Nancy and Sarah are going to talk about L-O-V-E, and Nancy thinks she knows what it is, but Sarah (who just wrote a book on this topic) is pretty certain she can’t define what it is, nor can anyone, not in its many-tentacled forms.
First the ladies talk French protests, a hunger for rage and then a documentary about designer John Galliano, who soared in the fashion heavens like few others and crashed down just as hard. A blackout-induced tirade on the (what else?) the Jews in 2011 turned him into a proto cancellation story. Sarah has thoughts! For that matter, so does Nancy. And who doesn’t love Kate Moss after this doc?
Also discussed:
* John Cusack, the right kind of sexy in Say Anything
* “Pneumonic plague” not on our bingo cards
* Nancy has a visceral reaction to wool spun from Wallace’s fur
Nancy and Sarah talk about the Cornell case. Maybe you’ve heard about it? They talk about drinking and consent, college bacchanals, cultural rot, the weird dehumanization of technology and porn, and how we can point fingers in so many directions, but ultimately, your life is your responsibility.
Questions on the table: What should the legal definition of rape be? How involved should colleges become in the private sex lives of their students? Are those students children — or adults? This is complicated business. Camille Paglia comes in and knocks some shit over on the table, because well, Aunt Camille. We love her, but she goes a little harder than Nancy and Sarah. We’re softer touches on this one.
Also discussed:
* The ‘00s went off the fucking rails
* Sarah’s IQ drops plummets when she’s sprung for a guy … “Where is Mexico?”
* Not gonna put my tongue on THAT third rail today …
* “Dear colleague” → Title IX → kangaroo courts
* Is Nancy a vampire? (Answer: Yes)
* Sarah reads a letter from a former frat boy
* “What about Skims!??”
* Wallace’s first voluntary appearance on a video pod
* Use lotion, start slow
* Rick Muthaf*cking Rubin can narrate us into the apocalypse
Plus, shout-outs to Yale and Bret Easton Ellis, the cigarette alto of Sarah’s audio book, the joy of Alamo Drafthouse, and much more!
Nancy and Sarah talk about Sarah’s new legal name—“Pre-orders Matter”—and her memoir coming out September 29. But first! Nikole Hannah-Jones wrote an essay. Maybe you heard about it? The journo broads talk parenting, ideology, public confession and what it means to sacrifice for your child.
* Y/N: Is mentioning you think Weinstein might have gotten a raw deal a good idea during book launch?
* Katie Herzog is a smart cookie
* The hard landing of overestimating your powers as a reporter
* Stop asking what kind of skin care Nancy uses!
* Who put you in charge?
Plus, a photo of Sarah’s three loves, revealed! After the break.
276. The Snobbery of Jonathan Franzen, Emmy Fashion Debate, and … LOVE
Wednesday, September 16, 2026 • Duration 01:27:45
“You get at most one cliche per book,” the writer Jonathan Franzen said in a recent interview. Cue: Literary Twitter exploding. Snob! Hypocrite! But as Nancy and Sarah point out: Franzen is also awesome! And the journo babes love The Corrections and Freedom, etc. A discussion ensues about writerly rules (made to be broken) and the role of snobbery in the arts.
The journo broads also debate Emmy fashion, including Emmy host Mariska Hargitay’s teen daughter in what Nancy sees as a cute dress and Sarah sees as … not that. Nancy shuts down a misery scammer taking advantage of the memory of our late friend Andrew Wimsatt. Please only refer to Nancy, from now on, as “Nancy Rommelmann, online avenger.”
Sarah gives Nancy a pop quiz about her upcoming memoir (9/29/26), The Only Thing There Is to Want, which Nancy hasn’t read yet. Nancy gives Sarah a hard time for not having finished Nancy’s 2018 book To the Bridge, despite the fact that Sarah has had roughly eight years to do so.
This is a FREE episode, so send it to TWO friends, who’ll send it to two friends …
Also discussed:
* The return of the goon cave
* Do not f___ with Nancy’s people
* Widow’s Bay FTW!!!
* Oscar Isaac, Sarah’s boyfriend who is not Robert De Niro
* Sex worker or sorority girl?
* Metaphor debate!
* Ellroy or Leonard: Who said it?
* Paglia or Steinem: Who made the cut for Sarah’s book?
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Nancy and Sarah discuss a Netflix documentary called The Unabomber in His Own Words, which came out years ago but has taken on new depth in our current mess. Ted Kaczynski’s random violence and mythologizing finds echoes in the Luigi Mangione case and the bizarre heroizing of Lindsay Clancy, who killed her three children.
The journo babes talk revolutionaries vs. terrorists, how humans are still evolving, why American can never find the middle ground, and whether AI is an extinction-level event. So: A lighthearted episode! Still there’s no end of laughs, or Sarah’s nicotine gum pouches.
Also discussed:
* Supergraphics!
* Fetterman at the RNC
* I mean, Trump could’ve just thrown Trump steaks at the audience
* Nancy is was a Netflix freeloader
* The Unabomber-Antifa connection
* Going no-phone is the new straight edge
* Big love (always) for Bryan Burroughs
* The New York Times calls Assata Shakur a “revolutionary” in obit, SMH
* Sarah talks about wearing a “baklava,” because she’s a Dallas girl
* Nancy devotes her entire future to writing the definitive book on MovieFone
* The Babe-vegetarian connection
* “We can just f*ck off climate change then”
* Sarah jinxes herself in a contest by declaring if she wins, she’ll wear a white suit
Plus, are geniuses sadists (paging Jon Ronson), we love Pam Colloff (again and always), another installment of “This Week in Kyle Chandler” (finally!) and much more!
Nancy explains the tragic case of Lindsay Clancy, a mother who strangled her three kids, to Sarah, who has only been barely paying attention. Nancy has written several stories about mothers who kill their children, including the nonfiction book, To the Bridge, a True Story of Motherhood and Murder. She and Sarah delve into the strong reactions people have to the case, the dangers of postpartum depression and the perils of over-medication, why being too invested in Clancy’s clemency might be a selfish pursuit, and how the criminal justice system might distinguish between the reason for a crime — and the responsibility for it.
Also discussed:
* Nancy likes a chunky guy
* Sarah has “the biggest memoir of the fall”??
* “Sly little kitten …”
* Steinem: The mixed bargain of being the face of a movement
* Betty Friedan was a feisty scrapper
* Gloria and her aviators
* “We gotta get rid of that lavender menace!”
* You can live your child at a firehouse?
* Lithium is a hell of a drug
* Married to the moon: We dig it!
Plus, were the Scientologists right about psychiatric drugs? Tarantino’s late-career genius, and no one asked the Smoke ‘Em girls to sing an early Rolling Stones jam but welp, they did anyway … and much more
273. Ethan Strauss on How We’re Werewolves In the AI Revolution
Nancy and Sarah welcome Ethan “crackerjack mouth” Strauss back to Smoke ‘Em for round three, this time inspired by his recent piece about a fake 49ers player who scammed scores of women out of more than a million dollars. Dark? Yes. Also hilarious, in terms of perpetrator Daejon Love’s come ons, e.g., telling women his family owned part of the Gucci store “on Saks Fifth Avenue.”
They also talk Ethan’s recent “get that nose to the grindstone, kids” piece about making money in sports media, how to help your aging parents not get scammed, and whether anyone on the panel cares what people think of them. (Spoiler: 1.5 yes/1.5 no.)
Also discussed:
* Katie Herzog retools her addition to help others
For her birthday today, Sarah had one request: Please, Nancy, will you PLEASE watch the 1978 super-musical that launched a million imitations, the much-cherished film that Sarah calls “Star Wars for girls” and one of her all-time favorites? As the poet says: Grease is the word. So, how’d that go?
But first, the gals talk about the unrivaled beautiful soul of Dolly Parton, whose death at 80 arrived yesterday. The tributes poured in (Eminem?), and there can never be enough, but the passing feels culturally momentous. Is this the unofficial end of the America century — or the American dream?
Also discussed:
* “WTF did Jolene look like?!”
* “Swagoo”
* The Osmonds weren’t slutty, as far as we know
* Newsflash: the feminists didn’t like a woman
* “Bite the weenie, Rizzo.” / “With relish.”
* Sarah punts her mother to voicemail
* The awesomeness of telling men they are handsome
* “Smell my Calvins”?
* The wonder of John Travolta dancing.
* Sarah casts a Heterodox Grease: Moynihan as Kenicke, Rosenfield as Marty, Rommelmann as Frenchy. (Sarah as Sandy, obvs.)
* BUT WHO PLAYS DANNY? One hint: Three men — a sweetheart and genius of a podcaster, an Italian stallion, and a brainiac born to hand jive, babeeee
Plus, Nancy counteracts Grease with another ‘80s classic, what it’s like growing up in the eye of the (imaginary) camera, Dolly’s letter to Eminem, and more!
Pie Talk #47: “Your Mom’s Red Sauce” Redux
Sunday, August 23, 2026 • Duration 15:26
Good morning. Many times in the past few years, including the dark times of 2020, I have thought how easy it is to turn your face to the sun, if you remember it is there and if you choose to. I watched the sunrise just before I recorded this for you. My mother had died two days earlier, there is always a lot to do in the wake of someone’s death, and it was the first time I was alone and thinking of her, and also how much she would have liked the hot tub I was in at that moment and which we bought the year before, how she for sure would have been getting in and out of it and insisting on doing so naked and not caring who saw her. Mom, she had a thing for being naked, to wit:
Mom [around 1998]: Nancy, I am going to a nudist camp, why don’t you come with me?
Me: Oh my god mom, no…
Mom: It will be fun! You can write about it.
I declined, with prejudice. Mom of course went. She never flagged in her commitment to walking around without her clothes on.
Anyone following along here knows my mom has been leaving us for several years, what I have come to think of as the long linger. At least a half-dozen times I drove away from the property thinking, that is the last time I will see her… But it never was, she was the unsinkable Kathy Hayes until this past Monday. As my friend Deb later said, “She found her way home.” I am taking a lot of comfort from that.
As you will hear in the audio, I was given a sign the day before…
This one’s a freebie. Subscribe for weekly Pie Talks, Smoking Diaries, and all other Smoke ‘Em episodes and niceties
I started seeing hawks as messengers just after Tim’s dad died. We were with him when he passed, in a hospital in Houston, which I wrote about in a “Modern Love” essay. I would be running in, say, Griffith Park, thinking about something difficult, and there a hawk would be, circling above me. Since Tim’s death in 2019, he’s taken over the messengering. At least that’s what I think. Anyway, this hawk was going at it all day last Sunday. There are a gazillion birds upstate but a hawk’s cry is very distinct.
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270. Warning: The Death Episode
Wednesday, August 19, 2026 • Duration 01:10:25
Nancy and Sarah talk about the death of Hayden Panatierre at the age of 36, which just so happens to be the age that Marilyn Monroe died. Sarah wants to know why child actors get an exception against laws preventing kids from working. Nancy spills the secrets on how they get babies to cry in the commercials — and it’s sad! The discuss addiction, postpartum depression, domestic abuse, and more.
The ladies also discuss Nancy’s mom, who passed Monday (yesterday as of this writing). Kathy, we miss you already, and we thank you. Now, about that leather jumpsuit …
Free episode: Invite your friends!
Also discussed:
* Nancy in the Morning™️
* Italians are Sarah’s favorite ethnic stereotype
* Dax / Dak, whatever
* Heroes = pre-Mad Men TV programming
* Can a mother come back from losing custody of her children?
* The mysteries of Marilyn Monroe’s death
* Blackout drinking is “suicide for a night”
* Everybody loves Xanax
Plus, that time Nancy slept like a gunshot victim, our favorite Miranda Lambert jams, and much more.
You know Smoke ‘Em has a YouTube channel, right? Where we post things like…
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Has Sarah mentioned she has a book coming out Sept 29, and that pre-orders matter? Well, as Alanis says, you oughta know …
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit
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* Sarah goes to a hen party, does not apologize for the stereotype
Plus, the shadow side of second-wave feminism, Joan Didion gets it right, did Infinite Jest predict our AI doomscape? And much more!
ALSO! Sarah is teaching a special 90-minute memoir-writing workshop on Sat., Sept. 26, 1pm ET / 10am PT, for the under-$100 cost of 3 pre-ordered books. Just email your receipt(s) to 3lovesmemoir@gmail.com, and you’ll get a Zoom link.
Big congratulations to Nancy’s longtime friend Larry Karaszewski, whose producer-daughter Carver—whom Nancy last saw when she was eight-years-old—was part of the Widow’s Bay Emmy sweep. Soak it up, Dad!
Nancy asked her daughter to weigh in on DressGate (picture below): “I was more attracted to Mariska, who is beautiful and sexy and amazing. Her daughter’s dress, I’m kind of neutral on. Plus they’re wearing matching dresses, which is sweet. We should all be so lucky. Just tell Hepola she’s a prude.”
Sarah responds: “I am rubber, you are glue. Whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you.” — The Management
Pre-order The Only Thing There Is to Want, because you have less than two weeks to listen to these plugs, so let’s celebrate.
Memoirist Hepola returns after her acclaimed recovery memoir, Blackout, with a wickedly lovable account of three lost loves: a married man, a younger man, and a New Orleans cop she once believed was the man of her dreams. The title arrives when she phones the married guy for advice about dealing with his 29-year-old successor. “I’m scared I only want what I can’t have,” she tells the ex. “Oh baby,” he replies, “It’s the only thing there is to want.” This line feels to Hepola like a skeleton key to her existence, unlocking the surprising amount of pleasure (not to mention the very good stories) one can find on the path of an apparently hopeless quest. Hepola’s self-deprecating candor and perfectly paced storytelling make this book anything but the boohoo-fest you might imagine. Possibly the perfect gift for a friend going through a breakup.
About that unnecessary cleavage…
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Pre-order Sarah’s new book. Even Oprah loves it (or, someone adjacent to Oprah)
On Monday afternoon, I was just coming back from a visit with Jon Ronson—whose latest book, The Castle: Adventures in the World of Unraveling Me, drops next week so go get that—when I pulled into the driveway and saw the hawk sitting there. It was a red-tailed hawk, in no hurry to move. It eventually did, keening as it flew north, then came back in the early evening, while I was sitting on the front steps soon after learning about my mom’s death.
Cooking for me is comfort and a solace. I don’t think it was that way for Mom, she was too hyper, a get-’er-done cook as opposed to a lingerer, read all about it, and her.
I gave you all the recipe for her red sauce on Pie Talk #4, in March 2023. Many changes since, including the featured image of the Melania painting now hanging in the studio where The Fifth Column guys record, and the Chinatown apartment being no more, or no more for me, though it has passed on to someone in the extended chosen family, which makes us all happy, it’s a rad pad with very, very good juju.
For now, I leave you with Mom’s Red Sauce. Please do make it, her gift to you. Let me know how it turns out xx
“Your Mom’s Red Sauce”
I’m calling it this because that’s how people always ask me for it. You are making a lot of sauce here, enough for several meals and several quarts for the freezer. This is also enough for one honkin’ big lasagna, and about that: When making lasagna, go for full-fat ricotta and mozzarella. How you make lasagna, you say? Like this: In a very large baking pan, layer sauce, al dente cooked lasagna noodles, egg-size globs of ricotta, slices of mozzarella, repeat and repeat. The finished product will weigh about 8 pounds. Bake it at 350, loosely covered with foil, for about an hour, then remove foil and bake another 30 minutes, until top layer of cheese is all melty and browning. This will feed at least 10 - 12 people, who as the years go by will ask you please to make it again x
* Olive oil, 4 - 6 T.
* 2 large yellow onions, chopped
* 2 cloves garlic, chopped
* 2 pounds hamburger meat, 80/20% fat
* 5 cans (29-ounce) Hunt’s Tomato Sauce. Yes, I know some of you want to use an Italian brand, or something organic. You do you but that’s not the sauce, and if I had a nickel for every person I’ve given this recipe to who later said,”It didn’t taste like yours...” and then admitted they did not, as specifically instructed, use the Hunt’s, I’d have about 65-cents. Try it this way first and then go fancify!
* 2 T. dried oregano, 1 T. dried basil if you have some, 2 bay leaves
In a large heavy-bottom sauce pot (not “sauce pan” as I repeatedly said in the audio), heat the olive oil over medium-heat. Add the onion and cook until translucent and with some brown bits, stirring occasionally. Add garlic and cook about a minute, stirring. Try not to burn the garlic (... she writes, often doing so herself.)
Break up hamburger with your fingers and drop into the cooking onions. Don’t break it up too much; you want some hunks the size of whole walnuts, and don’t stir too much. Cook until the meat loses its pink and there are some brown bits.
Pour in the sauce, crunch in the oregano and basil between your fingers, and add bay leaves. Stir the meat up from the bottom and bring the sauce to a simmer. Once it simmers, turn the flame as low as it will go, cover the pot but leave a tiny crack for steam to escape, and simmer, at least two hours, stirring from the bottom every 20 minutes or so, to avoid meat sticking to the bottom and scorching. Depending on your burner, a flame-tamer may be in order. The sauce originally called for three hours of simmering and by all means, go for it, but two hours is also fine.
Remove from heat, eat some right away on hot pasta, let the rest cool and freeze or otherwise save for another day.
Things people have added to good effect: Italian sausages for last hour of cooking (my mom), a splash of red wine and red pepper flakes (my former husband).
Things people have put this sauce on other than pasta: bread in a bowl (everyone), salad (my late stepfather).
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