Kentucky Fried Chicken or Popeye’s?

(00:25:02)

Lauren Fernandez:  I don’t think it’s Boston Market.  It has a hamburger in the middle?

Jared Correia:  Yeah.  It’s like two pieces of chicken with a hamburger in the middle.

Lauren Fernandez:  Oh, yeah.

Jared Correia:  It’s quote disgusting.

Lauren Fernandez:  I want a visual.  I feel like I needed a visual.  Popeye’s is here in Atlanta and I feel like would I would have heard or seen this if it were Popeye’s.

Jared Correia:  I like where you’re going with this.

Lauren Fernandez:  I’m going to go KFC even though I don’t think they have hamburgers but whatever.  Let’s go with KFC is my final answer.

Jared Correia:  You would be right.  You would be right and I kind of cheated a little bit here.  You can’t get this in America.  It’s like two chicken patties, but there’s like just cheese in the middle.  There’s no beef.

Lauren Fernandez:  Yeah, because they don’t serve beef I don’t think in American market.

Jared Correia:  Yeah.  They do this in South Korea.

Lauren Fernandez:  Uh-huh.

Jared Correia:  So, we can put a new spin on this game if you’d like.  We’’ do the restaurant and then if you want, tell me what country you think it’s in.

Lauren Fernandez:  I’ll take my best guess.  Okay, go.

Jared Correia:  You ready for two?  Two is called the Cheetos Quesadilla.  It’s pretty what this is.  It’s a quesadilla stuffed jalapeno-flavored Cheetos and three-cheese blend.  Like the quesadilla is not enough, you got to throw some Cheetos in there too.  So we do a Taco Bell, Del Taco or Qdoba?

Lauren Fernandez:  Oh my gosh.  Okay.  In full disclosure, I did a deal with Taco Bell.  So I have a little bit of insider knowledge there.  I don’t recall there being a Cheetos is one.  Del Taco and what was the third choice.

Jared Correia:  Qdoba?

Lauren Fernandez:  You know what, I’m just going to go Taco Bell because that was a Frito-Lay deal that they did with the Doritos taco shell.  I’m going to —

Jared Correia:  I love how are you using your inside knowledge here.

Lauren Fernandez:  I know.

Jared Correia:  You would be right.  All right.

Lauren Fernandez:  Yes.

Jared Correia:  A follow up, Taco Bell and what country.  Unfortunately, you can’t get this in the United States either.  Curses.

Lauren Fernandez:  Right, Cheetos.  Cheetos are a huge thing in Mexico especially the jalapeno ones.  I’m going to go Mexico.

Jared Correia::  Very close.  Well not really.  Philippines.  Taco Bell Philippines.

Lauren Fernandez:  Oh, shoot.  My husband will be so disappointed because he loves jalapeno Cheetos and he’s also a Filipino.

Jared Correia:  Yeah.  He’s got to travel to the Philippines for this one.  Not as close as Mexico.  All right.  The Meatatarian menu is number three, which is I guess Meatatarian as opposed to vegetarian.  These are three burgers, the Full Meaty, the Half Meaty and the Bacon Meaty, two beef patties, chicken patty, six bacon strips, —

Lauren Fernandez:  Oh dear God.

Jared Correia:  — two slices of cheese, barbecue sauce and onions is the full meaty.

Lauren Fernandez:  I’m sweating thinking about it.

Jared Correia:  I know.  I’m getting the meat sweats as I talk about this.  If you’re feeling like you want a little bit lighter fear, the Half Meaty is one less beef patty and only one slice of cheese and the Bacon Meaty on the other hand loses the meat patty and includes two chicken patties, six strips of bacon, two cheese slices and barbecue sauce.  That is a full meal if there ever was one.  All right, Five Guys, McDonald’s or Burger King.

Lauren Fernandez:  I’m guessing this is an international one too.  I’m going to go Burger King on that one.

Jared Correia:  Correct.  Which country for extra bonus points, which I’m not actually keeping track of but just for fun.

Lauren Fernandez:  Oh my goodness.  That’s a lot of meat.

Jared Correia:  That’s a lot of meat.

Lauren Fernandez:  A lot of meat.

Jared Correia:  That’s a lot of meat.

Lauren Fernandez:  I’m just going to go like Germany.  I don’t know.  I have no idea.

Jared Correia:  All right.  That’s a good guess.  It’s New Zealand actually.

Lauren Fernandez:  Oh.  Well you know, grass-fed beef from New Zealand is where it’s at.  So I can kind of — yeah, I can get that.  I get that.

Jared Correia:  All right.  I got three more for you.  They’re all equally as fun.  This one actually sounds really good.  I know how you feel about this, but I would do this.  Caramel popcorn frappe.  So the iced caramel popcorn latte and the hot caramel popcorn latte were pretty standard.  But the caramel popcorn frappe, I can’t say popcorn, was this so sickeningly sweet beast.  The New York Daily News reports the beverage was a cold blended drink of espresso and caramel and popcorn syrups, I don’t know there is popcorn syrup, topped with caramel-flavored whipped cream and caramel sauce on top of that.  The whole thing was then garnished with a large waffle cone full of caramel corn that stuck eight out of the top of the mound of whipped cream that rounded off the drink.  That’s like a whole carnival of flavors in a cup.  So who makes the hot caramel popcorn frappe, McDonald’s, Sonic or Baskin-Robbins?

Lauren Fernandez:  Oh my goodness.  I’m going to go with Baskin-Robbins.  I think the waffle cone is tipping me towards Baskin-Robbins.

Jared Correia:  That’s a great guess, but it’s actually McDonald’s.

Lauren Fernandez:  Oh really.  It’s interesting.

Jared Correia:  And which country serves this.

Lauren Fernandez:  Belgium.

Jared Correia:  Japan.

Lauren Fernandez:  Japan.

Jared Correia:  Which is kind of a surprise to me actually.

Lauren Fernandez:  They’re usually not into super, super, super sweet stuff like that.  That would have not have been my first guess.

Jared Correia:  Right? Okay.  Two more.  Two more.  You’re doing great.

(00:30:00)

The barbecue frankfurter pizza.  If you often find yourself deciding between pizza and a hot dog, your prayers have been answered with the barbeque frankfurter pizza.  The aptly titled calorie rich dish features yes hot dogs nestled into a pizza pie which is then topped with a variety of sauces.  This is the grossest thing I’ve uncovered online for a fast food.  Who is brave enough to put hot dogs on a pizza, Little Caesars, Papa John’s or Pizza Hut?

Lauren Fernandez:  I’m going to go Pizza Hut.

Jared Correia:  Yes.  Correct.  Now for bonus points, again, which I’m not tracking, which country?

Lauren Fernandez:  Can I specify a region?

Jared Correia:  Yes.  Yes.

Lauren Fernandez:  I would go like Germany, Austria, Hungary.

Jared Correia:  Okay.  I like how you did region, but it’s actually Indonesia.

Lauren Fernandez:  Really.

Jared Correia:  You can only get the barbecue frankfurter Pizza in Indonesia, but you won’t want to because it looks super gross.  All right.  I got one more for you.  This is called the buffalo latte.  According to a press release from the company, the unique beverage consists of freshly brewed espresso, steamed milk, mocha and then to top it off buffalo sauce on top of the whipped cream.  Obviously don’t know who would drink this.  Is it Duncan, Tim Hortons or Starbucks?

Lauren Fernandez:  Oh my God.  That’s just a crime, but I’m going to go —

Jared Correia:  I agree.

Lauren Fernandez:  I am going to go Tim Hortons on that one.

Jared Correia:  And you would be right.  Now —

Lauren Fernandez:  Really.

Jared Correia:  If you want to go get the Tim Hortons buffalo latte, you could get it in, of all places, perhaps unsurprisingly Buffalo, New York.

Lauren Fernandez:  You’re kidding.

Jared Correia:  This is true.  The only place in the world you can get it.  I would probably only eat one of these things to be perfectly honest, although the Cheetos quesadillas something I could make at home which sounds like it might be delightful.  You got a favorite out of what we covered?

Lauren Fernandez:  Actually, fun fact about Lauren, my favorite food as a child growing up, I was one of four children.  We were not allowed customized lunches.  Mom had to make a lot of lunches for school.  So her workaround was you can put whatever you want inside your PB&J and I am notorious/infamous for putting crunchy OG Cheetos, not puffs, Cheetos in my peanut butter and jelly still as an adult.  I’m over 40 and I still do that.  I love it so much.  So I would do the Cheeto quesadilla because I also love a good quesadilla, so that would be my jam.

Jared Correia:  That sounds amazing.  All right, everybody, enjoy your peanut butter Cheetos, jelly concoctions.  Lauren, thanks for coming on today.  You’re a good sport.  This is lots of fun.

Lauren Fernandez:  It was.  Thank you.

Jared Correia:  If you want to find out more about Lauren Fernandez in Full Course, visit fullcourse.com.  That’s fullcourse.com.  Now, for those of you listening in Sandwich, Massachusetts and in the spirit of is it cake (or not), I’ve collected some very simple short songs for our Spotify playlist this week.  We are calling it Unlong Songs.  I feel like that’s something Dr. Seuss would have said.  And while Evan clearly wants to Netflix and chill, I’m still only on my first drink.  Now, that’ll do it for another episode Legal Toolkit Podcast.  This is Jared Correia reminding you that fondant is really, really gross.

[Music]

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