Boone and LA Restaurant Recs, Report from London, and a Ted Lasso Tour of Amsterdam

Welcome to the Torg Stories Podcast! In this episode, Anne is back from London. We’re getting ready to see her at the Outer Banks. We talk solo vacationing, and we get what amounts to a travel program on Amsterdam from the television series Ted Lasso. Anne, give us a story from London.

On this episode, I give Boone, NC restaurant recommendations and Anne gives LA, we get a report from London, and there’s what amounts to a tour of Amsterdam from the television show Ted Lasso.

Notes for Discussion of Season 3, Episode 6: “Sunflowers“

• The episode gets its name from the Vincent van Gogh’s series of sunflower paintings.

• Anne, I wish I had been keeping track of a list of my favorite episodes. This one ranks way up there for me.

What are the reasons this might be one of my more favorite episodes?

1. It works like a sitcom version of a travel guide or video with a sports, culture, and history slant. Better than something like White Lotus because it gives the history on purpose.
2. The characters adventures really move the plot and evolve their characters at a quick pace.
3. The Roy and Jaimie scenes are sweet and funny. The Chicago Bulls, Tex Winter triangle offense, and invent Total Football couldn’t be more in my wheelhouse.
4. The amount of things you could stop to look up is incredible: the jazz club, the jazz musician, the BBQ sauce that Ted is handed in the restaurant

• The team gets hammered in an exhibition match in Amsterdam. The season has taken a turn for the terrible. The team needs a shift in mojo. Coach Lasso decides there’s no curfew for the night.
• Roy says Jamie doesn’t get to miss training. They get off the bus and start running.
• Higgins invites kit man Will to go to the Red Light District with him. Nice bit of mystery about what they are going to do.
• Roy and Jaimie jog through narrow brick streets with boats on a canal. Jamie knows so much about Amsterdam.
• Rebecca out walking by herself. A man yells at her and she falls into the water. “Space cake”? The guy throws his phone into the water.
• Beard and Ted getting ready to go out. Yankee Doodle Burger Barn. How do you decide where to eat when you are somewhere?

Let’s say I’m coming to LA. Where would you tell the Torgs to go eat?

What places do I reccomend to people coming to Boone, NC?

1. Booneshine
2. Town Tavern in Banner Elk
3. Black Cat Burrito
4. Stickboy Kitchen
5. Boone Saloon
6. The Local on Howard Street

Haven’t tried: Dan’l Boone Inn, Fizz Ed, South End Brewing Company, Horton Rooftop

• Team in the lobby trying to figure out where they will go. Collin excuses himself. Boat tour. Train to Paris. See a tulip. Go to a party with a DJ. Museum culture. Team movie night. William is the kit man. A Dutch DJ named Martin Garrix is mentioned as the Dutch player’s cousin.
• Rebecca in the boat. Sees kid’s stuff. He leaves tea for her. Guess it’s good tea.
• Beard downs a psychedelic. Ted decides not to.
• Collin slips out. Trent follows. Wearing leopard skin boats?
• The boat man kisses Rebecca’s bleeding ankle after he puts a band aid on it out of force of habit. LOL: Rebecca says all that military training. He’s pretty forward.
• Ted just wants to stay in? He gives Beard a chance to go and he jumps at it.
• Trent runs into Collin at a gay bar. Collin freaks out. Trent tells Collin he already knew. (Did you know Trent was gay at this point?)
• Ted drinks most of his tea and goes out alone. Anne style! Anne, compare and contrast going to London alone and joining us in the Outer Banks.
• Worked in a way to get Rebecca to sing, which I appreciate. Some Kenny Rogers!
• Roy didn’t know how to ride a bike. Anne, how are your bike riding skills?
• Going out alone: Ted, Beard, Rebecca, Collin, and Trent.
• Higgins on the jazz outing with Will: One pilgrim alone is merely a zealot, but two pilgrims together, that’s a pilgrimage. Jazz Cafe Alto is real. Click here for website. Anne, is this a shot at what Ted is doing and your solo vacations.
• Collin and Trent Crimm talk. Dr. Sharon helped Collin realize he has an ache. We can’t fix every ache inside of us.
• Museum night. Van Gogh works.

One doesn’t expect to get from life, what one has learned it cannot give, rather one begins to see that life is a kind of sowing time, and the harvest is not yet here. – often attributed to Van Gogh

• I really liked the farm painting. When you know you’re doing what you’re meant to do, you have to try. (we’ve already heard this from Ted’s son. You have to try.)
• Stroopwafel sounds good! Waffles with a syrupy filling?
• Ted goes to Yankee Doodle Burger Barn. (fictional restaurant) “Table for one.” Darts evoke Ted’s father.
• Gezellig. The man on the boat keeps saying it. The gezellig Dutch culture can remind us all to be more present with friends and ourselves. Funny moment of dumping water on the wet clothes.
• Bulls on. Ted used to watch the Bulls with his dad. Pyramid ain’t nothing but a triangle. Chance the Rapper. Going deep on this. Nate as a waiter. Arthur Bryant BBQ from Kansas City.
• I appreciate not having all of the allusions explained to me.
• Everything goes black for Ted and he talks with a voice who says it is The True Spirit of Adventure. A lesson on triangles. Ted starts writing.
• Higgins yells, “Let’s Get Lost.” It’s a Chet Baker song first appeared in a 1943 film. Montage: Higgins playing bass, big pillow fight, Ted working, Collin in the club, Rebecca dancing in the boat house, Roy and Jaime found a windmill. Ted continues to move the ketchup and mustard bottles around. Majerus book, My Life on a Napkin.
• Boat man says, “Did we? Oh yes we did.”
• Whoa, Beard’s outfit!
• Ted comes up with Total Football, invented in Holland in the 70s.
• Rebecca: My phone is at the bottom of a canal.
• Rebecca sings, Don’t Worry, About a Thing.

Questions for discussion:

1. Why so much Van Gogh? You have to try. The pursuit of something beautiful. Ted is meant to coach, according to this episode.
2. Why say the psychedelic was a dud? What are we to believe happened with Ted in this episode?