Speaking English - Expressions involving food

I knew it was going to happen, now he's stewing in his own juices.

Hi, James Raven.

Stewing in your own juices.

I like food.

I like food a lot.

I love to eat.

Maybe you can't see it, but it's a happy belly.

Okay, you think Santa Claus, Father Christmas, Le Père Noel, that's me, little fat guy.

That being said, I said to you, "What does it mean to stew in your own juices?"

"Well, what is stew?"

Because I said, "Oh, why don't I tell you what I'm doing?"

I'm sure.

Ezekiel wants to know what we're doing.

He's looking like, "What is this?"

Well, stew is a food that you take meat and vegetables, you put it in a hot pot, you put

water in it, and you leave it for hours, and you just let it cook, slowly, slowly cooking

until the meat disappears.

It becomes soft.

I'm getting hungry thinking about it, so I bet you are now.

Imagine good food stewing.

Now, imagine putting a person in a pot with vegetables for hours and heating it.

That's not good.

Well, this is what stewing in your own juices means.

It means to... Now, you might have noticed I was quiet when I wrote that on the board.

I was quiet for a reason.

This is to help you learn, because I know if I write it and don't speak, you will read

each word, and you will understand what I mean, probably exactly what I mean.

To stew in your own juices, or to stew in his juices, to stew in her juices, to stew

in their juices, means to suffer the consequences of what you have done.

You've done something wrong, and now you're in this hot pot that's slowly cooking you,

so now you're in trouble, and you're feeling what that means.

You're feeling that trouble, or the pain it brings you.

So sometimes, if someone does something wrong, you go, "I want him to stew in his own juices.

I want him to feel the pain of what they have done."

So it's like cooking you in that pot with the vegetables, except humans don't taste

as good as a piece of pork, beef, or chicken.

It's true.

But you will be very soft when you're chewed, you know, when you're stewed.

Okay.

That's number one, to stew in your own juices.

But that's not nice.

That's bad.

Why are we going to bad already?

Well, I've got one more bad one for you.

If stewing is bad, how about this one?

Sandwiched.

Sandwiched.

Well, you may not know it, but a hamburger is just a hot sandwich.

But if you think of what sandwiches are, you've got a piece of bread over here, a piece of

bread over here, and then something's stuck in between, and it's trapped.

You ever looked at a hamburger?

The meat's always trying to get out, and the bread just holds it down.

They put all sorts of stuff in, mayo, and they put relish, and you get to drift, you

know, to glue it there so it can't get out.

So sandwich isn't really bad, but it can be.

Here's an idea.

Think of you on a subway, or I don't know what you might call it, the train, the train

that goes underground, la metro, the underground, the subway.

Now, you're on the train.

You're sitting there.

Okay.

And then one big guy sits beside you on one side, weighs 300 pounds, or 200 kilos.

On the other side, another person, 200 kilos, sits beside you.

You're going to feel sandwiched, right?

You're going to be sitting on a plate.

You're going to be sandwiched between these two guys.

But it's not always bad, because sometimes you have, you know, Ezekiel, I'd love to meet

you for a beer, but I've got two meetings sandwiched, you know, I've got, like, maybe

we can meet in the middle of it.

We might be sandwiched between two meetings.

So I've got this and this on one side, and in between is something else.

So usually we have more of a, well, he's sandwiched between the four of us right now, because

he ain't going nowhere.

He ain't got no sandwich.

Anyway, I'm joking.

To be stuck between or trapped between two things, sandwiched.

So you can even sandwich your car.

My car is sandwiched between two big cars.

It means I was right in between, kind of trapped in there.

Okay?

So think trapped between two things, sandwiched.

All right?

For example, I've got, I can only come and see you for a second, and it'll have to be

sandwiched between two meetings at work.

On the subway on my way to work, I was sandwiched between two big guys who smelled awful.

They were stewing in their own juices.

It was disgusting.

Anyway, okay.

So that's two.

Should we go a little bit better?

Well, I've got three more I want to go with.

Let me see.

I like sugar.

We should talk about sugar.

Yes.

Let's talk about sugar.

And once again, it's almost negative, but I don't mean to be so negative.

It's such a nice day, but let's talk about sugar.

And sugar is sweet, yeah?

Yeah, but sometimes sugar can hide something.

It can hide the taste of something else that we don't want to taste, right?

If I don't know, when you were a kid, my mom used to sometimes give me medicine and she'd

put a little bit of sugar and I'd eat the sugar and I'd eat the medicine because I didn't

know it was medicine.

What we call that is sugar coat.

You have some bad news coming to you.

You're sitting there at home, I don't know if you're a girl or a boy, but let's say you're

a spouse.

Now spouse is an interesting word.

It means husband or wife.

You don't have to say wife or husband if you say spouse.

Your spouse comes in, you're sitting there, eating your cereal, minding your own business,

and they want to talk about your relationship.

They're going to leave you, but they sugar coat it by saying, "It would be nice to take

a break.

We should take some time apart."

They're sugar coating.

Sugar coat something means, oh, not to make, I lie, it's not to make.

That would be a lie.

To say, sorry, easier, is to say something bad in a nice way.

To say something bad in a nice way, to make it easier to accept, because if you say it

in a bad way, like you say what you exactly mean, the person won't like it, so I'm going

to sugar coat it by saying, "Don't think of it as being fired.

Think of it as a long-term vacation from the company."

I'm sugar coating the fact, you don't have a job anymore, okay?

I've tried to make it nice.

Sugar coat.

Now we're finally moving out, notice how we're sugar coating?

It's still a bad thing, but it's to make something bad seem nice.

Remember the first thing we talked about?

What was the first thing we said?

Not sandwich.

Let's go back.

Stew in your juices.

It was terrible, right?

That means to be cooked in your own juices, which isn't good for you.

You've suffered the consequences.

Then we said sandwich, to be put between two things, like trapped.

This one is to make something seem bad, but if you look at Ezekiel, see, things are looking

up.

Ezekiel's going to do the next one for you.

There's Ezekiel, smiling now.

Okay, because he's got his pimp hat on, he's got his pimp hat, see, he's got his pimp hat,

and he's got his pimp cup.

Okay, he's a pimp player, we'll do a lesson on pimps, players, and other things later

on.

Pickup artists, we'll call it the P lesson.

No, we won't do that one, we can't do a pickup artist lesson, but we'd like to do one.

Ezekiel, sorry, you'll have to just sit here, not as a pimp, or a player, or a pickup artist,

but as a sugar daddy.

I told you things are getting better, see, he's a sugar daddy.

What does a sugar daddy do?

Well, a sugar daddy, ladies, you could be a sugar mama, but a sugar daddy is somebody

who, well, they spend money on younger girls, hence, daddy.

The sugar is the money, the daddy is the older, so it's an older man who spends money on a

younger girl in return for, let's say, companionship, friendship, loving relations, sex, you know

what I mean.

Okay, so we're getting better, though, I told you, stew and juices, you know what that means,

yes.

Then we went from that sandwich, you know that one, we did sugar coat something, this

is sweet, this is the sugar daddy.

The sugar daddy is going to, if you're female, give you money, buy things for you, make your

life easy, sugar-like, sweet, right, for companionship, okay.

You can be a sugar mama, okay, you girls out there, you want to be sugar mamas, it's okay.

You got a young boy, he's using money, boom, he's yours, you can also be cougar, that's

another thing we're going to talk about, damn, you too.

Okay, now, finally, if you sugar coat something, okay, I'm sugar coating what the sugar daddy

does, see, I'm saying what he does in a nice way, right, I said sugar daddy, I sugar coat

it, you got sugar daddy or sugar mama.

If you get a sugar daddy or a sugar mama, you will get the final one, the pièce, oh,

I did this in another video, so I can't say pièce de résistance, say Ichiban, the number

one position.

And what is that?

Well, if you get that, Ezekiel is now going to change this, okay, he's now changing it

to, okay, and this is a nice little piece of steak, okay, where do we put our steak?

We put gravy, we put gravy on.

Gravy makes the steak taste better, so this is gravy, okay, so you say, why do we want

gravy?

Well, ladies and gentlemen, if you get a sugar daddy or a sugar mama, you're on the gravy

train and gravy makes everything taste better.

Now, a train is moving, right, so you're moving on to good times.

So if you get a, so you're still wearing a sugar daddy hat and you're on the gravy train,

you're a happy person.

If you notice, I told you I like my food, so I'd like to be on the gravy train, I'm

sure you would too.

Look, I gotta go, but it's not quite money because gravy train, oh, I should explain

properly, gravy train means good times, making money, doing well, so if your business is

doing well, money's coming to you, we're on the gravy train because gravy makes everything

taste better, right, nice and thick and delicious, okay?

So what did we do?

We did five.

Can you go back over them?

Let's go.

Countdown.

I feel like I'm on Sesame Street.

Five.

Number five was, what, stew in your juices to suffer the consequences of your behavior.

Number two was sandwiched.

Two big people on the subway, sandwiched.

Number three, what was that, sugar coat something.

Good, nice sugar to make even this taste good, right, make something bad taste good, sugar

coat.

Number four, Ezekiel with the hat, sugar daddy, do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do, daddy, older,

sugar sweet.

Older person is sweet to a younger person for companionship, also can be a sugar mama.

And finally, the gravy train.

Gravy tastes better with everything.

When you come to North America, you must ask for a gravy on this side, on your mashed potatoes,

on your steak, not on your vegetables, not good there.

But be on the gravy train, you're moving up, you're doing well because you get all the

sweet stuff from the sugar daddy and sugar mama, all right, there's our lesson.

So I'm going to give you a different gravy train.

Now, this is a bad example, but you would be on the gravy train if you came to www.gravy.com.

www.gravy, I'm joking, ing as in English, vid as in video,.com.

Come here and learn about this and other useful idioms.

Come watch me eat food.

I actually have a video where I eat only food.

I always go, mmm, delicious, it's great, it's an hour long, better yet, why don't you take

me over for dinner and see me do it in person.

Joking, jokes, I'm all about jokes.

Have a good one.

I'll see you later, bye-bye.