It’s always unpleasant to hear that your Final Jeopardy answer is incorrect.
I didn’t get to watch last night’s episode due to previously scheduled travel, and there’s nothing I hate more than observing myself anyway, so I’ll just note a few behind-the-scenes/internal monologue items.
• Later we all marveled at how challenging the “Lesser-Known Marsupials” category was, but at the time I was so focused on the game that it didn’t even register.
• Some friends texted me about clues I got right and wrong. Other than final, I forgot almost everything. Like oral argument, you’re in the zone when it happens and it evaporates when it’s done.
• I was incredibly annoyed at myself for confusing Ebony and Essence. First, because I had forgotten what I had learned — you have to read the clue being asked, not what you think it asks.
• When Hester beat me to “public domain” I was also annoyed at myself, though again — that’s the buzzer for you.
• Sometime during Double Jeopardy I developed the yips and psyched myself out of being able to ring in properly. It may have been when Hester cleaned up in African-American Literature — a category that I figured I would have dominated, as an English major, if I hadn’t been standing next to an English professor. Sigh.
• I can’t remember why I wagered $5,399 instead of $5,400 for Final, but I think it was because I wanted to end up on the positive side if I got it wrong. Because I was aiming for a wild card spot at that point, it was important to try to maximize my winnings.
• And finally, I got very thrown off by the Final Jeopardy clue, probably because I specialized in modernism when I majored in American literature. I knew the answer couldn’t have been “modernism” because “modernista” in the clue, and I might have remembered that “kunst” in German is “Art”, but I had to put something down and I figured “avant garde” was a good shot.
I’ll say two things in close. First, I did make my goal of making it to Final Jeopardy, and so despite not winning my match and ending up with $1, I feel content with how it turned out.
Second, I was very excited when Mayim asked me about my manner of teaching. I took very seriously — and nervously — my responsibility of standing in for all the law professors across the country in this tournament. Getting to talk about the magic of clinical education, its value for our students and clients, and how it helps communities while standing on a national TV show is a rare opportuntity, and I hope that I did my clinical family proud.
Now, here’s the question — can you get a wild card spot with just $1? Stay tuned for the rest of this week to find out!
Tonight the first-ever Jeopardy Professors Tournament begins, and I’m thrilled to be on the opening match with Hester Blum and Gary Hollis.
A lot of people have asked me how this all started, and the shortest answer is “From childhood.” I was one of those many kids who grew up yelling answers at the television whenever Jeopardy! was on (7:30 in the Metro Detroit area). I claim that, since my parents are Indian immigrants generally opposed to television, Jeopardy! was the rare show to qualify as approved television. They were certainly more accepting of me watching it than The Simpsons. I was so impressed by Alex Trebek that I dressed up as him for Halloween in third grade, complete with stick-on mustache. Sadly no pictures survive, though my mom reports the mustache gave me a rash.
In my youth I idly thought of trying out for Teen Jeopardy or the College Tournament, but never got my act together to do so. At some point a few years ago — I think in 2018 or 2019 — I did the online test, but heard nothing. I did the quiz again idly sometime during the long pandemic winter of 2020–21 and received an email invitation this past summer inviting me to do another online test. Before COVID these follow-up rounds would take place in person, but now it’s all on Zoom. After the second online test, I was invited to an online Zoom panel over the summer in which we played a mock game and “buzzed in.” I noted, interestingly, that many of us on that call were professors.
During the Zoom panel, the Jeopardy! staff asked each of us about ourselves why we were interested in being on. I told my Trebek Halloween costume story, talked a bit about Habeas Custard, and noted that the show is an important American institution. At the end of that audition, we were told that we might get a call to be on, but that the odds were relatively low given the size of the contestant pool. And if we didn’t get a call within a certain time period, we’d have to start all over again. I filed this experience away as a “fun thing that happened that won’t go anywhere” and went back to summer work and travel.
This fall, halfway through a clinic seminar, I got a text from an unknown number — one of the contestant producers from Jeopardy! was asking if we could chat as he had a couple questions on my application (“Nothing bad.”). When we connected, I got the top-secret news: Jeopardy! was going to do its first-ever Professors Tournament, and they wanted me to be on it.
Getting to kick off what might be a long-running and rare new entry into the Jeopardy! pantheon? Of course I’d do it — particularly because the tournament rules are a bit different, and more favorable to contestants, than the regular version. Then I realized all the logistical nightmares this created. I’d have to extend an already planned trip away from Nashville by four days, meaning I’d have to cancel two more Legal Ethics classes and a clinic seminar session. Worse, I couldn’t tell anyone why I was gone — not my students, nor my clients. Because Jeopardy had never done a Professors Tournament before, the secrecy was extra high. Only my immediate bosses could know. And of course, I knew that as a representative of the legal academy, any mistakes or missteps I made would mean opening myself up to “Why didn’t you do ____?” and “Why did you do ___?” from law professors across the country.
But let’s be real. It’s Jeopardy!. I’ve been a glasses-wearing nerd since I was 6. And I’m a trivial person. I answered “Yes.”
From then, it was a whirlwind of juggling flight schedules, COVID testing, rescheduling classes, and lying to almost everyone I knew about why I was going to be gone for a week smack dab in the middle of term. I had absolutely no time to study, between multiple active cases, teaching seven credits, travel, paper deadlines, and speaking engagements. (Yes, I’m very busy and very important). Plus, Jeopardy! annoyingly airs at 5 PM Central Time in Nashville, so most days I wasn’t even home in time to watch. I did try to catch as many episodes as I could, and I observed that most of my errors happened when I read the clue too fast or failed to actually answer what was being asked.
This is a great lesson for law school exams and oral argument, and one that never hurts to relearn — you have to listen for what the question is, rather than what you think it is.
I did read Claire McNear’s Answers in the Form of Questions, which I had been meaning to pick up. It’s a fun, accessible book, and McNear is a real expert on Jeopardy!. She was the reporter who uncovered the podcasts that led to the host controversy and resignation from earlier this summer. McNear does a great job describing how invested the Jeopardy! fandom is, and how much the game comes down to wagering ability, broad but not deep knowledge, and most importantly: buzzer technique.
One of the funniest parts of prep was trying to figure out what to wear. Because of COVID, I’ve dressed even more casually than usual, and I only have one suit that fits and looks nice enough to wear on camera. Jeopardy! asks you to bring a whole slate of outfits. Some things (like prints or plaid) don’t read well on camera, and others are flatly prohibited (T-shirts and jeans — my standard attire). So there was a whole evening when I tried almost everything in my wardrobe, 85% of which didn’t fit (thanks for everything, COVID-induced isolation) or didn’t follow the wardrobe rules.
The tournament taped over three days in Culver City, a small city located within west L.A., at the end of October. My best friend and his family live in Santa Monica, and another close friend and his family live just a couple blocks away from the Sony lot, so I was happily able to tack on some socializing to the trip (this somewhat made up for having to lie to my parents about my whereabouts). And, as one of those friends noted the night before taping began — even if I didn’t do law profs proud, I’d have one hell of a story.
My personal goal was to make it to Final Jeopardy on my quarter-final match. The tournament is structured in three rounds over two weeks of shows. During the first week, five quarterfinal matches are played. The winner of each match advanced to the semi-finals, as do the four other contestants who have the highest dollar amounts, for a total of nine semi-finalists. The semi-finals consist of three matches, and the winner of each match plays in a two-day final.
I knew that many people who go on Jeopardy! know most of the answers, and much of the game comes down to your ability to ring in fast enough on the buzzer when a clue is called. You can’t see it from home, but there are two columns of LEDs that run on either side of the gameboard. Once the buzzer system is activated, the lights illuminate; you can also buzz in based on when the host stops reading the clue. But if you buzz in too early, you’re locked out for a quarter-second — an eternity in Jeopardy! time.
The day before taping began, all fifteen contestants met for the first time to do promotional material, play a couple of practice rounds, do hair and makeup, and have our wardrobes inspected. As you can tell from the Jeopardy! materials, this is an amazing group of people. Each of them was incredibly kind, funny, and (of course) smart. I particularly appreciated two things — first, the racial and gender diversity, and second (and less obviously), the diversity of educational institutions that we represented. It would be easy to have created a tournament lineup of contestants from the name-brand schools that we all know about, but I respected the producers’ decision to feature a very broad swath of higher education.
The Jeopardy! production staff were equally wonderful. It’s a tight-knit team of amazing professionals who clearly love their jobs and treasure the unique place Jeopardy! holds in pop culture. Particularly because of the COVID protocols, it’s a tightly run ship (we couldn’t even drink water inside the building). Everyone there works incredibly hard to make Jeopardy! work.
When doing the practice rounds, one thing I noticed is how much you get “in the zone” when playing. It’s a bit like oral argument, when everything falls away. In that space, you just focus on what is happening in the immediate zone and how you need to just answer what’s being asked. I also decided I was going to ring in based on the lights illuminating, not on when the host finished reading the clue. Some people rig up similar systems at home to practice on, but I had neither the time nor the technical ability to do that. So I’d just have to work with what I had innately.
We didn’t know until the day of taping what order we would be going in. So imagine my surprise when I was called for Quarterfinal Match One, along with Hester and Gary. It felt a little like going into the bar exam — that mix of adrenaline, excitement, and foreboding. We got set up, took our positions, and then that familiar theme began to play…
My friend Abi is not a Francophile, per se. She is an expert on French and Francophone culture, so much so that these days she spends a lot of time in France, finishing her dissertation. I often forget custard is French in origin, and I don’t know if pistachios and lavender are especially French, but it seems that way, doesn’t it?
Summer is the ice cream season and yet I didn’t put up any posts. That’s in part because I was busy making some old favorites as flavors and in part because my writing was mostly taking the form of academic writing. Not nearly as fun as ice cream.
Figs are still in season and this is an old favorite of mine. When I lived in California two of my closest friends, a married couple, had neighbors whose fig tree was heavy with fruit. They gave me some delicious figs that I added to a goat cheese base for the most Bay Area flavor imaginable (it’s also reminiscent of an earlier flavor I did, but with a different method). The figs I get here in the Midwest aren’t as great as those were, but every time I have one I think of the Francises and their generosity.
I have skimped on biographical details here, in part because it’s not relevant and in part because it’s so easy to figure out with a bit of Googling. But, I was very happy to offer my ice cream making skills for my law school’s public interest auction a few months ago. The proceeds of the auction go to fund first years in their summer jobs at public interest jobs — a cause I care a great deal about, as a long-term public interest attorney.
I auctioned off an ice cream making tutorial, complete with four flavors of the winners’ choice, and cocktails. Four graduating women won the prize. Amidst drinks and my two favorite flavors (J & A — you remain super popular), I came up with a new one at the winners’ behest. It mixes a lovely lemon base with a delicious shortbread mix-in courtesy of Melissa Clark and the New York Times — and is sure to be a crowd pleaser. Better still, you only need half the shortbread from the recipe; you can snack on the rest.
One of the benefits of being friends with a food writer and cookbook author is you know you’re getting honest criticism. But when it came time to come up with a flavor that did justice to her talent, I took my time. The result — a blend of Meyer lemons, the classiest commonly available citrus (second classiest: blood oranges; third: key limes) and crème fraîche — turned out well. The zest in the ice cream base slightly heightens the flavor of the curd. You can swap out regular lemons and sour cream for those two, but it won’t be as sophisticated.
Tea is a central part of Indian food and culture, but I am one of those Indian-Americans who almost never drinks tea, much to my parents’ bemusement. I think I fell into coffee too early.
One of my friends suggested I try an Earl Grey ice cream. I paired it with honey instead of sugar, and while you can find any number of similar recipes online, this one is sure to please.
One of my friends has spent a lot of time in the Middle East and North Africa, where preserved lemons are de rigueur, and she was tickled when I told her I had made preserved lemons. I did it because I had too many lemons on hand and it seemed like a fun project. I haven’t had the chance to use them in cooking, but of course I wanted to see how it work in ice cream.
Preserved lemons have a bit more umami than regular lemons, so it’s a different flavor profile than a standard lemon ice cream. The recipe I used had peppercorns and bay leaves as well. Also unlike, a regular lemon ice cream, this has a salty tinge that, when combined with the lemon and other notes, is delightfully unusual and unclassifiable. Much like Ms. Sharpe herself.
My friend Ben loves the English dessert Jaffa Cake, which you can’t really get here in the States. It’s a sponge cake with orange jelly and chocolate coating. Jelly is a bit outside of my skill set but I decided to do orange curd instead. I make lemon curd rather frequently but I might even like the orange curd more. Chocolate shavings completed the illusion.
I started baking in earnest a decade ago at my first job at Vintage/Anchor Books, a part of the Knopf Group (itself a part of Random House — now Penguin Random House), because I had a group of people to experiment on. In those days I was particularly fond of banana pudding, likely because of the Magnolia Bakery empire, and I often made it for work events. I haven’t made it in years, but there’s something so satisfying about the flavor and texture combinations that I felt like trying it out in ice cream form. You can buy Nilla wafers, or use the Serious Eats recipe, which you’ll only need half of for the ice cream.
Habeas Custard 