Makers of Minnesota

Stephanie:Hello, everybody, and welcome to Dishing with Stephanie's Dish, the podcast where we talk to cool people in the food space. We talk to a lot of cookbook authors, and today I'm excited to talk to Sally Ekus. She is a literary agent, which, if you've written books or you're trying to get a book published, you know how important the agent process is. She leads a boutique culinary and lifestyle division via @JVNLA and is the lead agent at the Ekus Group. Did I get it right?Follow Sally's Substack Newsletter Not So Secret Agent Sally Ekus:Oh, I was just gonna say, yeah, I lead the Ekus Group. So we're a culinary and lifestyle division within a broader agency.Stephanie:And the Ekus Group was started by your mom.Sally Ekus:Yeah.Stephanie:A legend. Your mom has, like, one of the largest cookbook collections that I'm aware of.Sally Ekus:In fact, the largest, according to Guinness. Yes.Stephanie:A couple of months ago, I think maybe it was on your Instagram page, someone posted a picture of her library of her home that is literally looks like a library that you would see in New York city or Washington, D.C. or somewhere fancy with just walls and walls of books. It was so gorgeous.Sally Ekus:Yeah, It's a two store, all cherry wood, gorgeous library. She built the edition. It was a dream edition. It took a lifetime to build. And it is filled with cookbooks, almost exclusively cookbooks. Her fiction and children's books and other personal books are scattered elsewhere around the house. But the library is almost entirely culinary with over 6000 titles. It's really cool.Stephanie:It's amazing. And your mom's name is? Lisa. Please, can I ask you a question? I'm going to go all over the place here, but sure, please. I have a daughter and only one daughter and no sons. So my only child. And there are things that we have in common about cooking and about food, and I always think, like, oh, maybe she'll follow in my footsteps. But then she is quick to point out, like, no, I'm never doing that. But then she's sort of leaning sort of my way.Stephanie:How did that work with you and being in the publishing space?Sally Ekus:Yeah. So how old is your daughter now?Stephanie:26.Sally Ekus:Okay. Yeah. So growing up, my mom had this vibrant culinary business. At the time, it was a PR agency before we did agenting, and it was never supposed to be a family business. She never pressured me or said, you know, maybe one day. In fact, it was just like. If you had asked me before I started working with her, what does Lisa do for a living? I would have said something with books and something in food. So I was like, growing up in this.Sally Ekus:And I was immersed and sort of absorbing by osmosis. And, you know, in the, in my younger years, I would be like, collating press kits for PR campaigns and, you know, I was like earning a allowance, mailing catalogs and whatnot. But it wasn't, it wasn't something she was really like, whatever you want to do, follow your heart. I was on a different path. I went to school for counseling and I was about to go for a master's in social work. And I deferred. I broke up with a bad decision, moved home, started helping out at the agency and realized that I'd been informally training for this my whole life. I really fell in love with it.And I was very fortunate to step into the legacy of her reputation. And then also, once we decided this is something I wanted to do, talk about what the succession plan would look like and really carve out my own, you know, vibe and skill set and cultivate my own list, supporting her list. And so it was really a unintentional natural progression that then became quite intentional and, you know, quite effortful. So I think that's kind of why it worked out. And if, you know, but it's hard to say in hindsight.Stephanie:It's funny too. You talk about this like being in training of knowing this thing and you not even really realizing that until you've left and gone to do something else. And also, it does track that you were going to be a social worker.Sally Ekus:Absolutely.Stephanie:And now you're an agent.Sally Ekus:Yeah. I somewhat sarcastically but realistically acknowledge that I was trained in crisis counseling, active listening, and negotiation. So all of those things play a very big role in the work that I do as a literary agent working with books. But, you know, at the end of the day, it is a book. It is you know, not somebody's. Well, it is somebody's mental well being, but in a. In a different light. So I get to utilize those skills all the time.Sally Ekus:And it feels, it feels quite, quite lucky. And, you know, it's really the client management and author care and author advocacy that I love so much. And that has kept me, kept me in this, in this business for as long as it has.Stephanie:What is it about cookbooks in particular that makes you solely focus on that?Sally Ekus:Well, that I stepped into, you know, that was Lisa's area of expertise. She was one of the very first cookbook publicists. Publicist. She essentially created the category of culinary publicity before there were massive agencies handling, you know, influencers and brand campaigns. And so that was her area of expertise. So that's what I stepped into and was hyper mentored in. And I also equally just felt in love with it. I mean, there are many different things that bring people together, and at the end of the day, it feels like food is that one.Sally Ekus:Through line. Everyone has some relationship to food, recipes, cooking, memory, good, bad, complicated, probably somewhere in the middle. And so to have a little. To have a role in helping to bring that to fruition in published form is a tremendous honor.Stephanie:You are the publisher, or the agent, actually, of Entertaining 101 with Beth Lamana.Sally Ekus:Yeah. Yes.Stephanie:We just talked with. With her last.Sally Ekus:Yeah, I listened to that. It was such a fun conversation.Stephanie:Yeah, she was pretty great. And the weirdest thing happened to me the other day. I was at my radio partner's office, and we were talking about a project, and she had a stack of cookbooks, and I was like, oh, what are you working on? She's like, oh, I'm. I'm helping our friend from Muriel, Karen Tomlinson, put her proposal together.Sally Ekus:Oh, my gosh.Stephanie:Oh, that's interesting. And she goes, yeah, she's got a really great agent already. And I'm like, who's her agent? And it's you.Sally Ekus:Yes, it is. Yeah. I'm so excited to be working with her. Yep. Yeah.Stephanie:Her point of view on food and her storytelling of the purveyors that she works with and her just completely beautiful recipes. I'm so excited for you, and I'm so excited for that book.Sally Ekus:Thank you. Yeah, I mean, that's a great example of really early development. You know, I often say that I work with people, not proposals. You know, we can get to the proposal. I help guide people through that process as an agent. And, you know, this is a great example where it's like, you know, I'm so captivated by the food and the media attention and the accolades and the intentionality of what is happening from the farm to the plate. And so, you know, sometimes chefs work with writers or collaborators to help bring that to the. To the printed page.Sally Ekus:And that's where we're at with that project. So it's in very early stages, which is super exciting.Stephanie:Yeah. You're going to not be disappointed. She is just a great person. She's a great storyteller, and that you had a really good eye to pick her up, because I think she's.Sally Ekus:Thank you.Stephanie:What other projects do you have on the docket right now that you're excited about? I see Potluck Desserts behind you.Sally Ekus:Oh, yeah. Justin Burke, Potluck Desserts. Justin's book came out the same day as Beth's just a couple weeks ago. And I try to rotate in my background the books that are sort of newly rotating. So The Meathead Method over here, that is Meathead's second book. His first book called Meathead, came out almost 10 years ago. And it's all. Both books are all about the science and art and science of barbecue and grilling and outdoor cooking.Sally Ekus:I have books in a bunch of different levels of activity, so that's also fun because I have something that's like, you know, proposal and development and then things that are coming out. So it really, it really runs the gamut. I just saw Frankie Gaw, whose Instagram handle is @littlefatboyfrankie. He's up for a James Beard Media Award, and he just turned in the manuscript for his second book called Asian Americana. So I'm really excited about that. So it's really all levels of development over here.Stephanie:Once someone does their first book, is it easier to market them the second time around?Sally Ekus:Great question. I find that yes, because really, once that first book is to, you know, publishers need you to have or want you to have a big platform to warrant signing a book deal. And then the book helps sort of level up that platform, promotion, name recognition, certainly moving beyond like the core community of that author. It helps introduce new readers, new cooks, new fans to that person's work. And so I find that that second book, third book, fourth book, 10th book, really helps just keep that momentum going.Stephanie:You wrote something recently on your substack that people should follow you because you're a good follow that I really have spent a lot of time thinking about, and I'm probably going to get the name of the author wrong. So you may have to come.Sally Ekus:We can figure it out together. Yeah.Stephanie:The idea of it was is that a new cookbook writer launched a book tour in a way that was a little unconventional and in some ways maybe controversial because instead of the usual like going out to the booksellers and having a Q and A and talking, she hired her friend who is a comedian and really created more of like, I'll call it in air quotes, like a Real Housewives type in person cooking experience. That there was cooking demonstration, there was talking about the book. Do you know who I'm talking about?Sally Ekus:No, actually. Was it one of my clients or maybe a reshare?Stephanie:I think it's a reshare because she has been on the New York Times bestseller list now with her book for a couple weeks and it was the literary agencies kind of looked down on what she did a little bit because it was unconventional and maybe a little.Sally Ekus:I mean, I love unconventional.Stephanie:I kind of did too.Sally Ekus:Oh, yeah.Stephanie:I wanted to ask you about that because I'm, you know, I'm getting ready to launch my own tour and thinking about, like, locations and. Yeah, it really blew my mind to think, like, for me in particular, and people that have really strong performing skills, like, you know, I am, I would say I'm more of a performer of cooking content than I am of necessarily creating recipes. I do recipe development, but it's more about the presentation of it. And I think that's so cool to think about that we're bringing books into this digital age in that way.Sally Ekus:Absolutely. So my overarching advice with every anything in publishing is it depends and you do you like, what fits for one person is not one size fits all for the other book or other campaigns. And so I love to share information, whether it's on my substack not so secret agent or on my social or just with my clients. Like, I like to share. Here's an example or here's five examples of what another author has done, what is helpful, what resonates with you, and like, move on from the rest. You know, how can you evolve this into your own campaign? And cooking is such a tactile experience. It's so experiential in and of itself. It's such a connector.Sally Ekus:It also can be so beautiful alone. Like, do what feels right for you, your book, and share in a way that feels true to you. Because that's what I think really attracts people to come out first and foremost and like, spend their free time and free re and any sort of additional resources they may have and make it fun and memorable. You know, I mean, I think more and more we see brands and individual authors and companies just evolving. You know the term like activation into experiences, into just moments that matter.Stephanie:You mentioned your substack not so secret agent, and I'm wondering if substack is changing or improving the landscape for cookbook authors.Sally Ekus:I think substack's changing all kinds of things. You know, it used to be that at least as a cookbook agent, we would sort of scout on Instagram or TikTok. And now substack is certainly a major player and there's a ton of food content and creators on substack. But even just a year ago when I got on, there's a lot less and I think there's still a lot more room because there's so many hyper focused areas of interest in foods that you have this opportunity. You know, maybe you can't land a publishing deal, but if you can build a community of the people that want your recipes, your voice, your food, whatever it is in that specific space, go for it. I mean, you can be so hyper focused and really build this, this beautiful community. And I love the Substack ecosystem. It's been incredibly generous to me and I try to give back as much as possible.Sally Ekus:Like the recommendations and resharing and discoverability aspect of Substack has been a really beautiful thing to experience.Stephanie:They've really democratized the idea of podcasting too. I've been podcasting for seven years. Actually longer than that, maybe even closer to like nine.Sally Ekus:Wow.Stephanie:Well, I was a broadcaster so it makes sense to go from radio to developing a podcast space and just the ease of ability of doing it now, you know, before you had to have special equipment and people to host it. And it's just gotten so much simpler. And we're also seeing that, I think with video that's making it so easy to go live. You don't necessarily need 10,000 watch hours on YouTube or 3,000 subscribers or whatever, you know.Sally Ekus:Yeah, most of my readers come like my email goes to their actual email inbox though people find me through substack and so it's been fun. I'm not by any means a seasoned or polished content creator, but I've been doing videos as one means of explaining other things about publishing and just kind of seeing how that resonates with people in their inbox versus other mediums. And it's been really fun. They are super lo fi and quite off the cuff. But most people that are not tuning in live to me on Substack, they'll find it in their inbox the next morning, which has been really fun too.Stephanie:I think the lo fi aspects too are almost what people are looking for.Sally Ekus:I hope so.Stephanie:I have not the TikTok algorithm and I are not friends, probably never will be friends. And I don't understand it at all because I can produce like something that looks great, tastes good, you. It's just mouthwatering to watch. And then I can post like a picture of my dog and that will be the thing that.Sally Ekus:Right. Well, I think animals will always outperform us on, on the socials as they should at this point.Stephanie:You know, it's so crazy. It's so crazy. A single subject book has popped into the zeitgeist that I'm really. I think it's a really great book. Sesame, it's called.Sally Ekus:Yeah.Stephanie:And it's like a single ingredient versus and they take that. She takes that single ingredient and uses it in many different ways throughout the book. You must see like single ingredient books, seasonal books, like, are there trends in what's hot right now?Sally Ekus:I love single ingredient books or single subject. Oftentimes it's a lower recipe count, somewhere between like the 50 to 75 range, as opposed to 75 to 100 or 125. It just feels like a little bit more giftable, a little bit more impulse buy. And it's really fun to see those. There's always single subject books cropping up. But I think particularly in the shift in the cookbook market, meaning there's a bigger gap between creator led books, big robust cookbooks and then sort of a place for everyone else. And sometimes that place where you can settle in for everyone else if you don't have this massive following is in a single subject book that could be your expertise or deep, deeply researched. I don't necessarily think that's so much a trend as it is something that like ebbs and flows.Sally Ekus:And we see a little bit more of on the cookbook shelf because they've always been there. But now people can nerd out on one thing and they'll go to the cookbook shelf because the food scene just in the zeitgeist has become so popular. There's strawberry earrings and I've got a sweater with cherries on it. So why not a book about just sesame? It's really a time to celebrate ingredients and food.Stephanie:When you are on like Instagram or TikTok and you're trying to relax, like you're not working. And I know that's really hard to even do.Sally Ekus:Yeah.Stephanie:Are you following like other creators and other spaces and thinking like, gee, how are they doing this or does that work for you?Sally Ekus:Well, I would, I would just clarify that I don't go on social to relax, but and also I'm almost always working. However, to answer your actual question, I have. Most of the people I follow outside of the food space are in the body inclusivity, body positivity space. I follow some fashion people that are highly inclusive, plus size fashion people that have completely changed my relationship to even the fact that I've said fashion on a podcast interview. I just never would have been that person a while ago. But it's offered me an opportunity to see like color and textures and textiles and just the lifestyle of how we have a relationship to our closet In a new way. Also the home and space, you know, I sometimes represent outside of the cookbook shelf. And so I like to say that I, I represent the home with a focus on the kitchen, but I also, you know, hang out in the living room and I have a tiny human, so I hang out with the kids space.Sally Ekus:And so it's just focusing on other rooms at the home at times has been really fun too. So that's kind of where I dabble on social as well.Stephanie:Speaking of kids, I don't know why this comes to mind, but I always get asked, you know, what are the cookbooks that you should be buying for kids and better homes or not. Betty Crocker's Boys and Girls is still like a best selling book, right?Sally Ekus:Yeah.Stephanie:And then there's one other one that I'm going to not think of the name right off the top of my head, but there feels like there is kind of an empty space in Cooking with Kids and Cooking with Families.Sally Ekus:Yeah, there's a few. So I love the ATK books. I think it's a great brand. They've got great recipes for Cooking with Kids. Deanna Cook, who is a story publishing author, has a bunch of kids books that are awesome. And for me, I think sometimes it's not that there's like a lack of. It's just that there's still space for. And the tricky part about pitching and representing those books or selling them is it, is, is it a book for cooking with kids? Is it a book for kids to cook from? You know, and those are different age groups and those are different recipe styles.Sally Ekus:So much down to like the page and the format and the illustrations or the pictures or the how to steps. So there's just so many practical considerations and logistical ones that it's a slightly trickier category, but one that we've, we, we've dabbled in a little bit and there's some great books and I think a lot of space for, for others. The author of Indian Ish did a kids cookbook as well that I found really fun and just wonderful recipes. I forget the name of the book off the top of my head.Stephanie:That Indian Ish was a really cool cookbook.Sally Ekus:Yeah. Yes.Stephanie:There's been some just beautiful, texturally colorful books written by people from more diverse backgrounds. And while it seems like we see a ton of that right now, and we are, it is fairly new in the last 10 years.Sally Ekus:It has become magnified and intensified though our agency. And kudos to Lisa for carving out her space as a Literary agent representing underrepresented voices from the get go. It's been a part of the ethos of our agency since day one. And so to see publishers in the past 10 years really prioritizing marginalized voices is amazing. And also a little about time, you know?Stephanie:Yeah.Sally Ekus:Yeah.Stephanie:Okay. Kind of a controversial question. Sometimes people in the media can be a little snooty about influencers and about social media in particular, because I think they feel maybe like people are treading on their. Their authority of space. Yeah, you get people that feel snarky sometimes about, like, oh, they're an influencer. It's another influencer cookbook and kind of eye rolling because there are some not so great cookbooks written by really good content creators, but maybe they're not great at putting it all in a book format or maybe the recipes aren't necessarily great. Once they get past that beautiful shot, do you think that there'll be, like, almost a backlash to this whole genre, as it were?Sally Ekus:I don't know that it would necessarily be a backlash in that a lot of the creator led books, both the great ones and the more challenging ones. I think the positive outcome of all of those books is that it has put this spotlight on food and the cookbook shelf. And I think the more people who are interested in what books are on the cookbook shelf, the better. What I do feel, and I've already started feeling this as an agent, is that the shift back to experts or an evolution to what is the next version of people that have really robust followings, capturing their audience in a meaningful way and delivering content that rings true to that audience and honors what the industry is looking for. I'm already hearing that shift from acquiring editors from publishers that I work really closely with and even in my own scouting. So I feel like we are moving towards the. Thank you very much for bringing a spotlight to the shelf. And where are we going and how can we all support the industry at large and.Stephanie:And the trend that we're talking about or hearing about is more expertise, you know, more of a microscope on something in more detail.Sally Ekus:Exactly, yeah. Which is so fun. I mean, more interest, more books, more. More food, more deep dives.Stephanie:And also, like, I mean, we just start scratching the surface about, like, my husband and I are working on books about place of food. So, like, we've written a fiction book about Croatia that has recipe as a component to it.Sally Ekus:I'm seeing a lot more crossover among different genres, even between fiction and nonfiction. I was just pitched a proposal, probably the first Maybe it's the second one that has sort of a fictional component to it. And I, you know, I don't represent fiction. That's for my colleagues at the agency and other agents in the industry. But it is fun to see how food has like penetrated every aspect of our lives and it's just delightful.Stephanie:Yeah, I'm super excited about that. In just my personal journey, it's keeping it fresh and interesting.Sally Ekus:Yeah.Stephanie:You know, my husband is a writer as a fiction writer. And for us to like collaborate on a project together in a way that I know what my lane is and he knows what his lane is is pretty fun.Sally Ekus:Well, I think that's one of the many gifts that have come out of this like creator led book or just like the, the intensification of food in the zeitgeist is that people who are, who are an expert in a certain culinary topic could be a consultant on a novel or who knows, you know what I mean? And it's just, it's blowing the fridge doors wide open.Stephanie:I feel like it's sort of like the white lotus effect for books and cooking and food generally that put that lens on travel and exotic locales. And I just feel like that's the next thing and I'm gonna be there, I promise.Sally Ekus:Cool. Well, it is, it's so fun to just see our beloved culinary space be celebrated across, across genres and like just.Stephanie:To get back to as a little kid going into a bookstore or going into the library and just the joy of, you know, books have been under attack for the last 20 years as the Amazonification of the world has happened. But we're seeing in Minneapolis in particular, like lots of local bookstores are opening again and people are making them multi purpose. So they might be selling cooking things, but also they might have a coffee shop, they might do pastry.Sally Ekus:Yeah, my. One of my favorite recommendations for authors or aspiring authors or just dear friends is to go to your local independent bookstore and talk to the people that work there and ideally talk to the owner and the people who make the decisions about what books to bring in. It is a wildly fascinating conversation.Stephanie:Yeah, it's the best part about a book tour for me is actually like getting to talk to the people that recommend and sell the books and then.Sally Ekus:Also buy books there. Not. I think that's implied, but you never know.Stephanie:Yes. Sally, it's been a delight to talk to you. Thank you for joining the program today. I'll put links to your substack, also your information. If I don't know if anyone's listening is thinking about pitches, but if you are.Sally Ekus:Yeah, I have really comprehensive nonfiction book proposal guidelines that definitely pertain to those looking to write food books, but also are really applicable to anyone that's looking to learn about publishing. So that's a great link to share. And thank you so much for having me on.Stephanie:Yeah, it's great. And keep pitching me your authors. You have good authors. And the books. Beth was a joy.Sally Ekus:Oh, thanks.Stephanie:All right, we'll talk soon.Sally Ekus:Okay, bye.Stephanie:Okay, bye. Bye.Stephanie's Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

I had a real fun time chatting with Beth La Manach, whose new cookbook, “Entertaining 101” just released. Beth's YouTube channel is wildy entertaining and she is also on Substack so you can follow her Entertaining with Beth Now since Beth makes it so easy lets all get to Entertianing!EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:Stephanie Hansen:Hello, everybody. Welcome to Dishing with Stephanie's Dish. I'm Stephanie Hansen and I like to talk to people obsessed with food. In particular, I enjoy cookbook authors and today I'm with Beth Lamonic and she is the author of a cookbook that just the title alone, I feel like holy cats. That's so intimidating. It is called entertaining one zero one. Beth, that just makes you, like, right on the level of Martha Stewart in my brain. Were you nervous about calling it one zero one?Beth Le Manach:No. Because the way that I'm thinking about the title is it's really targeted towards beginners or veterans who just need it to be easier and quicker. And I think everybody loves a one zero one entry point because they know it's not gonna be intimidating. It's gonna be accessible.Stephanie Hansen:Well, you are not a one zero one in your chops. You have over 662,000 followers on YouTube. They were like, oh, she has a a YouTube channel. And I went to look. I was like, holy cats. Tell me the name of your YouTube channel because I forgot to write it down. Recipes for entertaining. Was that what it was called?Beth Le Manach:No. It's called Entertaining with Beth.Stephanie Hansen:Got it. Okay. So you also are very fascinating, but I'm gonna get to that part in just a second. Take me through, like, your journey of, like, the how you started the YouTube and how we are that you're just is this your first book?Beth Le Manach:Yes. It isn't my first book. I know. I've been in a long time. I know exactly. Yeah. So it's kind of a long story, but I'll give you the highlights. I started my YouTube channel because I was by trade a producer for television, lifestyle television, and I got my start with the Scripps network.Beth Le Manach:So Food Network, HGTV, Fine Living, I was producing a bunch of content for them. I saw everything going online, digital. So I was like, I wanna produce digital content for the web. I got a job at a company that had a huge order for YouTube. So this was right around 2011 when YouTube started getting grants to media companies to produce quality content so they could get the advertisers to actually advertise against it. Because up into that point, it was a lot of, you know, skate board tricks and cat videos and stuff like that. Yeah. And so since I had come up with all of this kind of lifestyle content, my boss was like, okay. Create a YouTube channel that women will love. And I was a new mom. I had two small kids, and I was into all this lifestyle content, but I knew nothing about YouTube. So I had to really learn what it was, and little by little, we started to just create content. That was food content, fashion, beauty, all the things that I thought, like, women would be interested in.And then one day, my boss came to me and said, you know what? We are, like, really behind on the hours here that we have to deliver. We gotta pep this up a bit. What do you got? And I was like, I think we should do, like, entertaining shows, like, thirty minute shows, like what we used to do for TV. Like, let's do the perfect dinner party. He's like he was like, well, who are we gonna get to do that? And I was like, me. I love to cook, and I have a lot of recipes. And at the time, I just bought a house, and I was like, you know, come to my house. You don't have to pay me.You're already paying me, and let's knock off a few of these episodes. So we did about 16 of them, and then my boss was like, you know, this is really resonating with people. Like and and it really hit me at that point that I thought, how is this new information for people? Because I had grown up with Martha Stewart and Ina Garten, and I just thought that everybody was watching this. But people at the time on YouTube were just getting into, like, all the beauty gurus, and those girls were now aging up and sort of, like, having their first apartment and getting married. And they weren't suddenly gonna go offline and go look at magazines and books. They were staying online.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah.Beth Le Manach:And I think that's where it really resonated. And so long story short, I did that until I started to do it full time, and now the channel is mine, and I just do it full time.Stephanie Hansen:It explains lots of things. One, how prescient of you to see this digital age coming. So very smart.Beth Le Manach:Yeah.Stephanie Hansen:Two, I always talk about first mover advantage. And whenever there's a new platform or something, I always make sure that I log on. I save my handle. Even if I don't know if I'm gonna use it or do anything with it, I I believe that being the first in a space or in in a being a handful of first in a space is part of what gets you that first mover advantage. So note to self people because there's gonna be a lot of social enterprises that are coming in our future. And then also, like, sometimes the keeping it simple is the best. Like, you just assume that everybody knows how to, you know, make a delicious apparel spritz, but necessarily they don't. So that what you can offer in your most authentic way is, valuable.And that's, I guess, why you did this as your first book because you seem like you really are taking and packaging a lot of this in a way that feels authentic to you, and that's what people want.Beth Le Manach:I think they do. I mean and I think that's what YouTube has really taught me is that there are thousands of chicken Parmesan recipes on YouTube, but people will still ask me, but we want your recipe. Not because my recipe is gonna be better than anybody else's recipe because there's only a couple of ways around making a chicken parm, but because they want my point of view. And I think that that's what makes YouTube so human, and that's why they called it YouTube because it is about you and how you how I prepare chicken parmesan recipe could be different than how you prepare it. And the things that we're gonna highlight could be different based on our own lived experience, and I think that's what makes it really human and really fun.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah. Your show is also very beautiful. I just started doing a TV show, with Fox here locally, and lighting is so important. And my own YouTube is horribly lit and embarrassing. Yours is incredible.Like, do you have my normal lights set up?Beth Le Manach:No. My gosh. You know what my light setup is now? No lights. The light setup is no lights because I went round and round, and I have, you know, a lot of different experience. Like, I started with the big crew of seven people people that would come, and then I would go back, like, after COVID, and there was no people. And then I had to learn it all myself, and then I moved to France, and I was like, I can't carry all this stuff with me. I have gone back and forth on the lighting, and I always go back to the fact that, like, natural lighting for food is just the best lighting, and then just adjust the camera settings. Like, you're much better off doing that and know which angles of the kitchen give you the best softest light because that you can always reproduce the camera, but you can't always reproduce the exact temperature and light. And, like, that just was making me crazy. So I just decided to finish the lights.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah. That is really the tip. Yes. I like it. You mentioned this move to France, and I I you have through the course of your channel and through the course career here. Also, you had a like, it sounded like a rental in France that you made into a full time home.Beth Le Manach:Yes. Exactly. So my husband is French, and we had been coming to France every year or so when we were married. And then we took a break when we had kids, and then we started to bring the kids when they were, like, five and two.Stephanie Hansen:So you and your husband moved to France, and he's French. Yes. So he's like your Jeffrey.Beth Le Manach:Yeah. You could say that. Yeah. He, he he definitely, has inspired me a lot, I think, with the French lifestyle and French cooking. And we would come to France every summer just to vacation, and then we thought, okay. Let's stop renting all these houses. Let's buy a house and then become the renter like, become the person renting. That was a better investment for us.Beth Le Manach:And then, I don't know, we just he got to a point in his life where he was like, I see all my friends retiring in France. That's where I wanna be. And I think that's the blessing and the curse of marrying a foreigner. At one point, they're gonna wanna go back, and you just have to be ready for that. So I was always ready for it because I've always loved France, and I just thought, like, that's a fun experience. Yeah. Let's go do that.Stephanie Hansen:Do you read David Leibovitz's blog?Beth Le Manach:Yes. I do. I love him. Yeah. He's great.Stephanie Hansen:I've learned so much. I have, relatives that are from Montreal, which is not France, but they've spent time in France. And Yeah. He just talks a lot about the difficulties of living in France and being an American transplant living in France.Are there things that you have found that you're just like, oh, I just wish I could get this or something that you're craving to miss?Beth Le Manach:Prepared broths and stocks. Like, you know, when you go in The States, you go to the grocery store and you see, like, a million organic chicken broth, beef broth, like, in every brand that takes up practically a whole file. Here, you cannot get that. You can get the cubes where you're making it, but it's like you're wasting a whole cube for two cups of broth, and you may not need the two cups of broth. Like, I love those little one cup ones that we can get in those days. That, we cannot get here. And I I don't know why. A lot of me thinks, like, it just takes up too much space on the shelves, and maybe the little cubes are better, but I do miss that.Stephanie Hansen:Do you have that better than bouillon product?Beth Le Manach:We don't have that. I have not seen that. Uh-uh. Like, there's a lot of different kinds of these little broth cubes too, and I've been trying all of them. Some of them are horrible, and some of them are okay, but there's nothing like the Swanson's chicken broth. Like, I really kinda miss that. I love that. And Land O'Lakes spread the butter.Beth Le Manach:Land O'Lakes butter. Even though we have a million wonderful butters here in France for baking, nothing is quite like the Land O'Lakes salted butter in my opinion.Stephanie Hansen:I live in Minnesota, the home of Land O'Lakes, so that makes me real happy. Alright. So entertaining one zero one is about simple, easy ways to start your entertaining life, whether it be like a signature cocktail for mom's brunch or an egg bake for Christmas or, just a simple, like, Friday night dinner party. What are some of your favorite entry points for entertaining?Beth Le Manach:Yeah. Well, I think brunch. I think brunch is the beginners, like, home run because there's no fancy roasts that you have to learn how to carve. It's pretty inexpensive because you're not serving a ton of wines and cocktails. It's fairly cheap too because of what you're making. It's eggs and bread and fruit. And it's easy because you can, like, prep in the morning, and then people come at, like, eleven. And it doesn't take the whole night.Beth Le Manach:Like, it's not gonna go on for hours and hours. Like, people usually leave around two or three. I just think it's a great entry point for people. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, once you get into the holidays, like the Thanksgiving and the Christmas, you wanna get a few brunches under your belt, maybe a few dinners. I always say start with four, then have six, but don't ever start having 10 guests, which is what Thanksgiving is. So don't start there. Yep.Beth Le Manach:Because people usually get themselves so stressed out for entertaining because I think they don't start at the right entry point. And then they never wanna do it again because it was a big mess and, you know, it was so stressful because I think they didn't work their way up to it. You know what I mean?Stephanie Hansen:Yeah. I never thought about that, but that's really a clever way to think about it. I also think too choosing, like, the main dish and then building from there is helpful. Like Yes. I I don't know why I was afraid to cook salmon for forever, but, but, really, roasting a whole side of salmon is a great dish for entertaining.Beth Le Manach:Super easy, beautiful, super delicious. Yeah. I I think that people feel like they get sort of stressed out at all of the organization, like, the the timing of it. Because most people don't have, like, restaurant cook experience where everything is timed. So my philosophy is always, like, one or two things, two max that's, like, active cooking, The rest, assembly and the rest, premade. So, like, if you balance out the portfolio of dishes so that they're not all active cooking, it's just gonna make your life so much easier.Stephanie Hansen:And so Don't you think too, like, what I always discover with entertaining is people are just so delighted to come, to be invited to something. We don't do this enough.Beth Le Manach:We don't do it enough because I think people are afraid of how it's gonna go because maybe they had one or two bad experiences or because, you know, for better or for worse, I'm probably contributing to this, but there is so much food media out there between the blogs and the Instagram and the Pinterest and television and books that, like, it can get very overwhelming. What do you serve and, you know, where do you begin? That I really wanted to create, like, here are the hundred and one recipes that, like, everybody should just know how to make. Like, it's just should be part of your repertoire. Like, get the basics down first and get the ones that you crave. So, like, of course, everybody wants to know how to make a turkey at Thanksgiving or a key lime pie at Easter or barbecue chicken in the summer. Like, these are the things we are all sort of craving perennially. And if you can get those right, then you go to, like, one zero two, which is, you know, the more sophisticated flight files and that kind of thing.Stephanie Hansen:Second book, are you already thinking about it?Beth Le Manach:Oh my gosh. No. Because I'm still recovering from the first book. You know, you're a good book author. I had no idea how all consuming it is. In a good way. Of it taken. It was a definite two year project, you know, between the testing, the writing, the photography, like, all of it.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah. What part did you love, and what part did you hate?Beth Le Manach:I really love the testing. You know? Like, really taking the time to test each recipe and getting excited about being able to share it, thinking of all of my subscribers that I've had over the years and thinking, oh, this person's gonna love this, and, oh, that person is really this is really gonna help that person. I love that. I love the writing. I didn't think I would love that as much, but I really love that, the stories and the tips and the kind of bringing the recipe to life. As much as I love the results of the photo shoot, that was probably the most exhausting, I think. And to have to then remake all a hundred and one recipes again. And, you know, at that point, it's not just me in the kitchen.It's a whole team of people and making sure, like, oh, that's not supposed to look like that or, like, oh, that crust shouldn't be like you know? And, like, that I found very taxing. But it was great to see all the photos at the end of the shoot. Like, oh, wow. We did all that.Stephanie Hansen:Did you have to cut some recipes, and was that hard to do?Beth Le Manach:We didn't I would cut them in the testing. We didn't we we basically shot everything that we planned, so that was great. But there were recipes that I just kept thinking, this is good, but it's too complicated, or this is not delivering on my motto of, like, minimum effort, maximum impact. This is, like, maximum effort from maximum impact, but, like, I didn't wanna go there. I wanted to keep it really easy and accessible for people. So those were the recipes that usually got the pitch.Stephanie Hansen:Was it harder? When did you move to France, and was this in the middle?Beth Le Manach:Yeah. It was. Of course. That was the craziest thing about it. We did the photo shoot in May, and we moved in June. So as soon as the, like, photo team left at the May, we were like, okay. Let's wrap it up. And we started to just put things in boxes and because I couldn't, like, take the whole house apart because I needed all the props, and I needed a certain amount of furniture and dishes and thing, you know, that I couldn't take.Beth Le Manach:So yeah. Stephanie Hansen:did you move all that stuff? Do you still have it? Because people don't realize, like, when you're styling photos, you know, you need all this stuff that you have.Beth Le Manach:You you need all this stuff, and I had a ton of props as we all do. You know, anybody that's in this business has a ton props. And I used them all for the cookbook, but I could not take them all with me to France. It's just it was gonna be too expensive. And I was actually afraid that some of them would break anyway, so I gave them to a lot of the, prop master who was working on the cookbook. Like, she took a a bunch. Everybody on the shoot took some, and we had a fully furnished house here in France that we were renting. So and, of course, every time I come, I would hit a flea market and buy more stuff.So, like, I just had no more rooms for any more stuff, so I just had to, you know, give away.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah. That's it's kinda liberating and kinda freeing, though, in and of itself.Beth Le Manach:It is. It is.Stephanie Hansen:Who do you look up to for entertaining?Beth Le Manach:Oh, you know, all the greats. I love Martha Stewart. I love Ina Garten. I'm trying to think, like, if I there's a couple of substackers that I really love. There's a woman, little Chavita is the name of her substack. I let do you know her? Do you follow her substack? I think yeah. I just I love her sort of effortless elegance. I love things that don't feel overly fussy or feel overly staged.Beth Le Manach:Yeah. There's a lot of Instagrammers too that you just see that you're like, oh, yeah. I love that. I don't know. Yeah. I think and my parents, like, I love the way that they entertain, and I've always, like, looked up to their sort of style of entertaining.Stephanie Hansen:You mentioned, chicken parm experience, and I just happen to have read a whole thing about an influencer that apparently grabbed some very similar recipes from, some recipe writers and then repackaged them and put them in her book in Australia that's been, like, a multimillion bestseller. And I always worry and wonder about that because it's very hard to make a recipe your own for something like a chicken farm. And I really cooking very basic and presenting very basic recipes that people have been doing for forever and short of, like, saying, you know, I got inspiration or I adapted from. I do wonder if we're getting into this place where the Internet is just full of 6,000 chicken parmesan recipes that are all the same.Beth Le Manach:Yeah. I mean, I think what really, sets them apart though is the way you go about it. Like, I can remember a copyright lawyer telling me, like, you can't actually copyright the ingredients, but you can copyright the method. And I think, you know, for anybody who cooks a lot, there is a method that you go about making the recipe that's based on your experience, like the do's and more importantly the don'ts. Like, don't do that because you're gonna have a salvee chicken parm. Make sure you do this because it'll crisp up more. So, like, in my chicken parmesan video on YouTube, I labeled it a little bit different. I think it's something like the six tips to a great chicken parm, and that's just based on my experience.Like, fry it in a cast iron pan, presalt the chicken so that it's nice and juicy. Once it comes out of the pan, put it on a cooling rack with a, you know, something like a cookie rack so that it doesn't get all soggy. Add a little Parmesan tea. Like so I think that people make very classic recipes their own by adding their own personality and their own little tips and tricks that they've learned along the way to guarantee success. So I feel like, you know, even in the age of AI and everybody's like, oh, you know what? They're only gonna get these recipes from AI. It's like, yeah. But you're not gonna get that human experience of, like, here's what I did that doesn't work. Here's what I've done that works really well.So I think that's kind of our, you know, competitive edge, I guess, against the robots.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah. And the superpower that maybe will separate, finally, the weed from the chaff as it were. Because if we are all then making similarly the same thing, it is how we're doing it and also how we're performing the content because, like, people get interested in you as a human and you as how you do things, and they wanna follow you and your point of view and think you're funny or whatever your superpower is.Beth Le Manach:Exactly. And that's why I think video is so powerful because that doesn't always come across on the printed page or with a photograph. But when you are on video and you're spending time, like, building this audience on YouTube, it is a way to connect in a more human way with people. And that also, when they search chicken parm and they see three or four results come up, if they already know you because they've watched your video, they you do feel like a friend to them, and they want your point of view. So I think, you know, it was worth all those years and years of uploads because it does help you, like, ingratiate yourself a little bit more to the audience. You know?Stephanie Hansen:Yeah. And, also, I think if you just this is a weird thing to say, but I've been thinking about this a lot because I have a speech later today, and and I wasn't sure what I was gonna speak about. And my husband's like, oh, are you gonna talk about women in business? I was like, no. I think I'm gonna talk about my regs to not riches story, which is, like, people have all these different experiences. Right? And you're always comparing yourself to other people or trying to measure up or trying to get as many likes or follows or comments. And really what I always keep coming back to is that people just want authentic, friendly, nice people in their kitchen to spend time with them.Beth Le Manach:I think so. A %. Especially if it's something that they're a little unsure about, they want the reassurance that, like, it's going to be okay. Like, yeah, we're gonna do it together. You know? Like, I think that that's very reassuring for people.Stephanie Hansen:One of the, recipes that I happen to see on your YouTube really just, like, blew my mind, and I think it's based on your French experiences about almond croissants.Beth Le Manach:Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's from the book.Great. It is in the book. Yeah.Stephanie Hansen:I'm obsessed with almond croissants, and what you did was you took day old croissants and then made, like, a beautiful almond filling, and voila, almond croissants. It's it never occurred to me that that would be a way that you could do that without, you know, like, laminating dough and I mean doing all the hard work.Beth Le Manach:Yeah. Well, I laughed out loud because I didn't realize, and my husband shared this with me when we were sort of newly married, that almond or croissants were made because that was a way that the bakeries could use up the day old croissants that didn't sell because very few things go to waste in France, especially foods. Then it, like, made perfect sense. Like, oh, of course. So if they're doing that, like, we could be doing that. Yeah. Absolutely. Have, like, the yeah.We just don't have the day old croissants, but, like, you can do it with fresh if you just split them open and let them dry out while you make the filling, and it's just as good.Stephanie Hansen:So you have an event that's coming up at Cooks At Crocus Hill, June Eighth, 4 PM. As we record this, there's only a few tickets left. So by the time it actually airs, you probably won't have the privilege of getting tickets unless you decide to do another night. Is that a possibility?Beth Le Manach:We don't know because I have to leave the next day for my next tour. So this is the thing that I yeah. I'm learning about the book tours is you have to be quick about it because it is expensive to go to all these cities.Stephanie Hansen:Yes. And how many citiesBeth Le Manach:are you going to on your tour? I'm going to seven.Stephanie Hansen:Okay. Okay. That is gonna be great. Yeah. So we are speaking with Beth Lamonic, and she is the author of entertaining one zero one. And you can find her book, recipes every host should know how to make. I thought that was a great subtitle too, by the way. Very clear. Everybody knew exactly what they were gonna be getting from your book. Do you have a Substack too, or how do you want people to follow it?Beth Le Manach:Yes. I do. I have a Substack. That would be great. People can follow me there. It's called entertaining with Beth.Stephanie Hansen:And how are you enjoying that as a platform?Beth Le Manach:I love it. I mean, this is the funny thing is, like, writing the cookbook did introduce me to this, like, other way to create, which is writing. And I think it came at the perfect time because we moved to France around the same time that I was doing more on Substack. So I share the recipes there, which are free. But then if people wanna be part of my paid community, once a month, I do an essay about what it's like living in France. I'm kind of the good, bad, and the ugly, you know, because there is so much material that happens, and that's just been a really fun exercise to share that, just in the written page. And and sometimes I include little videos in it too. So It's been It's always fun too, Stephanie Hansen:I think, as creators to have other outlets and more outlets. Yeah. And, you know, I I know people find this hard to believe, but with the exception of, like, in any industry, the top 10% of us are cobbling this together. Right? You're at the end of the year, when you're doing your taxes, you have 52 tiny pots of money that you add up together. Right. And Substat is another tiny pot, but is giving a lot of joy to a lot of people and allowing them to flex in unique and creative ways.Beth Le Manach:It is. It absolutely is. And and I think too because if you stay with, like, kinda one medium, like, I've been doing video for so many years, thirteen years video, it gets really tiring, and you start to get a little fatigued by it all. So it kinda jump starts your creativity again to be like, oh, now I'm gonna write some things, and now I'm gonna and then it sort of helps the video because you look at it with fresher eyes.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah. I love it. Well, Beth, it's been a delight to speak with you. Thanks for being on the podcast today. Good luck with the tour. Beth Le Manach: thanks for having me.Stephanie Hansen:Yes. Are you on presale right now?Beth Le Manach:Yes. We're on presale, and then it goes on sale, for real on June 3.Stephanie Hansen:Okay. So we're gonna launch this podcast, I believe, right before the launch. If you can presale, because you guys that listen know presales are super important to cookbook authors, all of those sales that they've generated up on the presale count towards the first day sales, which hopefully, if all things go great, launches them on bestseller list. Right? That's what we're all trying to do. Beth, I think you've got a great shot at it because your book, looks great. I've watched a bunch of your videos, and I'm just glad that you're getting a chance to come to Saint Paul, Minnesota. Cooks Of Crocusil is a great spot. You're gonna have a blast.Beth Le Manach:Yes. I hope so. It looks amazing.Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.Stephanie Hansen:Enjoy your travels. Hopefully, we'll speak again sometime. Sounds goodStephanie Hansen:Thanks, Stephanie. Bye. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to another episode of "Dishing with Stephanie's Dish," the podcast for everyone obsessed with food, cookbooks, and the stories they tell. Today, host Stephanie Hansen sits down with Jenna Helwig —a true powerhouse in the cookbook world. You may know Jenna as the creator of the Cookbookery Collective newsletter but she's also the food director at Real Simple magazine and a prolific cookbook author herself. In this conversation, Stephanie and Jenna dive into their mutual love for cookbooks, discuss the enduring charm of print in a digital world, and explore the evolving landscape of cookbook publishing, from celebrity chefs to everyday cooks and influencers.Jenna shares insights from her career, talks about the resurgence and diversity of cookbooks, and lets us in on what it's like to balance her editorial roles at Real Simple and her Substack. They chat about memorable cookbooks from childhood, the pressure (and freedom) of home cooking, and the unique joys of discovering new recipes and makers. Whether you're a cookbook collector, home cook, or just love a good food story, this episode is packed with inspiration, nostalgia, and plenty of practical wisdom. So grab your favorite cookbook, get comfy, and join us for a delicious discussion!FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS:Stephanie Hansen:Hello, everybody, and welcome to @DishingwithStephaniesDish, the podcast where we talk to people that are obsessed with food, cookbooks, and all things in the food space. And today, I'm speaking with Jenna Helwig, and I kinda came across her mostly on Substack, which I think maybe will make her be surprised. I found her as the creator of the cookbookery collective cookbook newsletter, and I was like, hey. You're into cookbooks. I'm into cookbooks. Let's talk about cookbooks. And we got the call set up, and then she said, oh, and by the way, I am the food director of Real Simple magazine. And I was like, oh, just that small detail that I literally did not even know about you.I'm so embarrassed. Welcome to the program.Jenna Helwig:Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. And I'm thrilled that you found me through the substack because that's a newish thing for me, and I love that, you know, people are reading it.Stephanie Hansen:Yes. And I was so like, I'm just obsessed with cookbooks, and I am a cookbook writer. I'm on my second book that's coming up, and I read a lot about trying to get published and different points of view of cookbooks. And we have quite a few good cookbook authors that hail from the Midwest in the Twin Cities here. And you had, I think, done an interview with my friend Zoe from Zoey Bakes, which probably is how I found out about you.Jenna Helwig:That is probably right. Yes. Zoey. Also, I think of Amy Theilan. I know she's not right there, but she's, you know, in the vicinity. Right? So yeah. For sure. And Pinch of Yum, aren't they based in Minneapolis? So yeah.Jenna Helwig:They are. A good a good food thing going.Stephanie Hansen:Yes. And the Food Dolls just published their book. They have, like, 8,000,000 followers.Jenna Helwig:Amazing. I guess I've been through that interview. Yeah. And who is that?Stephanie Hansen:Sarah Kiefer, do you know her?Jenna Helwig:Oh, yes. Of course. Her cookies, baked goods. Yeah.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah. We are all from, the Twin Cities, and most of them have, like, specialty angles. Like, I am just a home cook, so that's sort of my point of view on the Midwest. But it has been a really great market to be in. And one of the things that I started a radio show about seventeen years ago, so we've talked a lot of these people along the way. And right when we started the radio show, you know, Facebook and Instagram were launching, and it's been such an interesting trajectory to see cookbook authors in particular. And, like, everyone's like, oh, print is dead. Like, magazines are dead.Publications are dead. And yet, you know, cookbooks are, in some respects, doing better than ever.Jenna Helwig:Yeah. I agree. I feel like they are thriving. I also feel like, you know, at least for me personally, and I do notice this though with a lot of other people that we are on our screens all the time, and we're kinda tired of it. So whether it's a cookbook or even a print magazine, like, there's just something so lovely about turning pages, just, like, shutting out everything else. No other notifications are popping up on your screen. So print is very special.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah. And it feels like you can have, like, personal one on one time with it because you can set your phone down and really immerse yourself in the story.Jenna Helwig:Yes. Exactly. We all need more of that.Stephanie Hansen:I think so. My food magazines too, you mentioned that you're the food director of Real Simple, and you guys are having your twenty fifth anniversary. Yes. And I literally before you sent me that text, I was, like, reading it. And I'm a subscriber, so I'm gonna hold up my copy here. Because I really I love food print too. I worked in the newspaper business, and I'm kind of a tactile print person also. And you had a really cool feature this month about what's the best takeaway you've ever gotten from Real Simple because you guys are in your 25th birthday. So I thought I'd ask you what your best takeaway is.Jenna Helwig:Oh my gosh. That's such a hard question. Alright. I I'm sure it's going to be food related, and I'm kinda gonna cheat and pick something from that month. I worked with Molly Ye on the beautiful birthday cake that's on the cover. And, you know, one of the things she did that I feel like I've used in other in other applications, but never for frosting, was she used instead of food coloring, freeze dried raspberry powder to make the beautiful pink frosting. And I just hadn't done that before, and it was so easy and such a kind of natural way to make something look so lovely.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah. That's funny because, yeah, and the cake, it's a it's a lemon poppy seed cake, and then it has like a a raspberry pink frosting on the outside and then raspberry jam on the inside. It really it also gives you a little bit of that raspberry flavor in the frosting, but it's not like super wet like it would be if you used real raspberries or also, like, super overly sweet if you used just jam.Jenna Helwig:You know what? That is exactly right because it lends that little bit of tartness to it too, and so it's just such a nicely balanced frosting.Stephanie Hansen:So you are a cookbook writer yourself.Jenna Helwig:Mhmm.Stephanie Hansen:I'm forgetting the name of your books. It's Minute Dinners or Dinner andJenna Helwig:“Bare Minimum Dinners.” The most Bare minimum. Yes. “Bare Minimum Dinners”. Stephanie Hansen:I'm all for that. And you've had, a number of cookbooks, I think. Aren't you? Like, you've had a few more of that too.Jenna Helwig:Yes. So I've written five books. Three of them were more in the, like, family baby toddler space. I used to be the food editor at Parents Magazine. Sure. And so that was really how I kind of got into cookbook writing. I started with real baby food and then wrote one called baby led feeding. And I will say that is by far my best selling cookbook.Jenna Helwig:You know, it's still something we actually did a reissue a couple of years ago, so I did an updated version. It's still something that parents are finding, and that just makes me so happy.Stephanie Hansen:My neighbor who just had a baby, she's gonna be two, was obsessed with that book because I just she knows I write cookbooks, and I film a TV show in my house too. So I'm always bringing them food. And when she first had the baby, she showed it to me, and she was like, have you ever heard of this book?Jenna Helwig:And it was yours. Oh my gosh. That's amazing. Well, that's so great. I'm I that's a really hard time of life as I you know, just, like, trying to figure out no one really tells you how to feed your baby, which is strange. And so I think anything that I could do to make it just less stressful, that was always my goal with those books.Stephanie Hansen:And I think that there's so much to be said about just getting dinner on the table. Like, it's almost a political act these days just to, like, be working, be taking care of your mental health, be worrying about your social time with your kids, your family, your family, aging parents, and then all of a sudden every day someone is supposed to, like, be putting all these elaborate meals on the table, like, sometimes just even surviving a day without the food, and then you have this whole other stressor on top of it.Jenna Helwig:I could not agree more. I mean, which is why I thought of bare minimum dinners. Like, it's this idea, and we do this also in real simple. You know, it's very similar. They're like I call fussy the f word. I'm like, nothing fussy, you know, especially when we're talking about recipes in the magazine. Skip the garnish. Like, you know, there's you're not putting on a show for anyone.You know? Just do what you can. That's really you know? But is it better or good is better than perfect. Done is better than perfect. Just get it done.Stephanie Hansen:And some people, like, because they feel like they're trying to live up to something in a Instagram photo, it prevents them from having a dinner party or, making food for a neighbor because maybe it's, like, not good enough. You know, just the sheer act of eating and providing food for your family, whoever your family looks like, or even just for yourself, you are gonna eat better. You're gonna have more control over what you eat. I have eaten at a million restaurants in my life, and I just find that I always feel so much better when I'm cooking at home.Jenna Helwig:I agree. I love to go out to eat. However, then if if I do that too much, I'm like, okay. I just need to reset at home. And, you know, I've also noticed that in some cookbooks, there has been this trend towards the food not being overly styled or the author doing that themselves and thinking about, like, Julia Tershen with her last book. You know, she photographed that herself, and the food looks great, but also real.Like, you could do it. And, also the book Chinese Enough that I just featured in Cookbookery Collective. You know, those recipes just don't feel like nitpicked to death. You know? They're just very naturalStephanie Hansen:looking. I feel like we might see more of that. I photographed my own book, but it was simply out of necessity because I didn't have $20 to pay someone. So I said to the publisher, well, if my Instagram's okay, I'm gonna do, like, similar to that. Is that okay? And they were like, sure. Oh, great. As we look at cookbooks as a genre, things have changed a lot because it used to be that you were a professional chef or you were a restaurant chef and you were writing about your restaurant or you were a small group of people that were super experienced in cooking, and maybe you had, you know, 10 books that you were writing in the different genres. You did vegetarian and gluten free and then dairy free.Now, like, the cookbook space is really kind of being taken up by regular people or influencers in a lot of respects. Does that, open the door for more excitement or is it sometimes do you worry that maybe the books aren't as good? Oh,Jenna Helwig:Oh, that's a tough question. I think that anything that gets people cooking is good. So I am you know, if the it is someone without a lot of cooking experience who has a book, but it still excites people to get into the kitchen, fantastic. So that's really my main goal. I do think, you know, where I am in my life, like, I really wanna learn something new from a cookbook. So that's what I personally am looking for, but there are cooks of all different, you know, ability levels and experience levels. So I think that having a variety of cookbooks that can reach everyone where they are is probably the answer.Stephanie Hansen:There is so much diversity too in cookbooks now. Like, the no offense to the old beautiful Asian cookbooks that you would get, but, you know, you didn't really feel like you could make a lot of the things out of there because maybe you didn't have the ingredients or you weren't familiar with technique. The the more recent diversity in cookbooks, it feels like you can actually make some of these things.Jenna Helwig:Well, I think that's right. Some of the things do feel more accessible. And, also, we just have access to so many more ingredients now, which is amazing. Just even at, like, regular grocery stores. My parents live in Colorado and, like, in the suburbs, and I was, you know, just driving by where I used to live. And there was an H Mart, you know, which I like, my jaw just, like, fell on the floor. There's no H Mart there when I was growing up. So the fact that I could have had access to all of those ingredients, and now the people who live in Broomfield, Colorado do is a miracle.Stephanie Hansen:That's so funny because I'm actually reading crying in H Mart right now for my book club, and it's just a delightful memoir about a woman who's experiencing the loss of her mother through the Korean cooking and heritage that she had growing up, and it's really a delightful book. It's so good. When you are thinking of what you wanna write about for your substack, because I'm in some ways, I'm surprised that you still find this topic and this genre interesting after having worked at Real Simple for five years because I've I it's almost like feels like is it too much of the food, but it it really is steeped in you. And how do you pick, like, what you wanna feature on your Substack versus what would maybe be a potential something in the magazine down the road, or is it just all the love and all of the same?Jenna Helwig:So I for real simple, you know, obviously, I get to kind of put a lot of myself into there and, you know, kind of direct that coverage, you know, pitch what I think we should cover. But I'm always doing that through the lens of our audience. You know? What and I she's usually a she. You know? What does she want? How much time does she have? What's gonna make make her life easier? So I really hyper focus on that. And a lot of it does kind of mirror my life because I am, you know, kind of similar to the real simple reader, but that's primary. I feel like with the substack, I can just do whatever I want. It's really, like, the books and the authors that speak to the me the most. It's nice to kind of have that, you know, freedom even if it's something that maybe we wouldn't cover in the magazine or might be a little more obscure.Jenna Helwig:You know? It's just fun to be able to follow my passions and my interest. And I do love food, and I really love cookbooks. So it's it's funny that I spend even extra time with them, but it really makes me so happy.Stephanie Hansen:I am hoping that in substack's evolution that we get more information about who our readers are. Because when you're, like, at a magazine, you know, you have a deep dive in your target market and the radio show, they know exactly who your p ones are. In Substack, you have followers, but you don't exactly know that much about them except basically where they come from.Jenna Helwig:That is such a good point, and I'm sure you also know so much more about this than me. I'm still I'm such a newbie. I've been a Substack subscriber for a long time. But now I just, you know, launched this, you know, like, over a month just over a month ago, and so I'm still figuring out all the analytics and everything. But I agree that that would be super helpful just to know more. Like and I'm I've also been thinking, and maybe you've done this. Like, have you done surveys of your audience, your subscribers? Yeah. And, also, like, people don't love to fill them all out. Jenna Helwig:I love surveys.Stephanie Hansen:See, I do too, but that's probably because we're, like, the publishing types. Right? So I did a survey, and it kind of mirrored what I thought from an age perspective, but I didn't get much more details than that. K. So I think if I was gonna give Substack advice, and maybe they'll ask me someday. Who knows? Mhmm. That it would be to help us understand who those markets are more because it does help you frame who you're writing for. As you look at the the newsletter, are you going to continue to speak to authors? Will you ever do recipes on your own like you've been in that space? Jenna Helwig:So I don't think I will do recipes on my own. I feel like, you know, when I have ideas for, new dishes or new, you know, like, stories. I kind of direct those to Real Simple. And I've done a lot you know, I've done all those cookbooks. So I sort of feel like the world maybe doesn't need more recipes from me. You know? I'm I'm very interested in what other people have to say. I think that I love doing these author interviews or just the interviews with other people in the cookbook community. Like, recently interviewed the woman who started Instagram's oldest cookbook club.And so she was fascinating. Oh, great. Yes. And there was such a good response to that. I'm interested in talking to people in cookbook publishing. So just really kind of anyone in that community. I I think there might be room later for more, like, reported stories.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah.Jenna Helwig:You know? That so not interviews, but, like, on a certain topic, like book design or titles or spines. I don't know. But, but I I don't think it's gonna be recipes for me. We'll see.Stephanie Hansen:It is interesting. You asked, the woman with the cookbook collection how she organized her collection, and she said by, type of food or genre. But then there's other people that I know that organize it by color.Jenna Helwig:I do that.Stephanie Hansen:Okay. And and it looks so cool. Like, when you have a huge collection, it just it looks so cool on the shelves. But I was like, oh, that would be so hard because unless you remember the color of the cookbook, how could you find it?Jenna Helwig:Yeah. You know, I will say so I live in Brooklyn, New York in a not huge apartment. So I first of all, everything has to look as tidy as possible, and color colors help with that. And I really only have room for about 250 books as opposed to, like, Deborah was saying, she has 2,000 Yeah.Stephanie Hansen:It was crazy. Thousand.Jenna Helwig:So jealous. But so somehow in my mind, I know what the color is. I don't know how to say it, but IStephanie Hansen:don't know how to catalog it. Purple one.Jenna Helwig:Yeah. So if I had more, maybe that wouldn't work.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah. Well and you okay. So you live in Brooklyn. That is such an amazing food community. Yes. And you just have so many great makers. And I do find a lot of good makers in Real Simple, like people making new artisanal products, and I had a podcast about that for a long time. That is really like, when you feel like you've discovered something that someone turns you onto and it's great, That's, like, one of my favorite discoveries about being involved in the food business, and I feel that way about cookbooks too.Jenna Helwig:Absolutely. And I think that when it comes to Real Simple, that's really one of the things that people come to us for. They trust our recommendations, you know, and things that we've discovered. And I feel like that is especially true with our holiday gift guide Yes. Which, you know, is, like, pages and pages every year. We spend months on it, you know, finding things, testing things. And believe it or not, I'm gonna be starting that again soon. But, yes, I I think that that it's such a privilege to be finding these new things and sharing them, and I think we really do get good feedback from them.Stephanie Hansen:Do you get to travel a lot around the country? OrJenna Helwig:Yeah. I mean, you know, there are certainly trips that I am taking for like, I went out to Expo West recently. Do you know that? It's a big, huge, like, food trade show in Anaheim and, went and met with a bunch of different brands, saw what was going on, what was new. So I try to take as many opportunities for travel as possible. I really love to just be out and about.Stephanie Hansen:Did you run across, at that show two gals? They have a product called Maza Chutney.Jenna Helwig:Okay. I was literally just talking to someone about this today. In fact, I was I sent a photo to my executive editor because, yes, I did meet them, and then I was at the Cherry Bomb Jubilee Yes.Stephanie Hansen:And they sampled there.Jenna Helwig:Days ago. Yes. And they sampled there, and I actually got a couple bottles. I was like, can I take that? And they let me. And so I was just I made some eggs for lunch today, and I put the cilantro chutney on top. It was so good. And I was, yeah, just telling one of my colleagues about it. So funny.Stephanie Hansen:I produce culinary markets in the Twin Cities, and they were one of the first makers that I met when I started doing this. And I was just like, oh, those those girls are onto something, and it's a family business. Their story is so great.Jenna Helwig:The branding is amazing Yep. And the food tastes great. Are they from there?Stephanie Hansen:Yeah. From the Twin Cities. Wow. They've just developed to, like a lentil spread. That's a like a hummus, but with lentils and also super flavorful and delicious. So watch for that because that's a brand new product line that they just are launching. But, yeah, weird coincidence, but Oh, funny. Yeah.Great product. When you can you can you remember your actual first cookbook that you got?Jenna Helwig:Oh, okay. So I don't I know it was a Betty Crocker, like, cooking or baking for kids book. I am not I think it was baking. I actually was trying to find the cover recently, just, like, Google search, and I couldn't. But I think that's what it was. Do you have one?Stephanie Hansen:Well, I mean, I have a few vintage.Jenna Helwig:I kinda select Yeah. It wasn't that one because it was for kids book, but I love that. It was like baking for kids or something.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah. And then did it have, did it have, like, wiener roll ups in it?Jenna Helwig:Oh my god. Maybe. The thing I remember the most were little English muffin pizzas or something like that. I remember my brother and I making those over and over.Stephanie Hansen:It I think it also had these, like, clown cupcakes.Jenna Helwig:That also sounds familiar. And maybe like cat cupcakes?Stephanie Hansen:Yes. Oh, so funny. Every year, we do a cookbook swap, and it's a super fun event. And people come and bring books that they no longer want or use, and we kinda sort them loosely in this huge room. And then we say go, and everybody, like, runs in. And however many books you bought or brought, you get to roughly take the same amount out, but you don't have to. But it's been fascinating, the books that people bring. And, I mean, I there's, like, a New York Times 1973 edition that has this recipe in it that's only in that book that's for a lamb ragu.Stephanie Hansen:And every year, I see that book come by, and I, like, pick the woman who's probably, like, twenty, twenty four. And I like press this book into her hands and I'm like, you need to have this book and you need to make the recipe on page one twenty one. And it's like three times it's happened and then they'll email me and they're like, I would have never found that recipe without you. It's such a great fun event.Jenna Helwig:That sounds wonderful. I love that idea.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah. It is really fun, and we get a lot of, like, boxes of people's recipe cards that were, like, someone's grandma's. And my radio partner and I always sort of move that stuff to the side, And then we keep it for a year and, like, go through it and look at it, and then we bring it back the next year. We've been doing this for, like, ten years. So it's been so fun to see what, like, really are in people's collections and what they get rid of. And, I mean, how many peanut butter blossom recipes there are in the world.Jenna Helwig:You know what? The world needs more peanut butter blossoms. Delicious.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah. Always delicious and always tasty. Well, it has been super fun to chat with you. I want people to follow your Substack. It is the Cookbookery Collective Cookbook newsletter, and we are with Jenna Helwig. And I'm just really appreciative for your time today. Congratulations on your twenty fifth anniversary with Real Simple. That's fun too.Jenna Helwig:Thank you so much. It's been a real pleasure to talk to you.Stephanie Hansen:Yes. Absolutely. Thanks, Jenna. Mhmm. Bye bye.Jenna Helwig:Bye.Stephanie's Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to another exciting episode of "Dishing with Stephanies Dish." In this episode, I am joined by my fellow travel enthusiast, Michael Kenney from Defined Destinations, as we dive into the world of adventurous group travel. Fresh from their trips to Croatia and Asia, they're setting their sights on a new journey to Sicily, Italy. Whether you're a seasoned traveler or a wanderlust-driven explorer, you'll discover the unique experiences that Sicily promises, from breathtaking historic cities to mesmerizing volcanoes and, of course, delectable Italian cuisine. Join Stephanie and the Michaels for a delightful conversation about the joys of traveling with a group, the thrill of meeting new people, and the authentic charm that awaits in Sicily. Whether you're considering joining their next adventure or simply living vicariously through their tales, this episode offers a captivating glimpse into the magic of defined destinations. Let the journey begin!Stephanie Hansen:Hello, everybody. Welcome to the podcast, Dishing with Stephanie's Dish. I hope you're doing great today. I am here with my friend, Michael Kenney, and Michael and I have been traveling together a couple years now. Right, Michael?Michael Kenney:Yeah. We've had, two trips under our belt. So it's, a trip to Croatia and, just recently that Cambodia Vietnam trip. So we've been we've been putting some miles down, Stephanie.Stephanie Hansen:I actually actually was somewhere last night and ran into someone from our trip, and we were comparing our bracelets from when we met the Buddhist monk because both of us still have ours on. Yes.Michael Kenney:Mine, like, just kinda fell apart.Stephanie Hansen:It was such a Oh,Michael Kenney:I woke up in the sun.Stephanie Hansen:Trip. Yes. I'm I'm gonna keep it on as long as I can. It was such a life changing trip. Asia was somewhere that I'd always wanted to go and really didn't have the confidence to do it by myself. So you gave me confidence. Going with other people gave me confidence, and we ended up having such a great time. Pretty good.Stephanie Hansen:I have had another great trip with you. We went to Croatia, and that was an awesome trip. We were on kind of like an exclusive private yacht with, Stan, our tour guide, who was probably one of the best tour guides ever.Michael Kenney:For sure.Stephanie Hansen:And you're going back there to Croatia this summer, aren't you?Michael Kenney:Yeah. Personally, I'm not. I'm gonna have somebody else. I'm a little envious because, yeah, that that trip was straight out of a dream. And, you and your, listeners, followers, they were so much fun.Stephanie Hansen:So Yeah. We did have a good time.Michael Kenney:Yeah. It was great.Stephanie Hansen:So I wanted to podcast with you because people ask me all the time about these trips and, like, how it works and what we do and, you know, like, are you, like, checking people's passports? I'm like, no. Silly. I'm not. But we have a trip coming up to Sicily, a taste of Sicily, which you have so sweetly on your your background there. That's smart. October 14 through the twenty second. And our final payments, I think, are due in June. So we're kind of in the hunt for getting everybody signed up and confirmed.And I wanted to talk with you. I've been to Italy a lot, actually, but I've never been to Sicily. So I'm excited about what that area is gonna be like and you've been. So I thought, alright. Let's just talk a little bit about this and get to know a little bit about how these trips work. So, I like to do trips with people because I like to travel with others. And people always ask me, well, are they food trips? Yes. They are food.Like, we eat food. We enjoy food. We talk about food, but it isn't, like, exclusively a food trip. We know that when you're going to some of these historic destinations that you also wanna see some of the beautiful sites. So we try to mix in some food things like special tastings, special wine events, or special dinners, but we also wanna give you some time to explore the region on your own so that you can go to the restaurants that really appeal to you. And, you know, when you're going with the group, sometimes it's not easy to go to some of these really exclusive special places because you have a larger group. Our group on a trip like this would be, what, would you say, like, less than, like, 26 probably?Michael Kenney:Yeah. It this group size will be anywhere from 20 to 30 maximum on this trip. So it's a real nice, you know, size group for sure.Stephanie Hansen:And you've been to Sicily before. When was the last time you went?Michael Kenney:I was with a group two years ago in Sicily. So I've been there three other times. So just most recently, just two years ago.Stephanie Hansen:And you and I like, I kinda gave you my short list of places. And you asked me about Sicily, and I was like, oh, well, I don't know. I've never really thought about that. And you were like, oh my gosh. It's one of your favorite places in Italy. So tell me what it is that you love about Sicily in particular.Michael Kenney:Yeah. No. That that that's a great question. You already mentioned you've been to Italy several times, and we get a lot of people that have been to Italy. And they're like, alright. I've already done that. Or maybe you haven't, you know, seen the the Colosseum and Venice and things like that. Sicily is is Italian, but it's an island in the middle of the Mediterranean.Michael Kenney:So it's just it's it's it's similar, but it's different. I think everything is elevated. Their food, their sites. I mean, the history has a whole Greek, northern the Arabs. It's a Spanish influence in Normans. They've all kinda come to this island in the middle of the the Mediterranean and put, like, their best foods, their their best everything. And it's kinda mixes and makes a Sicilian dish, which is really cool. So it's it's similar, yes, with their pastas and things like that in Mainland Europe, but it's it's a different notch.Michael Kenney:I think it's above, regular standard Italian food. It's just the flavors, the the spices, everything like that is just it's so good. And that's just the food side of it. And then, of course, I already mentioned with with the Greeks in the Spanish and the Normans, they have their own architectures that they brought, a mix of different languages. So you really feel like you're in a whole another country. It says in Italy, but the Sicilians say we're Sicilian first, then we're Italian.Stephanie Hansen:That's funny.Michael Kenney:So it's it's really so different, of an experience on that end. And I even have, a couple of friends going on this trip, and they've never been to Europe before. And they're saying, hey. We're we're gonna join you on this trip because it sounds lovely, but we've never been to Europe. We've never seen the Colosseum, things like that. Like, is this a good trip for us to take? I go, for sure it is. I mean, you don't have these, you know, the Leaning Tower Of Pisa, but once you get get to these places, you'll say, oh my gosh. I mean, a church that's, a thousand years old, or the little villages that are, you know, 500 years old and just oozing with this with charm.So you're really, having this real great Italian Sicilian experience, but maybe not knowing the sites, but it'll kinda resonate even better when you come back and tell your stories. It's just a beautiful, beautiful trip.Stephanie Hansen:And I think, you know, I've been to Rome. I've been to a lot of the little Italian islands on sailing trips with my husband. And we've been to Naples. We've been to Venice. We've been all over, really. And each of Italy has its own uniqueness, but the islands themselves are just something different because you really did get a lot of influences of people coming through and the trading that happened. And they also weren't as involved in the wars because they were sort of moving to the mainland. So you get a lot of different preservation possibilities, and the culture just held up because they weren't impacted by the wars in the same way.Michael Kenney:Exactly. And I think even early on, Sicilians were were very poor as well. So a lot of things just really, held. So they didn't, you know, knock down buildings and build new skyscrapers, things like that. It's like you're being, on the set of The Godfather, which was filmed there too, part of it at least. And, it was, like, set in time, and you're going there and just really experiencing the the feel, the taste, the smell, even you could call, like, the grit of, like, Palermo. I mean, it has this edge to it in a sense, like, this is a real living city. It sound like all spruced up to be perfect, like, on a set, but that's what makes it so so fantastic.It it's it's real. And I don't think you always get that experience that you're in in Central Rome, and they they, you know, it's all beautiful up. Again Palermo and all these cities that will visit are extremely beautiful but it has it's just a different edge to it and every group that I've ever been there with Stephanie if they've come back and said wow this is a dream. Not just the food, the sites, the experiences, the people. The people are real. They're they're fabulous. So it's it's a real real, just an amazing immersion, if you will, to Sicily.Stephanie Hansen:One of the things that people ask me about too, and I'll be honest with you. I'm not really, like, someone that you would think of as a group traveler. I like a certain amount of, alone time. I don't love to have every single thing coordinated for me. My husband, as you know, is a big adventurer and explorer. He's always the first one to do anything crazy on these trips. But it having a group is it's so nice when it's a smaller group like this because you do get to meet new people. You do get to create a community amongst your travelers.And I'll tell you, my friend Laurie Bargini that went on our Asia trip with us, she was very she's a big traveler too, and she was like, I don't know about this group thing. I was like, just give it a try. Like, Asia's a good one to test it out because it's probably a destination you wouldn't go alone. And she signed up right away for Sicily. She was like, I loved the group elements because when I wanted to, I had a group of friends and it was fun and we could hang out together and do fun things, but also when I wanted to be alone, I could do that too. It she thought it added a whole another layer to the travel experience than you just get either with you and your spouse or you and your friends because you have this whole other dynamic of people that for the most part is pretty great.Michael Kenney:Yeah. I know. And I and that's great. And Laurie was great. I'm glad she signed up because on the flight back from Asia, she sat next to me on the flight, and that's a seventeen hour flight. And if she wants to go back, then that that that's great.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah. It's good. Well, you know she talked to you the whole time probably.Michael Kenney:No. I tried to again, maybe it's like the group element. You know, have time on, time off. So I'm glad that was brought up. And I've been doing group tours for twenty eight years now, which I I I can't believe. And I I first started getting into tourism because I wanted to see sites. I'm like, I know I can't pay for it, so I need to be a tour guide and and going from that. I didn't realize the whole experience and having shared experiences with others was gonna be my highlight.And to this day, that's my favorite part is going to meet people that I've never met before and going having these shared experiences with. And and sometimes, you know, you build friends for a lifetime off of that.Michael Kinney:I think especially our last group too, we we really, built that with several of the the travelers, which is great. So and I so if you're hesitant, like, well, I'd like to this trip sounds great or any of our trips, but I am kind of worried about that. We really try to balance all our tours out. It's it's it's imperative that we have that balance of, some of the group time to have these, shared experiences to leisure time so that you can go and have your own adventures. And that is so crucial to all of our trips. That's why our hotels, and we can talk about that later, are centrally located. So once we go out and do, say, our city tour, our our our food tour in Palermo and walking around, you'll have, like, the remainder of the day to go explore on your own or some of those new friends that you met. Maybe you can go out and have a glass of wine with them.But again, it's all about that balance. And we each and every itinerary that we put together, we really work on making sure we have that balance in in the trips itself. Because I think that is the success of it. So we don't pack the days all day long on, like, seeing this, this, and this. We give you the nice highlights, and we'll have some other fun inclusions. But again, each place that we go to centrally located hotels, we have that free time too. So you can do your own thing or jump on with a group that you've met and have cocktails, Aperol spritzes in the main, Piazza later on. So it it's so fun, but it it really comes back.You register for a trip, but you don't know you're gonna meet some great people. And at at the end of the trip, it's typically these, these people and these, shared experiences come back, and that's where the meaning of the the trip comes in. It's so it's it's so much fun to see them build together.Stephanie Hansen:On each of the trips that I've done with you, we've had solo travelersMichael Kenney:Mhmm.Stephanie Hansen:Which I think people are like, oh, you know, I don't know. I don't have a partner to go with or my friend can't go. And that to me has also been super fun, like the solo travelers and the friends that they've made. And, like, one of the gals I saw from our Asia trip, I saw our friend Annie last night, and she was a solo traveler. Ended up pairing up with Laurie in a room and sharing, actually, actually, which a lot of solo travelers don't wanna share. I get that. But in this case, they both did, and they are like fast friends.Michael Kenney:That I mean, that's that's so much fun to see that. First off, if, you know, we all have it like your maybe your husband or wife or friend they don't want to go but you're like interested in this trip. We get that on all of our trips and we specifically specifically have, several single rooms set aside for those, adventure traveler seekers to have that. So you can pick your own room and go as a single or maybe you want us to to pair you up. We can do that too and get you in contact with another solo traveler like lorian annie did and that typically works out really well too but it's it's I think the like minded people looking for adventures you'll never feel like you're by yourself on any of our trips So, like, oh, I'm a third wheel. Never ever ever. And sometimes that's the best way to travel because you don't have to make sure your traveling partner is having a great time. You only can worry about yourself.Hey. I'm gonna have a great time. And, you know, all of our trip travelers that I've I've ever heard from, they've had a great time going solo, and they meet these like minded people. And, again, all of a sudden, they have friends for a lifetime, like, you know, Lori and Annie did. So if you're you're even thinking about it, like, I'm solo and I'm a little skeptical about going by myself, give us a call. Send us an email. We we can get you your own, room, single, room. They are filling up quick, though.We have a few left, or we can pair you up with somebody too to share that single supplement. But, again, you'll never feel like a third wheel with any of our tours. And this, in addition, just works really, really well for single travelers, and you'll meet some probably good friends on it.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah. And, also, like, ladies, some of you I know, like, getting coming out of relationships or divorce, you wanna do something unique. I have someone in my family who are shall remain nameless, who's gonna be joining us, who wanted to get back to Europe, but she's just not in a relationship status that would work for that as the way she thought it was gonna be. So I was like, come with us. Like, we're gonna have a ball. There's men. There's women. You know, my husband has come on some trips, but others, he hasn't.And Mhmm. It's just there's a great mix of people.Michael Kenney:Yeah. No. It it it it's great. Now this isn't a singles trip, but maybe you can find Giuseppe at the local cafe. You never know. So you never know. So anyway, yeah, it it works great for whatever status you are in life, single, you know, whatever. It these really, really work really nice.And sometimes, like, my brother came, and we shared a room on our the last trip, and he just wanted to kind of have a experience and get away from, you know, what's going on in life over here and just do a reset. And he came back and said, I'm really recharged. And he's kinda like going into he's retired, and he wants to do something else in his, you know, second part of his life. And he he's going after something right now because he he was able to kinda just disconnect Yeah. And then just take it all in and then kinda come back and, like, let's go. So regardless from relationships to job hunting or whatever, sometimes these trips are great. Even if you go solo, that could even be better.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah. Just to get a reset.Can you give us, like, without, like, going into all the detail, like, a high level, not day by day, but just, like, what are the towns we're gonna visit? What are because we're gonna be in, I think, three different areas.Michael Kenney:Yeah. Correct. So if you if you go on our, at definedestinations.com and look at, taste of Sicily Twenty Twenty Five, you can find the day by day, itinerary on that, and you'll get to be able to see through it. But again, it reads like a brochure, and you go through each item. And everything that we mentioned on that, it's, it is included. But the neat thing is we go from the North to the South and then all the way over to the, the East side of the island. So you're really having a great feel for the entire island itself. And, we have three nights in Palermo, and then we have one night in Agrigento, which is at the very southern on the beach, our hotel's right on the beach.You can walk right down there. And even October mid October is a great time to go too because the temperatures are, like, mid seventies, so it's super comfortable. And the water temperature is still pretty nice if you want to jump in. And then we have three nights in Siracoosa. So we we have these, like, kind of, hub and spoke places that we we do our adventures from the but we always come back to our centrally located place. So, anyway, we'll we'll find the Palermo. We have a connection. If you do our included flights, there's no, direct flights from from Minneapolis into Sicily.So we have a connection, on that.Stephanie Hansen:And let me just touch on that because some people want to work with the travel agent to have all of the flight things arranged for them, and that is an option with you. But you also do have options where people can meet you at the destination. So, like, for me, we have a lot of miles that we're always trying to burn up. Yeah. So for us, we book our own airfare so that we can use our miles, and then we sometimes add a few days on at the end, or we might even go to a different destination. With your group travel plans, both of those options are available to people.Michael Kenney:A %. I'm glad you asked that too because, yes, there's people that have miles or if they only wanna stay exclusively with Delta or United or whatever, that's fine. Our trips truly begin and end at at the hotels. With that, we do offer an included group package you can jump on, but the whole group will not be on that flight for sure. It's just an option to do that. And my my team can also, get you, flights separate from that too if you wanted to come early like you said, Stephanie, or stay light. Hey. I wanna go see the Colosseum on this trip.Great. My team can put a pre tour, post tour package together if you want to do that. Or even if you don't want any of our help, that's fine. You can just book our land only. You'll be able to see our group flight numbers on there too so you can kinda coordinate that. But the great thing is that both, airports, in Palermo we fly into, and then we fly out of Catania. They're close to both, towns, so you can easily take an Uber. So it's really pretty easy to get to and from, and that's where the, the the the tour start from.So if you're hesitant, hey. I need to book the group air. Don't worry about that. You don't have to do that by any means. We're happy to help you, on all the other aspects too to to get the airfare, with that. So, yep, we fly into Palermo. We'll settle into our our our three, our centrally located hotel, which is fabulous. Again, remind me that we need to touch on the the hotels too a little bit.Stephanie Hansen:Yep.Michael Kenney:But it's right in the center. We'll do a food tour of one of the local markets. Again, like you mentioned, maybe we have some guests on the trip that could care less about food or wine tastings. It's just a a piece of of our trip. So even if you're, a modest food lover or you only like cornflakes, there's gonna be some fun things to do on this as well. And we find that, you learn a lot about the culture through the food. Yeah. That's the reason we we do part of that too.So it'll be fun regardless. You're going through the markets. You're learning about the foods. Things like that. We go to, the the Cathedral Of Monreali, which, hey. We're seeing another church. We typically don't always do that, but this is really specific. This church is beautiful.It's got, it's it's a massive church built in the twelfth century, and they're famous for all its mosaics. The whole interior, the churches, all these fine mosaics they did almost a thousand years ago. It's unreal. So it's beautiful that we'll be doing that. We'll go to Cefalu, a little, seaside village, which is outside of Palermo a little ways. Maybe you've seen White Lotus. Part of that was filmed there or all parts of the, that, season two was filmed in Sicily. So we'll have a lot of White Lotus moments, as well on that, which which will be a lot of fun.And then from there, we'll be driving after our three nights in, in Palermo. We'll be heading south, crossing the entire, island itself. Absolutely beautiful. Even our coach rides, which aren't a lot, that they're just stunning. And and enjoying the countryside is absolutely beautiful. And we'll be going to that's where Agrigento is, and it feels like you're being stuck in Greece. Like, wow. There's all these Greek ruins, you know, two, three thousand years old.It's like, this is unbelievable. They have some of the better Greek ruins even outside of Athens, which is amazing. So walking through Agrigento, experiencing that, seeing that during the sunset, it's it's it's magical. I use that word a lot, but I think the whole trip really is. And then we we we settle into our hotel right on the beach, which is lovely. And then from there, we'll be going over to Siracusa, which is one of my favorite places ever. My first time I went to Sicily, we didn't go there. And I went back and I said, how do we skip that the first time? Siracoosa is, it's unbelievable.And you've agreed too. We we're staying right in they called it Ortega. That's like the old city of Siracusa. And we're staying right inside the city wall. So our bus will drop our private bus for our group will drop us off, and then we have to walk about ten minutes to our hotel, which is on a small little alleyway. And we'll talk about that later on. But it's a great location that we'll be doing, having different experiences, seeing all the the ruins, walking around at night. It's just beautiful.And from there, we'll be out we'll also be going to see Mount Etna, which is still an active volcano. We'll be on the sides of it. It's unbelievable. All of a sudden, you feel like you're being transported onto the moon. You see the vents and things like that. It's beautiful. And they grow some amazing wines there too on the slopes of it, and we'll be tasting some of those.Stephanie Hansen:That's so cool.Michael Kenney:Yeah. It's it's it's it really is pretty cool, because of that that rich soil just offers great Sicilian wines and the dry and the the elevation. So it it culminates to be really, really good. So, work on your Sicilian, reds. They're they're quite good.Stephanie Hansen:It will be exciting. Yeah.Michael Kenney:No. It it it's great. So I mean, it's it's seven, nights, a nine day trip, in Sicily. You'll have a real good flavor of the city, of all the areas that we visit. So it's it's quite nice. And if you go on the, the website, you'll see all the the inclusions as well. So we include mostly everything that we've talked about. There's really, we don't include all the meals because we want some experiences, for yourself too to go out and go, hey.Michael Kenney:We're gonna go to this little restaurant or whatever. Mhmm. And we have a local guide with us the entire time that will really help, talk about the history, and, you know, what's going on with the people itself, but then just pointing out great restaurants and other little experiences you can doStephanie Hansen:during the free And that's I love that because when we go to some of these places, like, I think I told you my husband is, he's kind of an you know, he's in venture. He always wants to do his own thing. So if we land in a place, he's like, okay. We're gonna take off. We're gonna go do this. We're gonna do that. And, you know, we try to balance, like, doing the group things with also him having his best life and doing some unique, food experiences just on our own. So every everybody gets a little bit of everything.It's a real delightful mix. You've been to Sicily. Now I think this will be, you said, your third time, fourth time?Michael Kenney:Fourth time.Stephanie Hansen:I'm so impressed that you're coming.Michael Kenney:Yeah. I'd well, I can't miss with your groups too. I can't go on all our trips, but this is definitely one I I, notched away because I think, part of me still is in Sicily. There's there's just something about it, and you can't you know, I've been to other parts of Italy plenty of times, and I feel like I'm an Italian, but, there's just something with Sicily. Maybe I meant I meant the grit. I've talked about that. It feels like a real city, real sites, real food, just from the the different markets, the fish markets is just everything seems really authentic.Stephanie Hansen:I love it.Michael Kenney:That's what I really, really love, and I think the guests do too. I'm I'm just envisioning myself walking and through Palermo with my last group, and there was, like, there was music being played in the streets, and people are sitting down and having glasses of wine. There was no festival going on. It was just this this zest for life thatStephanie Hansen:Yeah. The Italians just in general, they stay up late. They eat late. So they have, like, a happy hour kind of at, like, six to seven, and then they go home and get ready to go out for the dinner time in a lot of cases. So they spend a lot of time outdoors, and they like to do it when it's not in the blazing hot sun. So things really there's a great nightlife. People are, out and about into all hours of the evening, which is fun. So I'm just super excited.So if people wanna join us, you said I mean, I know we've got some rooms booked already. Yeah. So are there some rooms left if people wanna book, and what is the timeline that they should be doing that, and how do they do it?Michael Kenney:Yeah. That's a great question. So I said we have about we can handle maximum of 30 people. So we have about seven rooms up, so about 14 people. So if someone calls and say, well, will this be booked up by next week? It probably won't be, but I always tell people, go ahead, put your deposit down, hold the seat on the trip itself. And you just have to go to definedestinations.com. You can book everything right then then and there. It's super simple process.You just put your your information in. You don't need a valid passport right now to to enter that in. But you just go ahead and you fill that out, put your deposit down, at least then you'll you'll have a, a seat held for you. Then you can work on if you wanna get your own air fryer or if you wanna stay earlier, you know, stay after later on the trip itself. You you can do that all right there as well. So it's pretty simple.Stephanie Hansen:And then once you're booked and we know who's coming, we usually try to have a call to kinda give everybody the particulars of that trip. Sometimes depending on our time frame, we try to get together in person. I wasn't able for the last one because I had so many things coming, and I'm not sure what'll happen with this one because I've got the cookbook coming out, in September. But one way or another, we will see each other's faces, and we will get on that plane, and we will arrive together and have a blast. So I'm looking forward to it, and we've got other trips planned. I know we're trying to book another Croatia trip possibly for the following year for the fall and something in the spring. So if you guys have any destinations you wanna check out with me, let me know. I'm always looking for new places to go. You just went to the Galapagos. It sounded like it was amazing.Michael Kenney:Yeah. It that that was, fabulous. I was just doing a site inspection because we're looking about having groups go to the Galapagos and the Amazon, and it it was it was unreal. I loved it. Completely different experience from going to, to going to Sicily. Well, that's great. There's so many experiences to have on our on the world, and we only have so much time to be able to do those. So you gotta kinda hit that hierarchy of, you know, what's what's important.For anybody that's just thinking about it or if this is the first time you've ever even heard of Sicily, please take a look at this because it is really a magical trip, and we have so many fun inclusions. Our hotel locations are in the city center. I wanted to mention that, not, just because we're on tiny little streets. So you mentioned, like, the the nightlife. It's we're not on a bustling street where all the cars are going by. It's like you feel like you're a local. You'll go out the door, and there's mama Rosita across the street, you know, cutting herStephanie Hansen:Yeah. Sitting outside. Yes.Michael Kenney:That's the experience we want, not just on this trip, all of our trips. We want you to feel like you're kind of a, a local for even three nights when we're there, so you'll know where the the nearest bakery is and, the restaurants. And I think you'll have that on this trip. I it's it's reallyStephanie Hansen:I love it.Michael Kenney:Something else with all our hotels. You'll absolutely love that. We know exactly where to stay, and sometimes that's overwhelming when you're looking at doing a trip in your own, like, where should I go? What should I where should I stay? Like, it's overwhelming. We want this to be just book the trip. We're gonna be taking care of all the highlights for you.Stephanie Hansen:Pack your bags and come along. Yes.Michael Kenney:Exactly. So that's that's what's really important to us. And IStephanie Hansen:think I'm looking forward to it. It's gonna be awesome. I'm gonna release this podcast, not this Friday, but next Friday. So k. Between now and then, you guys, I hope you get your seats booked, and I hope to see you on this amazing trip. Thanks, Michael.Michael Kenney:Wonderful. Thanks, Michael.Stephanie Hansen:It was awesome. It's defined destinations. You can find them at defineddestinations.com. Taste of Italy is right on the front page. Click that, and you can see all the itinerary of the whole trip. And we're gonna have a great time.Michael Kenney:Taste of Sicily.Stephanie Hansen:Yes. The tasteMichael Kenney:of Sicily.Stephanie Hansen:Oh, what did I call it? What did I say? Taste ofMichael Kenney:Italy. We have one of those too. Oh, okay. The Sicily one.Stephanie Hansen:Taste of Sicily specifically. Yes. And then if you like Italy, you can go back because there are a lot of places to go back to. Amalfi Coast is great, but it's different. And, like, I there I've been to a lot of different places in Italy, and they're all a little bit different. And I like them all for different reasons. So I'm really excited to explore Sicily.Michael Kenney:Yep. It's gonna be great. Well, thanks so much for the time.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah. We'll talk soon.Michael Kenney:Yep.Stephanie Hansen:Bye. Bye bye.Stephanie's Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Follow Rachael White's Blog at https://www.setthetablephotography.com/or follow her on Instagram @setthetablephotographyWatch the episode of "Taste Buds With Stephanie" that Rachael styled Get the @FoodDolls cookbook "Pretty Delicious" This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Join me for my next live video on the Substack app. Live Video and Recipes will eventually be paywalled as a perk for Subscribers so join me nowStephanie's Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscribersGet the Recipe we made:GRANDMA BEA'S DILLY CRACKERSServes 8Ingredients(2) 12 oz packages of oyster crackers1 package Hidden Valley Ranch Original Dressing MixOr alternately2 Tbsp Dried Dill1/3 cup fresh dill minced4 Tbsp garlic powder1 tsp black pepper2 tsp fine sea salt2/3 cup olive oilInstructionsPreheat oven to 250Put all dressing ingredients in a 3 qt Jumbo plastic Ziploc Bag and shakeDistribute crackers evenly on two large baking sheets covered in foilBake for 20 minutesShake pans to redistribute crackersTurn oven off but leave pans in the oven for 15 more minutes so crackers have more time to lightly brown.Crackers will keep in an airtight container for about 30 days.Stephanie's Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Join me for my next live video in the appLet's get into it. I've never done a live on Substack before, but I thought it would be fun and I've been wanting to do them more.So I'm going to just tell you about a few things that I got today.I went to Surdyks and it had been a while since I'd been there and I was glad to revisit them - on their 90th Anniversary!They are a local store in Minneapolis and I am a big fan and I bought some thingsthat I wanted to tell you about.The first one is a product that is made in Minnesota.It's called Pommeau and it is from Milk and Honey.And it is the most delicious like honey apple Brandy liqueur.And what I do with it is I will pair it with whiskey or with rum.So I might have like an ounce and a half of whiskey or an ounce and a half of rumand then an ounce of this and I have it on the rocks andAnd it's just a delightful after-dinnery type drink.So milk and honey, I was out of it.I was happy to see it was back on the stores.Here is a new product that I'm excited about.I got it because it's from Vietnam and I was just there, fun!Song Cai the name of the gin.They had three different kinds of these Vietnamese gins at SurdyksAnd I happened to chat with one of the folks there and they said this one was their favorite.So I have not tried it yet, but can you see how pretty the bottle is inside it?It just looks amazing.So I'm going to go ahead and give this a try.I think I'll, it's floral gins are kind of good with tonic or with club soda.So I'm excited about trying that.I will report back.Something that is not alcohol, but I do have two of those left too.It is Ryze Mushroom CoffeeThis is something that I'm nervous about.Now they say that mushrooms are super good for you.And I absolutely believe that, but Could this product replace like my love of coffee or is it just like another thingto give you more of a wellness supplement?There's 2000 milligrams of mushrooms in here, which is a lot.So what you do with it,and I haven't done it yet,is you apparently take a tablespoon of this and then eight to 10 ounces of hot orcold water and you can ice it if you want to or hot.from 9-11 on MyTalk 107.1 and Ill chat about it with Stephanie March So I'm going to do this in the morning tomorrow before my radio show.It's called Ryse and there's 30 servings in here.It's from Massachusetts and there's 15 calories in a tablespoon.So it's low cal, which is fine, but we'll have to see how I feel about the mushroom coffee.Okay.Also,I got this at Christmas time and Beauty Counter was, all the rageand I don't know all the things that happened,but it was like a woman started the company and then she enlisted all these peopleto sell it and it was a great product.Then someone bought it like an investment company and apparently trashed the company,This product in particular is a Beauty Counter Hydrating Body lotion and it'sbut somehow it's back.This product in particular is a hydrating lotion.Okay, at Surdyks today, they had a wine that is from Croatia.It is called Plavac Bura.It is made with Plavac Mali grapes.It is called Plavac Bura.And it is a very delicious red table wine.And I also noticed it at my friend Leslie's place, Sip Better WinesI got this at Surdyks - I have noticed this at Total Wine too.This is like a $19 bottle of wine and it is fantastic for the value.It is Croatian.You'll find it kind of in the weird section where sometimes the best wines are.But I would like you guys to try this.I just love this wine.Another wine and  I have only found this at Surdyks before.I'm going to be bringing it to a party tomorrow.a,drier fruitier kind of bubbly effervescent type of white,that's not like full on champagne.It's not probably like that, but just has a tiny bubble.A Gruner Vertliner is a good wine for you to try.And this is from Austria, Weingut BrundlmayerI really like the wines that they have from Austria at SurdyksBut when I hear about organics, it makes me happy.So this is something that you would have with like a fish,Or if you're someone that likes a Sauvignon Blanc,but you just want to try something a little bit different,I'd highly recommend this.And then last but not least, La Croix.Okay, right.Everybody loves a good La Croix.I don't really love like the weird little flavors of some of these soda things,but I do like this Limoncello La Croix.It has like a vanilla taste almost to it and a little hint of lemon.It is still no calorie, so it's nothing, but it has some weird sweetener stuff in it.Let's face facts.They put chemicals in these things.I don't know why, but it tastes good.So this is the LaCroix.What I like to do actually,and that's here,is I take one of these cans and a plain can so that it tempers down the flavoring alittle bit, but it still tastes good.And then last but not least, I was on Jason's show today and this darling couple.I ran out of there because I had a meeting.And when I came back, they had left this on my bag of my Jason show things.And it is says taste buds on there.It is adorable, a little embroidered tea towel.As you know, I did a textile, a class at textile center and it was super fun.They have really great classes there.If you are a Minnesota person and you want toget your needling skills going.So you guys, that's it.My first live on Substack.I would like to do more.I'm also considering like maybe another format where I talk with someone else.But if this is something that you liked or you would like to see more of,I could even do like cooking things that are live.I just decided I would try it today since I had the good hair and I was alone withjust little Stanley here tonight.For dinner,we're going to be having the spring roll in a bowl that I made on Jason's showtoday that I marinated some carrots in a fish sauce that I put on my spring roll ina bowl,and it made the entire Fox Studio smell like stinky fish.But it's delicious,and that's what I'm going to be having for dinner tonight with a glass of this white...that I'll be having.And then in the morning, I'm going to try the mushroom coffee so you can tune in.We'll probably talk about it during the top two an hour or two, which is at 10.05 exactly.And if you want to hear what I thought about the mushroom coffee, feel free to tune in tomorrow.Otherwise, have a great weekend.It's supposed to be super nice.I'm very excited about that.I am going to be sitting with my seed catalogs.Planning for some of my seeds because I've got to get things planted.And if you follow along,you know that I garden in a very cold northern place that I only have about 50 to60 days with the seeds to get them to do anything.So I'm going to be getting my seeds going in the next couple of weeks.If you have any early plants like early tomatoes that you recommend or anythingthat you've tried and you want to pass that along,I'm always open to new gardening ideas.Thank you for being here.Thank you for following along on Substack.I started my Substack about a year and a half ago.It is just a joy.I love it.I love spending Sunday mornings writing it.I think about all of your faces and like what recipes I want to share.And it really just gives me joy.So thanks for following along.I hope that you guys have a great night and we'll try and do Substacks again if you like it.Thanks.Bye.Stephanie's Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome back to another episode of "Dishing with Stephanies Dish," where today's conversation centers on love, food, and the evolution of a dynamic partnership. Stephanie is joined by the charismatic duo, Randy and Katherine Feltes, the creative minds behind @KatherineWants. This episode delves into their unique journey through life's intertwined paths of romance and culinary passion. From serendipitously reconnecting after years apart, to building a family and launching their new "Ultimate Date Night Cookbook," they share how their love for food enriches their relationship and social media community (follow them on TikTok! @Katherinewants) and shope their cute merch at @Katherinewantshsop Tune in to hear about their adventures in the restaurant business, their vibrant social media presence, and their candid insights on balancing career, creativity, and family life. Whether you're looking for inspiration in the kitchen or in your personal relationships, this episode is sure to serve up a hearty helping of both. Here is a recipe they shared from the “Katherine Wants: The Ultimate Date Night Cookbook” for the ultimate Sea ScallopsSEARED SEA SCALLOPS with CELERIAC PUREE and CRISPY GUANCIALE 2 SERVINGS • PREP TIME: 10 MINUTES • COOK TIME: 12 MINUTESIngredientsCELERIAC PUREE (MAKES 2 CUPS)1 small (8- to 12-ounce) celeriac (aka celery root), peeled and diced1 apple, peeled and diced2 cups milk1 clove garlic, halved2 tablespoons unsalted butter 1 teaspoon kosher saltScallops3 ounces guanciale or pancetta, cut into matchsticks (about 1 cup)6 dry-packed sea scallops (U10/20 size), “feet” removed1 teaspoon kosher salt1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil 1 tablespoon pine nuts, toasted⅛ teaspoon ground black pepperInstructions1. Make the celeriac puree: Put all the ingredients in a small saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a gentle simmer, then cover and continue to simmer for about 10 minutes. When the celeriac is tender, transfer the contents of the pan to a blender and puree until smooth. Adjust the seasoning if needed.2. Place the guanciale in a small frying pan along with a splash of water. Over medium heat, render the fat as the water evaporates. Continue cooking until the desired crispness, then remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.3. Preheat a 12-inch cast-iron frying pan over medium heat.4. Meanwhile, dry off the scallops on some paper towels and season with the salt.5. When the pan is very hot, pour in the olive oil. You'll know the oil is hot enough if it smokes a little. Gently place the scallops in the hot oil and do not touch until a crust appears on the bottom edge, 2 to 3 minutes. Give a flip and repeat. Remove to a plate and let rest for 2 minutes.6. To serve, spoon ¼ cup of the celeriac puree into a small pasta bowl and top with three scallops and half of the crispy guanciale. Garnish with half of the toasted pine nuts and pepper. Repeat to make a second serving.Note:To get a proper sear on your scallops, make sure you dry them very well with a paper towel and have your pan good and hot.

Welcome to another episode of "Dishing with Stephanie's Dish." Today, we're thrilled to talk with Rebecca Blackwell, a recipe developer, Substack writer, and published cookbook author of the “Lets Get Lost Cookbook”. Rebecca shares her fascinating journey of selling her possessions to live and travel full-time in an RV with her husband. Join us as we dive into Rebecca's upcoming cookbook, "Let's Get Lost," her inspirational journey of writing and recipe development, and the launch of the “Lost Supper Club.” We'll explore how she balances creativity and connection while on the road, finding community through food, and the power of diverse culinary experiences that make the world feel a little bit smaller and certainly more delicious. Get ready for a heartwarming discussion about food, community, and life's unexpected adventures!Here is a recipe from the bookThis is an upside down cake, with a sticky caramel date mixture that's baked on the bottom of the cake but is then flipped over to become the top. The batter is flavored with pureed dates, an entire orange, a bit of miso, and a lot of vanilla.Wait. Miso? I fell in love with miso in baking after making the Miso Maple Loaf in Baking With Dori and I haven't looked back. Just as it does in savory dishes, miso adds layers of complex flavor, including a hint of umami - and a little umami is always a good thing, even in sweet treats.Candied pistachios add some crunch, and I would like to mention that if you want any leftover for the actual cake it's wise to make extra because you and everyone around you will find them irresistible.It's also worth mentioning that one of our Lost Supper Club guests (you know who you are, Narissa) actually squealed with delight after tasting this cake. Like an actual, alarmingly loud, squeal. It was really more of a scream, and I can't imagine a higher endorsement.Orange and date cake with candied pistachiosIngredientsFor the caramel and date glaze:* 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature* 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons brown sugar, light or dark* 1 tablespoon corn syrup* 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract* 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt, OR 1/2 teaspoon table salt* 8 ounces dates (about 1 cup), pits removed, cut into bite-size piecesFor the cake:* 1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour* 1 3/4 tsp baking powder* 1/4 tsp baking soda* 1/4 tsp salt* 1 medium to large size orange* 1/2 cup brown sugar, light or dark* 1 stick (4 ounces/ 8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature* 1/4 cup white miso* 2 large eggs, at room temperature* 8 ounces (about 1 cup) dates, pits removed* 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract* 1/3 cup plain, unsweetened greek yogurt, whole milk or 2%* 1/2 cup orange marmaladeInstructions:Get Instructions for the recipe hereLISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:Stephanie Hansen [00:00:15]:Hello, everybody, and welcome to Dishing with Stephanie's dish. I'm Stephanie Hansen. You are here at the podcast that talks to foodies, cookbook writers. And today, we have, I would say, all 3 plus more. We have Rebecca Blackwell. She is a recipe developer. She is on the verge of releasing her “Let's Get Lost”, the cookbook. She is a Substack writer who has a Substack newsletter called “Let's Get Lost. She also is starting and launching the “Lost Supper Club” and has been out in the space. One of the things about Rebecca that intrigues me, not the most because you're just a nice person, but beyond that, you live in an RV. You kinda upended your life, sold your worldly possessions, and bought a pull behind, and you and your husband travel all over the United States in your RV. We are talking right now in your RV, which I know you've got a good cookbook shelf. I see it behind you. Welcome to the show, Rebecca.Rebecca Blackwell [00:01:11]:Thank you so much for having me, Stephanie. I'm so happy to be here.Stephanie Hansen [00:01:14]:Me too. So for people that maybe aren't familiar with your story, can you talk about how you decided to just chuck it all and get into the RV?Rebecca Blackwell [00:01:24]:Yeah. Absolutely. So, we had 3 children, and, when our youngest was about 7, we decided that we wanted to work towards getting to the place where we could work from anywhere in the world by the time all of our kids were graduated. And so our youngest was getting off or getting ready to go off to college in in 2019, and and we had done it. We were both working virtually, and and we could work anywhere where there was an Internet connection. And and so we were our initial plan was that we were gonna just rent Airbnb's in various places for, you know, 3 months or 6 months or whatever at a time. So some friends of ours in Southern California were heading off to Europe for a couple of months and asked us to come house sit, and we were like, great. This will be a great test run for how this works.Rebecca Blackwell [00:02:11]:And we loved living and working in a new place, but we hated living in somebody else's home. And so we weren't sure what we were gonna do about that, and, we met up with some old high school friends while we were there that lived in an RV, and it was like the answer to all of our problems. We had never considered living in an RV. We had never in our entire lives spent one night in any kind of a camper of any kind. We're just not the camping kind of people. But we went home from that trip, and, within 5 months, we had sold our house and bought a 5th wheel RV and moved ourselves into it. So the first night we ever spent in a camper, we had already sold the house and bought our RV. So and that it's been a long time 5 years.Stephanie Hansen [00:03:00]:Did you feel brave doing it at the time?Rebecca Blackwell [00:03:04]:You know, we just felt very exciting until the night we closed on our house, and then I got a little freaked out. Understandably. What have I done? But, you know, the first night, we, we lived in Colorado, and we drove, we closed on our house on a Monday, and we drove to, Katy, Texas to pick up the RV on a Tuesday and, picked it up on Wednesday. And that first night in the camper, I wasn't worried at all. It it instantly felt like the right decision. We felt at home in it almost immediately. And, you know, we really haven't looked back. We we say that we'll keep doing it until we get tired of doing it, but so far, you know, it's been almost 5 years, and we're not anywhere close to being ready to stop.Stephanie Hansen [00:03:53]:What I think is kinda hilarious about you in particular is you have this sort of idea of who might be in an RV park, and I've been in a lot of RV parks.Rebecca Blackwell [00:04:02]:Yeah.Stephanie Hansen [00:04:02]:And you're I don't know about your husband, but for sure, you are like this type a organized, hyper productive person who's doing all this work from an RV park. I mean, your substack newsletter alone with Let's Get Lost kind of focuses on the RV living aspects and the travel aspects, but also recipes. And then as if that wasn't enough, you've launched the Lost Supper Club that just launched. What made you decide you needed yet another outlet? Because you just seem super prolific.Rebecca Blackwell [00:04:34]:Yeah. Well, you know, ask me at the end of the year if I regret adding another thing, and I'll I'll let you know. But but, really, at the end of last year, I I was just looking for more ways to connect with people on a more meaningful way as we travel around. It you know, we love being in a new place and kind of immersing ourselves in the culture of the place as much as we can. And we have met people without even trying all over the country, and that's been really fun. But this year or this last year, I I was just thinking a lot about how, when we're in a new place, when I have the opportunity to spend a few hours with somebody that lives there, it it just enriches both of our lives, in a in a really meaningful way. And so I thought, well, with the lost supper club, if I can do that and then write about it, then maybe I could also inspire other people to get together with friends over dinner on a more regular basis. I feel like it's kind of a a lost art that, and we're we're we're just craving that in person connection.Rebecca Blackwell [00:05:42]:Everywhere I go, I talk to people about this, and everybody seems to be craving that in person connection, but they're not really sure how to go about starting it. So that's kinda what I'm hoping to do is by doing it myself and writing about it, inspire more people to do the same thing.Stephanie Hansen [00:05:56]:I think food too is so common in that everyone speaks the same language when it comes to food. You know, no no matter what you eat, whether what you prepare, it has a way of bringing people together. And one of the things that you and I have talked about offline is how challenging you know, when you're a a nomad, we'll call it, it's challenging to keep up those, relationships with friends and family because they don't know where you are, and you can't just, you know, have your weekly tennis date.Rebecca Blackwell [00:06:27]:That's right. That's right. Yeah. That's been a big challenge with our friends back home in Colorado is maintaining those relationships with some of our closest friends. Thankfully, we tend to attract the kind of friends that are also similar in that they, they're very independent. They have they travel all over the place. And so it's pretty easy to just pick up where we left off. But, but I I'm just I'm starting to become a little more conscious of, trying to do things like phone calls and just just text messages and and just reaching out in any way I can to some of these relationships while we're on the road because because they are important.Rebecca Blackwell [00:07:05]:They're, those those connections that we form with people that become lifelong friends, you know, it's it's one of the most valuable things, in my life. The older I get, the more I realize how how deeply important they are.Stephanie Hansen [00:07:22]:Also, like, I'm curious what your thoughts are because I don't know your husband at all. But, my husband has a small group of friends, and they're the same friends he's had since, like, 6th grade. Oh, wow. I am, like, someone that craves a lot of friends, lot of different types of people. Everyone I meet becomes my friend. Like, we just have different needs. I'm an extrovert. He's an introvert.Stephanie Hansen [00:07:46]:Like, how to fill our buckets. Would you say you're more introverted? Or how do you is your husband, like, on the same page with you? Or do you spend a lot of time forging connections?Rebecca Blackwell [00:07:56]:Yeah. So, both of us have a strong tendency to just keep to ourselves and hold ourselves away. And that's part of the the more concentrated effort on my part of reaching out to more people and making those connections. Because if it's not deliberate, we won't do it. We're very happy parking ourselves in the middle of nowhere for months at a time and not really talking to anybody except each other.Stephanie Hansen [00:08:23]:My god. That's horrifying to me.Rebecca Blackwell [00:08:27]:We love it. We love it. We love it. But the like, no matter how introverted you tend to be, those those connections with other people are are just important. And, and so, you know, my my husband's a little worried about how many social activities I have planned for us this year because he, he gets really worn out by it. But, but, also, when he's there, he has a good time, and he knows that it's good for him as well. So, so we'll see. At the end of the year, we'll we'll take stock and see if it was too much for us or or not.Stephanie Hansen [00:09:07]:So let's get lost details. It's your newsletter on Substack that details all the places that you are and what you're cooking along the way. The Last Supper Club is the new paid version of substack that you will belong to this club. You'll talk about ways to entertain. You'll share recipes in your January edition. You did a really nice overview of homemade pasta. Because I just filmed a TV show about pasta, and I made pasta myself at home for the first time.Rebecca Blackwell [00:09:37]:Oh, fun.Stephanie Hansen [00:09:38]:Yeah. So it was really fun to read your recipe and your techniques. And then the let's get lost, the cookbook is on the verge of coming. So tell me where you're at with that and when we'll be able to get our hands on it.Rebecca Blackwell [00:09:50]:Yeah. So that should be out the last week of this month, January, the last week of January. And, there'll be links on, rebecca Blackwell.com and on both of my blogs. So, yeah, I'm I'm very excited about that. It's a 140 something recipes, 135 page cookbook, full color photos of every of every recipe. And, it wasn't a book I had intended to write last year. I just I was publishing so many recipes on substack that I thought, you know, I'm just gonna throw these together into, like, a quick little downloadable book, and then it turned into a full blown a full blown cookbook. SoStephanie Hansen [00:10:35]:So how do you do it? Are you printing on demand? Because you're obviously not warehousing things in your RV.Rebecca Blackwell [00:10:41]:Exactly. Yeah. No. Yeah. We're printing on demand. So it'll be available on print and, downloadable PDF and Kindle. So 3 different options for that. And then I'm already started on volume 2.Rebecca Blackwell [00:10:55]:So this year's volume 2 will be focused more on, supper club, and it'll be organized by the areas, that we've traveled to. So Southern California, Louisiana, the Midwest. There's a there's a pool. Yeah. And it'll include other people's recipes as well. So as we travel around and and cook and have dinner with other people, they will contribute recipes to the book. So it'll be more of a a collaborate collaborative effort.Stephanie Hansen [00:11:23]:Oh, gosh. I just love it. You're so prolific. You were a marketer in your other life before getting into the RV and kind of branching off and doing your own freelance. What did you market?Rebecca Blackwell [00:11:34]:Yeah. So I mostly worked with, businesses who wanted to improve their online strategies. So, strategies. So, I put together very comprehensive strategies for them that included, you know, a lot of different factors, and I did a lot of writings, wrote a lot of websites, a lot of emails, a lot of blog posts. I was the ghostwriter for quite a few companies' blog posts over the years. So back in 2013, I thought, maybe I'd like to do this for myself, and that's when I started my first blog. And and then gradually, I started as the blog grew, I was able to let go of some clients on a very gradual basis and was finally full time with food blogging by 2020.Stephanie Hansen [00:12:18]:That's so exciting. When you're in your RV and you're, like, making a recipe, you know, do you find space as a limitation, or how do you get, like, the perfect photograph? And have you had to adapt?Rebecca Blackwell [00:12:30]:Yeah. Yeah. That has been a a big adaption in in our house before we sold it and moved into the RV. I had a whole room just for photography, and that was that was amazing. But I have discovered that there's really nothing that you can't do in a small space. If you have it's like money. If however much you have, you seem to need it all. And that's how space is.Rebecca Blackwell [00:12:53]:I think however much you have, you figure out a way to need it all, but you don't actually need it all. So, for an RV kitchen, mine is much nicer and much bigger than a lot of RVs. As we were looking towards buying an RV, we looked at, I don't know, a 100 different models and found one where the kitchen would work for me. And it hasn't limited what I've been able to do really at all, which has been really nice. And then photography, I just use these, like, 24 inch photography boards. And Yeah. You know, some of them, you would never know that it's a board even though it's a small little board. You know, the cover of the cookbook has a window in the background, the the cover photo.Rebecca Blackwell [00:13:40]:And people are shocked to know that that's not a window, that it's just a a board that I set up on on my kitchen table.Stephanie Hansen [00:13:48]:And create, like, a little good light, and there you go.Rebecca Blackwell [00:13:51]:Exactly. Exactly. Artificial lighting for photography has been a a game changer for me because, relying on how the light comes in and what time of day it is and where we are in the world and what the weather is doing and, you know, all of those things affect it. And so that's been that's been really important to use artificial lighting in in the RV.Stephanie Hansen [00:14:14]:One thing I'm curious about, I feel like travel and being in new spaces and meeting new people, I feel like that so, like, inspires creativity and gets you sort of out of your day to day existence. Does that persist when you're, like, your day to day existence is all those things? So I'm just curious. Like, I'm wondering how it is that you, like, ground yourself when everything around you is changing, or is that just a constant source of inspiration? Like food, like the ingredients. Everything is different everywhere you go.Rebecca Blackwell [00:14:52]:That's true. Yeah. That's very true. You know, it's interesting. I I just started listening to a book that's talking about the difference between, it's it's mostly focused on anxiety and the difference between right brain and left brain functionality. And our right brain is really where our creativity lies. And, the more stressed out and anxious we are, the the more it shuts down creativity. It, like, just closes that part off of us. And I feel like as we travel around, I can identify how when we get into a new place, the more I'm able to just be present in that place and appreciate the experience of being there, the more I can feel that creativity opening up and, just relaxing relaxing my mind enough to to, like, really see where are we and and and what is this place like. And and that just brings forth a whole bunch of new ideas. And then also What's the book?Stephanie Hansen [00:15:55]:Do you know?Rebecca Blackwell [00:15:56]:Oh, yeah. It's, Martha Beck.Stephanie Hansen [00:15:59]:Okay.Rebecca Blackwell [00:15:59]:And, I don't remember the title, but it's her it's her newest one, and there's the word anxiety in the title.Stephanie Hansen [00:16:04]:It's highly recommended. And just put it in the show notes in case anyoneRebecca Blackwell [00:16:08]:Very good. Yeah. Because she has this idea that we can use our creative mind to calm stress and anxiety in our lives, and I I love that idea. So and, you know, before we moved into the RV, I I could have, you know, shopped at the same places, and I could have very distinct ideas and just go to the grocery store and get them. And now I have to show up with a very loose idea of what I want because you never know. You never know what's gonna be there. Yeah.Stephanie Hansen [00:16:33]:And that justRebecca Blackwell [00:16:35]:also been a creative, I think a creative boost to not be so rigid in that thinking.Stephanie Hansen [00:16:41]:Yeah. I love that idea. Also, I think for we're in this kind of weird political place where everybody is very polarized in their silos, and you're either all this or you're all that, and there's very little nuance. One thing I found about traveling that really helped me a lot is this idea that wherever you are in an RV park, like Yep. Whether you're alone or you're with others, everybody's kind of there for the same things.Rebecca Blackwell [00:17:11]:That's right.Stephanie Hansen [00:17:12]:You might approach them differently. Like, your political flag might fly differently. But at the end of the day, they're sitting out there at their campfire. You're sitting out at your campfire. It doesn't hurt you to kinda go over and introduce yourself and share a beer or a glass of wine. And I just felt so appreciative that I had that experience because when I'm in a dark place and I'm feeling like I'm alone in my own silo, I remember that, oh, no. There's all these other people out there, and we kinda get to it a different way, but we want security for our family. We wanna have jobs that are meaningful.Stephanie Hansen [00:17:47]:We wanna love and be able to be, you know, in a place that's beautiful. That really helped me have a lot of empathy for people that weren't like me.Rebecca Blackwell [00:17:57]:Yeah. I agree completely. We had this one experience a couple of years ago where we were talking to a couple in our campground, and, he got on a a tangent of all sorts of political ideas. And and we just stood there listening, and and I didn't agree with pretty much anything he was saying. And at the end of it, I I just said, you know, I didn't actually agree with anything that you just said, but one thing that I've learned is that there are good people everywhere even if they think differently from me. And so then we ended up talking about that. And that, I I have strong opinions about a lot of things. And so the more I meet people that don't share that same perspective, the the better it is for me, the better it is for my my state of mind.Rebecca Blackwell [00:18:50]:I can get very pigeonholed into thinking that the world is a dark place. And then when I'm out in it and actually meeting the people that live in all of these places, it's a it's a solid reminder that it's not it's not a dark place. Most people are very generous and very kind and very friendly. And in every state, that's true.Stephanie Hansen [00:19:12]:We Yeah.Rebecca Blackwell [00:19:13]:We have states that we enjoy more than others, but we have found good people and beautiful places pretty pretty much everywhere.Stephanie Hansen [00:19:23]:That is, like, the moral of the story, isn't it? Like, right what you just said. And it's why I I love sailing. I love RV ing. I love going to Europe. I love traveling. And Yeah. You know, I'm fortunate in that I have some reserves to do that, but you can just travel to your state park down the road and just really explore it in your car and sleep in your car and meet so many different people. And I didn't sleep in a tent for well, honestly, I've only slept in a tent, like, probably twice because I've either had an RV or a cabin or but it is a very eye opening experience to just put yourself out there and the people that you meet.Stephanie Hansen [00:20:03]:So I'm really excited about your lost, the let's, not the let's get lost. I'm excited about the lost supper club. Because in the Midwest, as you know, supper clubs are such a big deal here.Rebecca Blackwell [00:20:15]:Yes. I know. So that I did I didn't know anything about supper clubs until we visited the Midwest. And then I was like, well, this is cool.Stephanie Hansen [00:20:24]:Yeah. And some of them are they're sort of older, folks here, but then there's others that are more modern now, and we're kinda getting back to seeing fancy relish trays and fancy high end restaurants. And just the idea of the supper club being, like, a place where you gather on a Friday or Saturday night, and it can be with friends. And it doesn't have to be at a restaurant all the time, and it certainly does not have to always be steak.Rebecca Blackwell [00:20:49]:That's right. Well, and in the south, if you say supper club, people don't even realize that you're talking about an establishment. They supper clubs are a group of friends that get together on a regular basis. They're very organized, and, we we met some friends in Louisiana a few years ago. We're we're gonna do a supper club, at her place this year. But but she invited us to her home for dinner, and that's what it was. It was a supper club, and the table was tablescaped, and the China was out, and everybody was in their Sunday best. And, I mean, like, it was a it was an amazing dinner, an amazing event, and they they just she just does that all the time.Rebecca Blackwell [00:21:29]:It's just a a normal part of life to have theseStephanie Hansen [00:21:32]:Oh, fun.Rebecca Blackwell [00:21:33]:Amazing dinner parties with groups of people gathered around her table. And and so that's more what it is in the south. So, there's there's a lot of options and a lot of variety, for people to kind of create more community over food. And and, honestly, there's something about humans where we want if we're gonna get together with people, we want there to be food.Stephanie Hansen [00:21:56]:Yeah. Yes. Hot tea does not do it. You gotta have a stone or a biscuit or something else.Rebecca Blackwell [00:22:03]:Yes. That's right. That's right.Stephanie Hansen [00:22:24]:You can preorder the book now. We will provide a link in the show notes. Rebecca Blackwell, thank you for being our guest today. It was super fun to just chat with you. I think it's funny too the cookbooks behind you that made it on the RV list. You have probably, like, 30, way more than I would have thought.Rebecca Blackwell [00:23:09]:I have another 30 in our bedroom.Stephanie Hansen [00:23:12]:Okay. So do you read cookbooks like you read novels? Yes. Same. Like, at night when I'm in bed, I'm, like, reading a cookbook, not necessarily a book as it were.Rebecca Blackwell [00:23:23]:Yes. Well and I'm starting to order more on Kindle because, you know, I only have so much space. And Yeah. And I don't love the the Kindle cookbooks as much. It's ugh. I love having a book in my hands, but I can't stop buying them. So Yeah. Something hasStephanie Hansen [00:23:40]:Yeah. You gotta make make do where you can. Well, it was great to chat with you. Like I said, I'll have all the links for everything in the show notes here, and good luck. And I can't wait to connect with you next year after you've had this whole year of creativity behind you to see where it goes.Rebecca Blackwell [00:23:56]:Thank you so much for having me.Stephanie Hansen [00:23:58]:Thanks, Rebecca. We'll talk soon. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Born and raised in the Midwest to parents originally from Egypt, sisters Alia and Radwa Elkaffas created their Food Dolls platform to share exciting, fast, healthy meals. Born and raised in the Twin Cities to parents originally from Egypt, their recipes from “Pretty Delicious” are flavor-packed, Mediterranean-inspired, and plated with their signature style.Recently, we had a chance to catch up with the Food Dolls sisters on the eve of their cookbook launch for “Pretty Delicious” (pre-order the book here now) when we recorded a “Taste Buds With Stephanie” (episode drops on Fox 9 2/22/2025 at 8:30 am. ) at Radwa's gorgeous home. The sisters were as delightful and warm as ever, and we loved the recipes. “10 out of 10.” We made 3 recipes from the book, “Pretty Delicious”. I also riffed on their Marinated Tomatoes and Feta Dip and made it my own with all the same ingredients but as a baked pasta dish in homage to their talents.Cheesy Tomato and Feta Baked with Pasta and HerbsBy Stephanie Hansen Ingredients* 2 cups cherry tomatoes about 1 pint* 1/4 cup olive oil* 2 teaspoons salt* 1 teaspoon pepper* 8 oz. full-fat cream cheese at room temperature* 8 oz. feta cheese at room temperature* juice of half a lemon* 1 Tablespoon honey* 1/4 cup fresh parsley* 1/4 cup fresh basil* 1/4 cup fresh mint* 8 oz penne pastaInstructionsPreheat the oven to 400°F.Add the tomatoes, olive oil, salt, pepper, lemon and honey to a 9 x 13 baking dish.Nestle the cream cheese and feta cheese in the center of the baking dish amongst the tomatoesBake for 22-25 minutesMeanwhile, boil the pasta until el denteRemove from the oven and add the sour cream and stir the mixture, breaking it up combining the cheese and the tomatoes with the pasta making a saucetop with the fresh basil, parsley and mint, and serve hotEPISODE TRANSCRIPT:Stephanie:Hello, everybody, and welcome to Dishing with Stephanie's dish, the podcast where we talk to people equally obsessed in the food spaces as we are. And today, I'm with the Food Dolls. I'm with Radwa and Alia Elkaffas, and we had an opportunity to record a taste buds episode with them that will air at the end of February. I think it's gonna be February 22nd right on the eve of your book being available at stores.Alia Elkaffas:It well, we go live on the 25th.Stephanie:Okay. So you can preorder, though, your book Pretty Delicious right now. And if we talk about cookbooks in particular, the preorder is like it's crazy because what people don't know is all those preorders that you say you want this book, they count towards day 1 sales. And for people like Food Dolls who have such a massive following, it could be the day that launches them potentially to the top of the New York Times, cookbook list. So preorders for cookbook authors are super important. So we want you to get your books when they come out live, but we also want you to preorder because all of that stacked up on that first day counts to get them we're trying to get them on the New York Times bestseller list with their book. Would you like that, girls?Radwa Elkaffas:That would be just a dream.Stephanie:I know. It would. When when we spent time together in your home and watching you guys make your magic, When I left, one of the things that I asked, I'm like, so, you know, what are your intentions? And you were like, we wanna get our book on the New York Times bestseller list. And I think I really think you can do it because you guys have such a huge following. The book is so great. It's pretty delicious. Can we just back up? Like, you guys said you've been doing this pretty much since pre pandemic, but I feel like, you know, you've amassed such a huge following. Like, how did it get started?Radwa Elkaffas:Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me on, and it was so fun cooking with you last week. I well, we definitely started around 9 years ago now, which is so crazy to think that it's been that long. I think when we first started, we didn't really have, like, the best direction of what exactly Sure.Stephanie:No one did.Radwa Elkaffas:And we were trying to figure out social media. Both of our backgrounds were not chefs. We have no we have no photography background, no videography background. We had nothing, but we just knew that we love to cook, and we wanted to share with the world how easy and delicious you can make recipes. And I think that's been it since day 1. Our shift kind of changed a few years later on really kind of honing in on, like, our culture and our background and what we grew up eating, and people loved it. People loved it, and they love our, like, sister vibe.Stephanie:Yeah. You 2 are real life sisters, and are you 4 years apart?Alia Elkaffas:Yes. That's right.Stephanie:And, your background is your parents are from Egypt. Right. So you're you're leaning into that sort of cultural vibe. And what maybe a lot of people don't know, and I know a tiny, tiny bit, but, that Egypt is a very modern place all told. Like, can you just give us a little bit of, why it's a touchstone for you to still be speaking about this food that you guys have lived here most of your lives, but you still feel like this is such an influence for you?Alia Elkaffas:So our parents were they immigrated here in the early eighties. And so we were both born and raised here, but they really tried very hard to keep our Egyptian background alive. So whether it was with food, with, cultures, traditions. So, basically, we're very we're very Egyptian and Midwestern at the same time. So you even see a lot of our recipes. We do fusions between Egyptian and Mediterranean, Middle Eastern food with our Minnesota side.Stephanie:It's funny that you mentioned that today because, prior to talking with you, the way that taste buds works usually is we go out and we have an adventure somewhere. And in this episode, that adventure was with you guys in your home. And then we take what we learned from that adventure, and we come back into my kitchen. And so one of the things that I made was your, what was it? It was the Egyptian orzo with ground beef, and it had cinnamon in it. It was super delicious. The recipe worked beautifully, and everybody loved it. But what was funny was when we were making it, my cameraman said, oh, it's just like a casserole or a hot dish. And so I laughed.Stephanie:I was like, yes. This is like the Egyptian hot dish. That's exactly the mashup.Alia Elkaffas:Exactly. Yep. And that's what we we always say. It's like an Egyptian, hamburger helper, you know, casserole. So it's it's yeah. It's really good.Stephanie:Even down to, like I don't know if you guys ever have had rice aaroni, but it was like a combination between rice and pasta, and you sauteed it just like you did with the orzo to get the color on the pasta. So it was just really it it was a delicious recipe. The other thing that we did that will surprise you maybe is I was trying to think about how to take what I learned from you and your book and the way you cook and make that kinda my own too because I think that's so much of what you inspire people to do. So I took the marinated tomato, and creamy whipped feta dip that we made on the show with you, and I took all those same ingredients literally to the letter, but we made a pasta bake with it.Radwa Elkaffas:Oh, that sounds delicious.Stephanie:Yeah. So you'll see that on the episode. We made it and we made it into, like, a pasta bake because when I was looking at the recipe that you guys made when we were in your kitchen, I was like, oh, this is kinda like that feta where the roasted tomatoes. And so that's the surprise for you that you'll see that we just took your dish and all the ingredients. It was very fun to and it was interesting too because, Michelle, my producer, she was like because she loved your dip so much. And then she was like, and it's so weird that this is the exact same ingredients, but the flavor profile is so different.Radwa Elkaffas:Changes everything.Stephanie:Yeah. And maybe just the roasting of the tomatoes too and the heat and the pasta because that was the one thing we did add. But it was really fun to think about how to take a recipe from your book, but kinda, like, just twist it with all the same stuff. It was fun.Alia Elkaffas:Yep. Awesome. Yeah. And that's what we love to do. We love taking these just these simple ingredients and just turning them into something amazing. You know? You don't need like, you don't need anything crazy and any crazy ingredients, and you could just make something that's really good and with simple ingredients.Stephanie:Yeah. I think that's why we really liked your recipes that also, we made a beautiful chicken dish. Do you wanna describe the chicken dish that we made?Radwa Elkaffas:Oh, that's sassy chicken and potatoes? Yes. And that's the thing. Like, we are busy moms who don't really have a lot of time, so we're always thinking, okay. What can we do that's just easy, delicious, and you could just throw it together. Literally throw everything into the baking dish, make your, marinade, and throw it together and pop it in the oven. So you could do it the night before, so it's a great make ahead, or you can make it the same day, but really just getting those flavors to infuse overnight is awesome. And who doesn't love having dinner the day before? So all you have to do is throw it in the oven when you're ready to eat it is exactly what we love to do.Stephanie:How many days a week do you okay. Let's just back up a second. You guys have I think we determined it was 8,000,000 followers over all the platforms. How many days a week do you actually spend together creating content versus the marketing and the managing of the content?Radwa Elkaffas:I think this that's the beauty of having 2 of us is we do a lot of divide and conquer, which really helps us a lot, and it alleviates a lot of pressure off of each other. There's things that we obviously have to do together, like our end shots. Or if we're filming, like, a recipe clip that we're actually in, then we have to be together. I think we just kinda take it week by week because maybe we have, like, a high sponsored week that we have to do our sponsors, or if we have a lighter week, or we, you know, are going on vacation and we need to film as many as we can so we can have a little bit extra, content. I think we just kind of take it week by week.Stephanie:When you look at your content calendar, how far in advance do you go, or do you just do it week by week?Radwa Elkaffas:I mean, I would love to say that we're the most organized, sisters ever, but we're not. We really just kind of sometimes we wing it. Sometimes even we don't recipe test the recipe. We're like, okay. Let's just try this, And sometimes it is a 100% fail and it does not work. And other times, we're like, we nailed that. Like, it is absolutely amazing, and then we get super excited. Sometimes those are our best recipes when it's just spur of the moment.Alia Elkaffas:I I was gonna say sometimes we have this, like, master plan. Oh, we're gonna make x y z today. It's gonna be great. And all of a sudden, we're in the middle of making it, and it turns into something a 100% different, and and we just we just goStephanie:with it.Alia Elkaffas:You know?Stephanie:Yeah. It's so fun. And the styling of the book, what I noticed when I was at your home is you both have a similar style, but your homes are very curated and full of beautiful art and beautiful flowers, and you have a a real, statement color palette. And that kinda translates to your work online and the book. Have you always been like that since you were little kids? Oh, you're both matching. You have all the perfect lips, the perfect hair, all the stuff.Radwa Elkaffas:You know, it's so funny. Like, our favorite color is really black and white. Like, it's not just something that we created for our brand. It is it's legit what we love. We love black and white. When we went through our brand and what we wanted it to look like, it was okay. How are we gonna incorporate this into our brand? Because what we like at home, this is what we do at home, and we also love it in our clothes. So it's not just we like black and white, and I I this might sound a little crazy that we love black and white and everything, but we do.Radwa Elkaffas:So it ended up being that we love it at home. We love it in the book. We love it in online. Like, it's just so it's it's just part of our, Food Dolls identity at this point.Stephanie:Can you remember the first thing you guys ever made, like, by yourselves just, like, as a kid? Or, like, did you have a first cookbook? Or do you remember just, like, that first thing you really made?Alia Elkaffas:I would I'm pretty sure the first thing we probably ever made together was probably baked cookies. You know? Like, just straight up cookies or a box of brownie mix or something.Stephanie:Totally. That is and, it was always like cookies or brownies because it was kind of a one bowl situation. Right? I didn't wanna make a mess with your mom. Is there a recipe that you feel like, a, gets a lot of attraction, but, b, like, really represents you? It's like, this is the one that we feel like is our statement.Radwa Elkaffas:Wow. That's a really good question. Okay. I will say this. Our most popular recipes are the most shocking that we would have never guessed that these are, like, the most popular recipes. We did, a a baked spaghetti that went absolutely crazy. Would we have thought that that was gonna be our number one recipe on the website? No. We love it, but people went crazy overAlia Elkaffas:it. Yeah.Radwa Elkaffas:So crazy. And it was it's just really shocking to us. But I think we kinda came to the conclusion is our top recipes are, like, the simplest, easiest. Like, you've got these recipe you've got these ingredients in your pantry. So all you have to do is throw it together, and I think that's what always wins.Stephanie:Yeah. And it's always surprising, like, the ones that get the most traction, and you just think like, wow. That's weird. Like, one of mine is this chao chao relish that they bake usually in the south, and I always have green tomatoes that I garden with. So I ended up just having to kind of make this thing, and it's, like, always in the top three. I don't know who's clicking on that recipe that much, but people are. It's weird.Alia Elkaffas:Yeah. It's funny how that works. It's just what what you think is gonna like, people are like, oh my god. This is so good. It's the opposite, and it's like something that, you know, is the most, like, and simple and basic. And you know?Stephanie:When we talk about your Egyptian heritage, and I asked you guys about this when we met, What is it specifically, like for instance, when we were doing the Orzo bake, they the the producer asked, she was like, what do you think about this makes it Egyptian? And I was, like, saying the flavor profiles and the types of ingredients that we use. But is there something that you feel like is uniquely Egyptian that you bring to the party?Alia Elkaffas:That's a really good question. So I'd say a lot of the dishes in the book are not necessarily, like, true Egyptian. It's got, like, some fusion to it with, like, Mediterranean flavors. And a lot of the, like, the real traditional Egyptian recipes might be a little bit more intricate, so we were trying to simplify it by using some of those those same flavor profiles, but not necessarily doing it step by step like our mom would do our aunts or grandma. You know?Stephanie:One of the ingredients in the casserole that we made was tomato paste, and you cooked down the tomato paste. But that like, when you think about tomatoes in warm climates, you know, the flavor is so intense and so concentrated, and you do kinda get that from a tomato paste. I hadn't really thought about that before.Alia Elkaffas:Yeah. That's very true. And we do have a lot of dishes that are very tomato based as well.Stephanie:Yeah. I love it. Okay. So when you guys are, like, absolutely exhausted and the kids are driving you crazy and it's 6 o'clock and you have to put something is there, like, a go to meal for each of you?Radwa Elkaffas:I'm, like, thinking about it because I'm like, okay. There's a lot. I feel like our like, the chicken and potatoes, I think, for sure, to just kind of throw together. But I really do love that to sit overnight. But if I'm, like, in a pinch, I will say the kids maybe sometimes eat something different than I do, because they're so picky. Like, I have a 4 year old, a 9 year old, and one wants, you know, quesadillas, and the other one's, like, fighting me on the chicken and potatoes and rice. Like so I would say that what it's always 2 different things. I'm not even gonna lie about it because they they drive me absolutely crazy about getting them to eat everything all at the same time and and the same thing.Radwa Elkaffas:So I would say for me, it would be the chicken potatoes. For them, it would definitely be some sort of pasta. And we love 1 pot pastas because you can have it ready in 15 minutes, and we have so many 1 pot pastas in our book.Stephanie:Yeah. You do have a lot. I tried to make the dish as a 1 pot with the pasta already in the baking dish and make the sauce right in the pan, but I couldn't get the right ratio of water to pasta. I made it twice, and the pasta kept coming out a little crunchy. So I'm done, and I just make I just made it I just boiled the pasta and did it that way and added it later. But I did try twice to get it, like because I kept thinking it would be so great if you could just do this all in the oven in the one pan. And maybe a different pan or a flatter pan, I could haveAlia Elkaffas:That could be. And it could be also the kind of pasta that sometimes makes a difference as well.Stephanie:Yeah. I should have tried an orzo, but I had a penne. So yep. Do you when your kids are, like, picky like that, do you feel like, okay. No, kids. This is what I made. This is what we're eating. I'm not a short order cook.Stephanie:Or are you more lax and you're like, just whatever we're eating, go ahead. Eat it as long as you eat.Radwa Elkaffas:I would have to say I kind of started, especially with my kids, learning how they are, and I don't care if I make the same thing every single week if I know they're gonna eat it. Why am I gonna sit here and fight every single week to try to get them to try new things? Because I I see I see Alia as, like, the perfect examples because my kids are younger. Hers are older. So now they're starting to eat anything. So I know hopefully, eventually, they'll get there, but we're in this, like, little phase right now where I'm trying to just get them to eat. I just want them to eat. I don't care what they eat. I just want them to eat the dinner.Radwa Elkaffas:So I will make the same things over and over and over again because I know they like it, and I know they'll eat it. SoAlia Elkaffas:I was gonna say a lot of times, like, even, like, for example, we do have, like, a southwest salad in the cookbook. So what I'll do instead of assembling it altogether as a salad, I kind of keep it some of the components separate so all the kids could kind of grab what they do like and what they don't like. So that way, it's like it feels custom to them versus, you know, making it putting everything together and forcing them to eat it as is.Stephanie:That's smart. It's like the Chipotle method. Right? Giving them choices. Yep. I I do think too, like, we spend a lot of time worrying about stuff that's probably not super consequential in the grand scheme of life. Kids are gonna eat, you know. Sooner or later, they're gonna eat. Sooner or later, they're gonna develop their palate whether, you know, they were part of the clean plate club or not.Stephanie:It feels like kind of a weird thing to worry about looking back on my childhood and how much time and struggle there was about, like, what you ate and you couldn't leave the table till you ate it and just kinda dumb. When you think about social media with your kids, I noticed that we don't really see your kids. Is that intentional, or how do you feel like you want your kids to show up as, teenagers and young adults in this profile of their moms being so famous?Alia Elkaffas:Yes. That is a great question. So we purposely, we do not put our kids on social media, and we have very, very little images of images of them anywhere just to protect their privacy as well. You know? And it's like once stuff is out in social media, once it's out in the world, it's out there forever. So, yeah, we choose to keep them up.Radwa Elkaffas:Sure that they have that decision later. You know? Like, it will not come back at us. Like, why did you put me on there? You know? Have that choice later. And so now we're gonna be mama bears and just protect them.Stephanie:I think too we're seeing, the social media I guess Facebook just turned 20 recently, which is hard to believe. But when it first came about, you know, like, we were just on it, and it was new, and it was exciting, and we didn't really think about the big picture. And I think now if I had my daughter's 25. So if I had it I made her wait till 13. And if I had to do it all over again and I was in this day and age, I definitely would I might get my kid, like, a flip phone or something terrible that they can only call me on, but I would have waited because I do think social media adds an element to young, kids' lives that maybe they don't need or aren't ready for it until later.Radwa Elkaffas:Absolutely. A 100% agree with you on that.Stephanie:How do your parents feel about your business?Radwa Elkaffas:I think it took them such a long time to fully understand it.Stephanie:It's probably soRadwa Elkaffas:weird. Grasp what we what it is exactly we are doing. But I we know that they're so proud of us and super excited to see us do this and, you know, especially mom, you know, she was a really big influence for us growing up and in in the cooking world. So we love making them proud.Stephanie:Do you have anxiety about, like, keeping up or, like, always being on the churn? And what do you do for, like, self care?Alia Elkaffas:Oh, that's a great one. Yes. I'd say we do have definitely have the anxiety, but we try to we always talk each other down, calm each other down, and just know that, you know, just talk things through together. But and I'd say probably self care. We like to work out just to kind of, you know, really get the release those endorphins. You know?Radwa Elkaffas:And we we actually do yell at each other, like, stop working. You need to stop working. Stop looking at your screen. Put your computer down. Stop doing this. We do that all all the time to each other.Alia Elkaffas:Yep.Stephanie:What are your favorite types of workouts?Radwa Elkaffas:I would say lifting and walking.Stephanie:What was lifting and walking?Alia Elkaffas:Yep. Same lifting, walking, and, you know, doing some sort of cardio.Stephanie:Yeah. And you have kids too. So you're probably trying to fit it in when you can. And it's hard to, like, go to a structured gym and do all that when you've got a lot of family at home and, a structured gym and do all that when you've got a lot of family at home. And how do you feel about working from home? And does that work for your schedules? Or do you ever visualize, like, someday having an office where you have all your production stuff? AndRadwa Elkaffas:I I love working from home because of the flexibility and having everything at home where you could quickly just, but it it's definitely a challenge to disconnect sometimes because work is home, home is work. So it's hard to, like, break the 2 apart. But it's nice that we have 2 houses. So if we need a break from 1 house, we go to the other one.Stephanie:Yeah. That is nice. Like, just it because it can just feel so much like, oh, you're just in your house all the time doing all this stuff.Alia Elkaffas:And it's it really is hard to disconnect. So it's not like we try to have work hours, but it's like it's almost impossible. So, like, we'll work, and then we'll take a break, even run kids' activities, come back, finish working. So it's like it feels like sometimes it's like a nonstop cycle. But, yeah, that's when we have to put each other in check, say, get off and go take a break.Stephanie:Yeah. Okay. Switching gears, what is your and each of you can have a separate answer, of course, but what is your, like, most used kitchen utensil or gadget or thing that, like, you could not live without?Radwa Elkaffas:Air fryer.Stephanie:That was so fast.Radwa Elkaffas:Absolutely. I have to suck at her on.Stephanie:Yeah. Yep. Really? I I use my air fryer so rarely. It's in the garage. Like, do you use it every day? What are you doing with it?Radwa Elkaffas:Every single day. Like, there is not a day that goes by that I don't use that.Alia Elkaffas:Really? For reheating things, for making things. We actually do have some instructions in the cookbook. Like, if if you wanna make this recipe in an air fryer, how to do that. But it just makes things so much easier even if, like, the kids wanna make chicken and fries or something. You know? It crisps it up perfectly, and it feels like you're eating it, you know, freshly, like, deep fried. You know?Stephanie:Alright. I'm gonna have to get my air fryer out of the garage and give it another try. I just I don't know. It's like, and I have a convection oven too. So I think the convection oven does the same thing, but I don't have kids, so maybe that's different, you know, just the speed and convenience of it being right on the counter like that.Radwa Elkaffas:And you mentioned what we do on there. And, honestly, like, even we do, like, French toast. Like, if you wanna make French toast, you can throw your French toast in there. Or if you make a marinated chicken, just throw it in there, shut it, and it's done in no time. And you don't have to worry about a mess.Stephanie:Yeah. And it goes faster too. You guys will be on a book tour, I'm imagining. Is that all coming together, and how is that feeling?Radwa Elkaffas:It's exciting. Super excited to do that. That's gonna be end of February, beginning of March. We have we're stopping at 5 different cities. So we're really excited about that.Alia Elkaffas:And our last office is gonna be here in Minneapolis.Stephanie:So we're gonna so great. Do you know where you're gonna be or what you're doing yet?Alia Elkaffas:We're gonna be at the Barnes and Noble in Edina. So that'll be where I don't think we have a confirmed time yet, but that'll be on March. It's a Sunday, March 2nd, I believe.Stephanie:Alright. Well, when you know, just let me know, and I'll make sure and share it. It's been super fun just chatting with you guys. I knew just from kinda following you that I like, oh, I'm gonna like these girls. But really, honestly, it was, like, one of my best days. And I just so proud of you, and I feel like you know, how you you meet people and you want them to be successful or you're so proud of their success? That's how I feel about you guys. You really work hard, and you've really earned, everything that's coming your way. And I think the book's gonna be amazing, and it was just it's been fun to just be a little tiny, tiny part of the journey for a second.Stephanie:It's been a blast.Radwa Elkaffas:Thank you so much. And, honestly, your energy that you brought to that table last week was everything. You made us feel so good, and we we we felt like a $1,000,000 after you left. So thankAlia Elkaffas:you for having me. So honored to have gotten to work with you, and now we get to be friends and Yes.Stephanie:I'm I'm actually I just I'm planning, I I I booked a do you know, a Khmeran feast at Vinay? And I've had one for a while, and so I was like, oh, I wonder. Maybe I'll do a gathering of, like, food ladies just to do something fun and different.Radwa Elkaffas:Yeah.Stephanie:Alright, you guys. Your book's gonna be great. Keep me in the loop. I'll keep you in the loop if anything fun's happening. And just thanks for being taste buds.Radwa Elkaffas:Awesome. Thank you so much.Stephanie:Alright. We'll see you soon. Bye. Bye bye. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

I am thrilled to bring you the latest episode of "Dishing with Stephanie's Dish," where we welcome the incredibly talented Hayden Haas, the creative mind behind "Simply Delishaas: Favorite Recipes from the Midwestern Kitchen." Discover Hayden's unique path from being a dishwasher on the Food Network to becoming an assistant to Molly Yeh and, eventually, a renowned cookbook author and now Minneapolis resident! Follow Hayden on Instagram @haydendelishaasFeatured RecipesThis pickle soup recipe is from Hayden's Food Blog where he has other delicious recipes including the Cranberry Tortellini recipe we talked about from the book.Pickle SoupServes 6Ingredients:* 3 russet potatoes or 3c (2-3pounds) diced (this also works with frozen potatoes) (300- 420g)* 3 tbsp Extra virgin olive oil (13g)* 2 carrots roughly chopped (130g)* 2 stalks of celery roughly chopped (120g)* 1 yellow onion, diced (150g)* 6 cloves of garlic, minced (60g)* 2 tbsp butter (14g)* 4 tbsp ap flour (30g)* Salt and pepper to preference * 4- 6 cups of vegetable or chicken broth (940-1410g)* 1 heaping cup of dill pickles chopped (about 5-6 pickles)* 1/2c pickle brine (127g)* 1 bunch of fresh dill, divided (100g)* 2 bay leaves (less than a gram) * 1 tsp fresh thyme (10g)* 1c freshly grated havarti cheese (83-100g)* 1/2c heavy cream (119g)* For garnish* Heavy cream for drizzling, sriracha for drizzling and remaining fresh dill  If you'd like an addition I grew up eating  this with garlic bread! * In a large pot over high heat begin boiling about 6cups of salted water. Once boiling add in potatoes, boil and drain.  ( you can make this all in one pot or two separate ones!* cook for 20 minutes and drain. If using a second, over medium heat add olive oil, onion, celery, carrot and garlic. * Cook until translucent about 8-10 minutes . Season with salt and pepper to preference (I use about 1tsp of each) * Once translucent, add in butter and melt then flour and mix until coated. Slowly start to incorporate the broth (you'll see it change to a light creamy color) add in the potatoes, pickles, pickle brine, fresh herbs and simmer for 20-30 minutes over medium heat. Add in the cheese and heavy cream and mix until combined! You can enjoy from here or dress a bowl! To a bowl add your soup, a drizzle of heavy cream, sriracha and fresh dill! Enjoy!Pickle PopcornThis Pickle Popcorn recipe is from Hayden's Food Blog He calls is Netflix and (Chi)DillIngredients:3 tbsp Oil of choice (see tips)1/2c  Popcorn kernels (a heaping 1/2c)5 tbsp (or more) Good quality butter (I like to use Kerrygold) ½ bunch Dill fresh or dried, chopped½ tsp Italian seasoning ½ tsp Garlic powder ½ tsp Onion powder 1 tsp cheese powder (optional) 3 tsp Pickle juice (brine) from a jar of picklesSalt ( i would recommend fine salt for this)-optional hot sauce for serving if youre Selena GomezTips: you can use avocado oil, refined coconut oil, vegetable oil, or even olive oil! I would recommend using a dutch oven or your favorite soup pot for this recipe (something with a lid)InstructionsTo a large pot over medium to high heat, add the oil, when the oil is hot add 2 or 3 kernels to test to see if its ready, then add the rest of the kernels and cover, leave a little crack to let some steam escape if needed. Another helpful tip when making popcorn over the stove, is to gently wiggle the pot while holding the lid and handles to jiggle the kernels around. Listen to the kernels, when it has mostly stopped popping, removed from the heat then add to a large bowl.In the meantime begin melting the butter on the stove or microwave in 15 second intervals. Add the seasonings to the butter along with the pickle juice, stir to combine, slowly incorporate over the popcorn and give it a light shake to distribute the pickley butter. Serve immediately! Store in an air tight container, Enjoy!EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:Stephanie Hansen [00:00:16]:Hello, everybody, and welcome to Dishing with Stephanie's dish, the podcast where we talk to people in the food space, cookbook authors, people generally obsessed with food. I am holding in my hot little hands favorite recipes from the Midwestern Kitchen. Book is called simply Delicious by Hayden Haas. Delicious. I love the title. It's so funny.Hayden Haas [00:00:39]:Thank you so much, and thank you for having me on.Stephanie Hansen [00:00:41]:Oh, it's a blast. So let us talk about your cookbook and, like, use you somehow have not been on my radar. And then I, like, found your Instagram, and I was like, oh my gosh. This guy's from the Midwest. He has almost 500,000 followers. He's friends with Molly Yeh. I mean, how would how tell us about how you got started in the cookbook world because you must have been a food stylist. Your book is incredible.Hayden Haas [00:01:06]:Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Yes. I did have a little bit experience, with, food styling. I got my start on Food Network surprisingly as a dishwasher and sort of led me, on an unexpected path into the food world where I was then met with Molly and then, you know, the pandemic happened one thing or another. And then I was her personal assistant and then got to see all everything that's involved with that whole world. And Molly was such a joy and kinda taught me how to write my own recipes. And I'm so thankful for all the time that I did spend with her, learning behind the scenes.Hayden Haas [00:01:51]:The most important part was obviously the recipe development but also kind of, when I was working behind the scenes I kind of learned how to film and direct my own videos as well as, edit them at the same time too. So it was kind of just a full package deal. I still to this day don't even really realize that I'm doing so many people's jobs, and I'm so thankful that I had that opportunity.Stephanie Hansen [00:02:18]:Yeah. Your your book is well, it's beautifully shot, and you can tell, there's a lot of lifestyle to it and, yes, we're looking at recipes, but many times we're looking at, not completed recipes, like the ingredients of making it. There's a lot of color in the book. Whoever did the design, it has a real rainbow flare, which I think is really cute. Yes. I just loved it. I really got the book, and it feels really like, if I knew you, I feel like this is really a reflection of you.Hayden Haas [00:02:54]:Thank you so much. I that was something that was really important to me. I kind of think of this as, like, my debut album. And I it's so so special to me because one of my best friends actually took all of the photography for me, and there's so much, family and friends and everything tied into it. And my designer's name was Lindsey Dobbs from Penguin Random House. So I I really wanted to include a lot of color. That was something that was really important to me and kind of all seasons. Even though,You know, it is based mostly in the Midwest, and we have winter here maybe, like, 6 to 9 months of the year. So, trying to cover all of those bases and get pictures was probably the hardest part.Stephanie Hansen [00:03:42]:Yeah. And people I mean, just the shooting of a book and having the seasonality to it, it is hard. Like, I'm working on a book that's a sort of cozy winter cooking book, but we haven't had snow for over a year. So I'm trying to find snowy pictures.Hayden Haas [00:04:01]:Yes. Yes. You're also a published author, and I was just checking out your books as well.Stephanie Hansen [00:04:07]:I am a published author, but I think I'm in a different vein than you. Because while I do like developing recipes, my point of view is usually typically from, like, someone's inspired from a grandma or a friend or and then I kinda take it and make it my own. I am getting a little more confident in just being like, oh, I'm just gonna make this and kinda knowing how things come together.Hayden Haas [00:04:33]:Yeah. And that's, something that's super important in my cookbook too because that was inspired by all the important women in my life, like my mom and my grandmas and, you know, of course, like Molly, there's so many people who have contributed to me at this point that I couldn't not also include them and all these people who have motivated me and supported me, including all of my followers and stuff. Like, this wasn't originally my intended career path, but I am so thankful that it is.Stephanie Hansen [00:05:04]:What was your intended career path?Hayden Haas [00:05:06]:I went to school for architecture and drafting. I had dreams of becoming an architect, and then I decided that that wasn't really where my heart was, but it was a very good paying job.Stephanie Hansen [00:05:18]:And you live in North Dakota. Is that correct?Hayden Haas [00:05:21]:No. I actually recently just relocated to Minneapolis.Stephanie Hansen [00:05:25]:Oh, so you're probably like a neighbor somewhere.Hayden Haas [00:05:28]:Yeah. I'm freshly here for a couple of months, so I'm still kind of catching my bearings and, making my little space home, but Minneapolis has been so welcoming, and I have literally no complaints. It's a really great place to be.Stephanie Hansen [00:05:45]:Yeah. So now are you here for a short time? OrHayden Haas [00:05:49]:No. I'm here to stay until further notice.Stephanie Hansen [00:05:53]:Okay. So I need to I'm gonna connect with you, and we'll have a cup of coffee, and maybe I could help because do you need do you need this sounds so weird. Do you need friends?Hayden Haas [00:06:05]:I do need friends. Yes. Been so actively looking for friends. I need more foodie friends. You know, I'm kind of like I don't wanna say I'm a shut in, but since I work from home, I just cook all this food, and I get to share it with all my friends and neighbors. So it's just a great little opportunity and kind of like a howdy neighbor to Minneapolis.Stephanie Hansen [00:06:29]:Yeah. I love it. And same. So I'm always cooking tons of food. I'm also, like, because of the radio show, we go out a lot, but I'm always looking for people to eat with. I know that seems weird, but, like, not everyone loves to go out.Hayden Haas [00:06:46]:I'm also in that category. I also love having people over because, you know, you make a ton of cozy recipes. So it's like when you provide that environment of home and, just being able to host somebody in your home is just so wonderful, and that really fills my cup.Stephanie Hansen [00:07:04]:Yeah. Alright. Well, we've got a mission to get you introduced because we're getting into what I think could be the long winter months. I don't know. It's 80 degrees out, and it's practically Halloween, so it's very weird.Hayden Haas [00:07:17]:Wow. So strange how that's happening. I always knew Minneapolis was slightly warmer than where I'm from in North Dakota by at least 20 degrees. So I'm like, oh, if this is really what it's like, I'm all on board.Stephanie Hansen [00:07:29]:No. It's not at all. It's usually cold as hell. Alright. So I first found out about you from my friend Paul Folger from channel 5.Hayden Haas [00:07:41]:Oh.Stephanie Hansen [00:07:41]:And he was telling me about when you were on Twin Cities Live with him and Elizabeth and that you brought this pickle popcorn.Hayden Haas [00:07:52]:Yes.Stephanie Hansen [00:07:53]:Okay. And I'm obsessed with popcorn so much so that I really am not supposed to eat it because I used to eat so much of it. I had, like, stomach problems.Hayden Haas [00:08:03]:Oh, no.Stephanie Hansen [00:08:05]:But he brings me in this ziplock bag full of this pickle popcorn, and pickles are like, I'm obsessed with pickles, and I love popcorn. How did you think of the pickle popcorn recipe? Because it's a great recipe.Hayden Haas [00:08:19]:Thank you. I am in the same category as you as popcorn was literally my favorite snack when I was growing up. I just made a video talking about this slightly. Like, I was such a little weirdo with my popcorn. I mean, after school, we lived pretty close to a movie theater, so you could, like, pop in and grab some movie theater popcorn as a great little snack. So popcorn's always been one of my favorite things, along with pickles. So combining the 2 just kind of felt great. I love using pickle brine as an ingredient, and any opportunity to use fresh dill.Hayden Haas [00:08:55]:And we all know and love butter, so I kinda just fell hand in hand.Stephanie Hansen [00:09:00]:This is funny because I really am obsessed with dill too just because I grow it and it's like it volunteers in your garden where you don't want it, and then you're like, oh, I have dill, and you just have so much of it. You just end up using it all over.Hayden Haas [00:09:14]:And I think that's such a great problem to have too. I I don't know. It's either dill either because I'm also a little bit of a gardener myself. You can either grow it, and then it'll have, like, a bunch of abundance, or you're just done for it and you're not gonna have dill that year.Stephanie Hansen [00:09:28]:Yeah. I've had those years too. And then, like, the years you have it, you're like, wow. What I thought was so fascinating about the popcorn recipe was that you used the brine with the butter and it it didn't completely sog out the popcorn. Like, it did have kind of a, day after taste a little bit, but I love that about popcorn.Hayden Haas [00:09:50]:Me too. I, not to go back to movie theater popcorn, but I always loved it more the second day.Stephanie Hansen [00:09:58]:Yeah.Hayden Haas [00:09:58]:So when when you kind of combine those together and you coat them kind of gradually, it, you know, you don't want it to be, like, soggy from all of the butter and whatnot. So kind of figuring out how that works is, you know, you kind of figure it out the more often you make popcorn.Stephanie Hansen [00:10:14]:Well, Paul said that you were considering putting it in your next book.Hayden Haas [00:10:19]:Yes. I haven't announced that I'm doing the next book or anything like that, but I am so happy to share it. And so that is one of the next, recipes that I do plan on sharing. But it is already available to share on my blog, and I would happily make a video for everyone to follow along with.Stephanie Hansen [00:10:38]:Yeah. I really loved, he brought it in. I am not supposed to eat popcorn. I ate a handful. I loved it. And he was like, oh, no. You can just keep the bag. I was like, Paul, I can't because I have no self control, and I will end up eating this entire bag either by the time the show's over or on the way homeHayden Haas [00:10:58]:in the car. Totally delightful.Stephanie Hansen [00:10:59]:We laughed about that. When you your book has everything. Like, you have desserts, you have cozy casseroles and hot dishes, you have drinks, which I also really enjoy. I have a lot of drinks in my book too. You've got a lot of soups. We're in the Midwest. Right? Soups are great. How did you decide? You have a lot of recipes in here too.Stephanie Hansen [00:11:22]:Like, they must have been cutting you off.Hayden Haas [00:11:24]:I we had kind of a tricky time deciding on we did originally have more recipes that we wanted to do, but we kind of decided on, you know, the photography that was really important to include and any, like, follow along steps. But there's over a 125 recipes. I tried to make it, kind of accessible, for everybody to be able to shop because I came from a really small town where, you know, some of the largest stores you had were probably like a Walmart or something along those lines, Target, Walmart. So you should be able to shop most of these ingredients from places like those wherever you are in the world. So I took a lot of thought into that. So you based on things that you have in your pantry and or fridge that are just like staples to always keep on hand. I it was really important to me to, share with the reader that you can make all these delicious things with things that you probably already have. A lot of my personal favorites, I'm a big breakfast and brunch kinda guy.Hayden Haas [00:12:28]:I also love, like, the meat and potatoes of things. I think that's kind of very Midwest. If you know my dad, he's, like, always more protein, always more protein. Just can't get enough of that meat. And soups are kind of like my favorite thing in the entire I think it should have its own food group because it's just the best, and I love just alwaysStephanie Hansen [00:12:52]:You and I are gonna be fast friends, dude. I can just tell.Hayden Haas [00:12:55]:No. We need to have you over for a fine bowl of soup. And then, of course, I'm not much of a sweet tooth, but I love making them for other people. And then same with, the adult beverages, there's mocktail options in there too. So I really wanted to cover all of the bases, things that I regularly enjoy or that were from my childhood and nostalgic, but slightly modernized and from foods of all kinds of cultures that I really wanted to share and also put my own little fusion or twist on.Stephanie Hansen [00:13:24]:You seem very excited about your food life. Do you ever feel, like, taxed by it? I mean, with so many followers, you gotta be spending a lot of time on social media. Does it ever feel like you're giving up too much or just like you're burned out?Hayden Haas [00:13:39]:I I that's a great question. Thank you so much for asking. I definitely experience burnout, on those days. I would say that I film maybe like 3 or 4 days of the week, and sometimes it can be 2 recipes, sometimes it can be 3. So it kind of just depends, weighing on my schedule and then other projects that I have going on, trying to make that all work. It's so much fun and stressful at the same time. I love it so much that it doesn't always feel like work, but that doesn't mean that I don't get emotionally or physically taxed from it. So sometimes where I'm like, today is not a filming day or, like, let's say I get, like, a zit or something like that.Hayden Haas [00:14:20]:You know? Because we all have everyday problems and stuff like that too. I, that's also really important where it's like, I don't, like, edit any of my videos where it's, like, lighting them different or even when I'm food styling, it's not like I'm doing anything crazy. So I want people to when they see a video or recipe of mine where it's like, how you see it is probably how it's gonna show up. That's, you know, how I intended it. And I tested that recipe 10 times or a 100 times. So it's like, I want you to have that result because I know the person at home, whether they're living on a budget or, you know, just trying to get more experience in the kitchen, that they have that confidence and they can pretty much jump into any recipe in the book that you know, it's anybody from any walk of life would be able to. So that was super important. And but sorry to get back to your original question, being taxed by the or tax or burnout.Hayden Haas [00:15:19]:I definitely experienced burnout, but those are the days where I'm like, it's more of a work on my computer type of day and Right. Let's order some takeout.Stephanie Hansen [00:15:28]:Yeah. I, when I looked at your book too, because I'm in the final like, I'm just in the final edits of my book. Yeah. That's due December 31st for my second one. We have a couple of, like, similar recipes. They're different, but they're similar. So it'll be fun to see when we when mine's out, we can kinda compare notes on some of the recipes.Hayden Haas [00:15:53]:I would love that. And that's something that I also value so much about the community and followers that I've built is a lot of these people do try the recipes, whether they post it or share it or whatever. People are making it for their families, and it's bringing so many people together, which is what makes me so happy. Or I love when somebody makes, like, a soup or a dessert recipe for, like, their friends and stuff because that's what I love to do. Yeah. It just feels full circle and it really makes my day.Stephanie Hansen [00:16:24]:So what is the first dish that you remember, like, making yourself? Can you remember? Did you cook as a kid?Hayden Haas [00:16:32]:There's so many things. My mom always had us in the kitchen. So we were always doing, like, baking and fun stuff like that. A recipe I guess this the one I can remember the most is not actually, like, an eating type recipe, but my mom and I used to make our own Play Doh.Stephanie Hansen [00:16:49]:Yes.Hayden Haas [00:16:50]:Yes. And, I mean, occasionally, I'm sure I you know, kids eat Play Doh, so I would taste it and be like, oh, that's salty. And so, like, not quite a recipe that's supposed to be edible, but that's the one that I think about and I wanna share all the time, but I don't have any kids to play Play Doh with.Stephanie Hansen [00:17:05]:That's funny. No. I think, yeah, we made that a lot as kids. And, also, I don't even know why we ever made this, but we used to make our own, like, homemade tootsie rolls.Hayden Haas [00:17:15]:Oh my gosh. I bet that was so special.Stephanie Hansen [00:17:17]:Yeah. And I don't know where we got the recipe or why we would make those, but I had sisters and so that's what we would do.Hayden Haas [00:17:24]:You have a mother's sweet little treat like that.Stephanie Hansen [00:17:26]:Yeah. Are you a freezer hoarder because you're cooking so much?Hayden Haas [00:17:30]:Oh, yeah. There's a lot of, disorganization that happens in but at the same time, I'm pretty good about, not having food waste. I kind of like auction things off to my neighbors and, you know, people that I meet that are kind of like within the vicinity where I'll say like, hey. For example, I just made, my breakfast pizza recipe and so I can kinda just auction it off to my friends who are all super busy and whatnot. And, oh, it's just great because I kinda get to feed my own little community and get their feedback at the same time where it's like, yeah. Don't add onions to this or that was too salty or something like that. So it's so helpful to get that here.Stephanie Hansen [00:18:12]:I'm creeping my neighbors out actually because I'm always like I just this morning, I did a TV segment. I had all these rice crispy bars. I didn't want them in the house because I'll eat them. So I just loaded up paper plates and kinda went door to door. And people are just like my neigh my next door neighbor, I know. She's just like because I this in this week alone, I've brought them a chicken pasta dish. I brought them apple muffins, and then I brought them rice crispy bars. And that's, like, within the last 3 days.Hayden Haas [00:18:46]:Yeah. I don't hear the problem in any of this. I think you're probably the favorite neighbor.Stephanie Hansen [00:18:51]:I hope.Hayden Haas [00:18:52]:I'm sure of it because I do the same thing. I was dropping off tiramisu, cheesecake, and some pizza and brownie. So we're in the same category. And if they don't want those leftovers, I'll take them.Stephanie Hansen [00:19:05]:That's so funny. Yeah. I need to I just I feel like, oh my gosh. These people probably think I'm so crazy because I'm always justHayden Haas [00:19:12]:Oh.Stephanie Hansen [00:19:13]:Walking door to door with piles of food. And I have a brand new neighbor that's literally right next to me that I haven't met yet. And they looked like they moved in over the weekend and then maybe were are doing some painting. So I left some of the muffins on their, like, door. And I my friend said, she goes, do you real do these people realize who you are and, like, what a gift it's gonna be living next to you? I'm like, I don't know.Hayden Haas [00:19:42]:No. I, 100% support all of that. Spread the love. I always say it's like, Nesquik, don't come for me, like, legally, but I always say share the wealth. And if your wealth is baked goods, share them. People are gonna love it. Exactly.Stephanie Hansen [00:19:55]:And thenHayden Haas [00:19:55]:it's not like you're gonna give them anything terrible or anything. Yeah. We only weigh our best creations. Right?Stephanie Hansen [00:20:01]:Yes. Exactly. So when you were at Food Network, you did you directly work on Molly's show or did you work on some other shows too?Hayden Haas [00:20:10]:I worked on Molly did a couple of things with HGTV, so that was fun to see what that was like. But I did, I started off as a dishwasher and then moved up to a food stylist. And then, at the same time, I was also Molly's assistant. And I've also had my own little touch of reality television because I was on Food Network's Chopped.Stephanie Hansen [00:20:35]:Oh, you were.Hayden Haas [00:20:37]:It was love.Stephanie Hansen [00:20:37]:Hear about that.Hayden Haas [00:20:39]:It was really fun. I did a blind date episode where yeah. It was so much fun. I was matched with somebody that I had never met before. And so you kinda go on a blind date. And then, you know, you get the basket with all of the mystery ingredients. And I think my ingredients were, like, like a cranberry kiss cocktail and, like, a red tail snapper and some heart shaped ravioli. And we I my partner and I, when we went into it, we initially kind of had, like, a situation where I was like, do you wanna take the lead, or do you want me to be sous chef or whatever? And he decided he wanted to be the lead, then I was like, I'll support you whatever you wanna do through the way.Hayden Haas [00:21:25]:So I was happy to do that. I wouldn't have, necessarily made the dish that we ended up making. Spoiler alert, I didn't end up winning, but it is still a really great episode, and I'm still friends with all the women on that show. SoStephanie Hansen [00:21:38]:So what did you end up making? Because I was listening to your ingredients and thinking, oh, well, the cranberry's gotta be a sauce.Hayden Haas [00:21:45]:Sure. If you're familiar with, like, kind of like a pate situation, it was kinda like that but with fish. So not not always a big winner. If I could have made what I wanted to, you since you have the cookbook right there, I won I would have made or leaned in towards my cranberry tortellini recipe.Stephanie Hansen [00:22:04]:Yeah.Hayden Haas [00:22:05]:And I think that would have, like, surprising people. But it also might have been, like, kinda boring because it's, like, pasta and Alfredo cranberry sauce or whatever. You know?Stephanie Hansen [00:22:15]:No. Alfredo sauce is never boring. I don't care. I feel like I eat noodles 62 times a week.Hayden Haas [00:22:22]:Yeah. I'm always a huge advocate of pasta myself.Stephanie Hansen [00:22:26]:Yeah. That's I'm gonna just go to that recipe right now, and we're gonna talk about it. Because, I love pasta. I eat pasta all the time. And I made spaghetti for a friend this weekend, and she came over and she goes, no offense, but can we just order takeout? I really hate noodles. What? I was like, who are you?Hayden Haas [00:22:48]:Interesting.Stephanie Hansen [00:22:49]:Yeah. I thought it was. Okay. So for cranberry sauce, let's see what we have in there. Here we are. Yep. Oh, I went on the wrong page.Hayden Haas [00:23:03]:Puerto Rican Alfredo sauce that we make from scratch, and then I do have my grandma's cranberry recipe. It it is like a I like I guess I like my cranberry sauce a touch sweeter, but, you know, you can make it as bitter as you want to.Stephanie Hansen [00:23:21]:Okay. This looks really good. It's got it's the sauce is kinda pink. It's got a sun dried tomato, mushrooms, artichoke hearts. Looks delicious.Hayden Haas [00:23:29]:Yeah. Big fan. When I was in college, there was this little restaurant, not not Olive Garden. But when when I was waiting when I was waiting tables in college, that was one of the more popular dishes from that restaurant.Stephanie Hansen [00:23:46]:Let's talk about all the, like, plates and the dishes in your book. Are these all things you own, or did you guys rent things?Hayden Haas [00:23:53]:No. I did not rent things. All of those were things that I do own because I am kind of a mix match person. So none of my plates match. None of my cups match. I, maybe a bit of a maximalist, if you will. So I love selection. I also kind of display them in my dining room.Hayden Haas [00:24:14]:So then whenever I have somebody over, I'm, like, grab any glass. So then that person kind of gets to pick whatever fun glass or fork or plate, whatever theyStephanie Hansen [00:24:23]:Phew. I love that idea.Hayden Haas [00:24:25]:So much fun. And then, you know, you always get really fun pictures at the same time.Stephanie Hansen [00:24:30]:Yeah. For sure. And I am feeling a little bit like and and I'm getting to the end of this book, so I'm feeling a little horny at this point. And, like, oh, I need to, like, maybe get rid of some of this stuff or repurpose it to the next house. Goodwill is my friend, but sometimes the things go back to the Goodwill too. Right?Hayden Haas [00:24:48]:Hey. You just don't have to tell me. I'm a avid thrifter myself, so I love, finding, like, a plate or 2 every time you visit or something where you're like, I have a vision for this particular plate, and it's gonna have some delicious pasta on it. And or here's this old pillowcase that I could sew into a napkin or something. So it's like, repurpose those things, make them beautiful, and share them with everyone.Stephanie Hansen [00:25:14]:Okay. I love that you would actually repurpose a pillowcase into a napkin.Hayden Haas [00:25:17]:Oh, and I've turned an old tablecloth into something els Shoot. It's all mix-and-match. I tell you, I love it. I have a whole cabinet ' whole cabinet just for my linens.Stephanie Hansen [00:25:29]:Can you think of something, like, where you got a real score at a thrift store? Like, do you have a favorite thing you thrifted?Hayden Haas [00:25:37]:Good question. I do, but I don't have, I really would love to provide, like, a image for you. But I since I am such an avid thrifter, I have a whole collection on my living room wall of mirrors. Cool. So it's kind of like you know how people have those, like, picture collages and stuff inStephanie Hansen [00:25:59]:the house?Hayden Haas [00:26:00]:It's kinda like that, but for mirrors. So it's like the whole and they're all different kinds. Like, some are new and nice. Like, I'm sure some are from, like, a Target or whatever. Sure. Got a cute one. But they're all different kinds and, some have little stands on them. I've my favorite one is, like, this vintage cover girl mirror.Hayden Haas [00:26:21]:Oh, it's so it's, like, tiny and cute. I everybody loves it when they come and check it out.Stephanie Hansen [00:26:26]:Oh, that's fun.Hayden Haas [00:26:27]:Yeah. And I don't know if a mirror is probably the greatest example because I really don't even look at myself in the mirror that much, but it's just such a fun little, addition to home and calling it cozy, and it's always a conversation starter when somebody walks in the door. And I Yeah.Stephanie Hansen [00:26:46]:It sure sounds like it.Hayden Haas [00:26:48]:Say that they wanna copy it. I'm like, it's all yours. Please enjoy.Stephanie Hansen [00:26:52]:So when you think about, a cookbook that you wish you had written, can you think of 1?Hayden Haas [00:27:02]:A cookbook I wish I would have written.Stephanie Hansen [00:27:04]:Yeah. Like, you just find it so inspiring.Hayden Haas [00:27:07]:I there's so many people that I'm inspired by. That's so tough. I would say somebody who I am always inspired by what is Molly Ye, of course.Stephanie Hansen [00:27:19]:Yeah.Hayden Haas [00:27:20]:I learned so much from my time with her. There's a couple of other people who are kind of influential. So going back a little bit when I was kind of burnt out in between architecture and whatnot, also very Minnesota of me, I went to go work for Target, like, part time, but then they ended up wanting me as a manager, which is great. I loved my time with them. In that time shift, that's when I started cooking for myself, and I really didn't have, like, social media before that. So it, like, started out fresh at, like, the age of 27 and started posting, like, food, blogs, pictures, like, kind of starting out, my own little food photography or food journey. And I started my mom had gifted me Chrissy Teigen's cookbook. And I was, so thankful for that, and I cooked my way through it.Hayden Haas [00:28:10]:And I started sharing some recipes, and she started commenting and liking on some of my things. And that inspired me to do more, which kinda led me on my way to meet Molly Ye. But there's so many other people like Anthony Bourdain and, you know, most of the people on Food Network. So that was, like, so funny that in my small little town that I was given, like, an opportunity for something I didn't think I would ever have.Stephanie Hansen [00:28:34]:Yeah. So And Chrissy Teigen's cravings book, I thought that that was a good cookbook. She's gotHayden Haas [00:28:41]:about 3 or 4 in her series. I've haven't done as much investigating into the newer books, but the first couple were so great and, like, everything, you know, you can pretty much make from home.Stephanie Hansen [00:28:55]:Yeah. I really liked Pepper's book too, her mom.Hayden Haas [00:28:58]:Oh, yeah. I also have that one. She's so cute.Stephanie Hansen [00:29:00]:Cute. Do you have, like, a white Pyrenees? Or what's your dog?Hayden Haas [00:29:03]:This is Max. You'll see a ton of him in the cookbook also.Stephanie Hansen [00:29:07]:Cute.Hayden Haas [00:29:08]:He's an English cream retriever, and so Max makes a couple of, cameos in there as well.Stephanie Hansen [00:29:14]:Well, Stanley, my dog, I wasHayden Haas [00:29:16]:Listen.Stephanie Hansen [00:29:17]:Yeah. I was gonna say you you may have heard him. He was in a squeaky toy earlier, and I was like, shut the door.Hayden Haas [00:29:23]:I I wasn't sure if you heard Max earlier, but that was him.Stephanie Hansen [00:29:27]:That's funny. Well, this has been a real delight. Hayden Haas, Simply Delish Haas. I it is, recipes from the Midwestern Kitchen. It's a beautiful book. I am excited to connect with you. We will eat or do something fun. I feel like we're gonna be fast friends.Hayden Haas [00:29:46]:We're gonna warm up at some point.Stephanie Hansen [00:29:48]:I think so. Yes. But it was great to talk to you. Congratulations on the book. People can follow you at I'm sorry. I didn't write your Instagram down.Hayden Haas [00:29:58]:It's the same thing. I wanna tell you congratulations on your book, and I can't wait to get together sometime.Stephanie Hansen [00:30:04]:Thank you.Hayden Haas [00:30:04]:You can find me if you usually type in Hayden, h a y d e n, and then Delish Haws, d e l I s h a a s, because or if you just type in Hayden Haws Cook or something or other, it'll come up. I'm on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, all of the stuff.Stephanie Hansen [00:30:26]:Alright. I'm just I'm amazed and impressed with all the work that you're putting out, and your book is great. Thanks for being a guest today. I'm sure we'll get together soon.Hayden Haas [00:30:35]:Yes. Thank you again so much for having me.Stephanie Hansen [00:30:36]:Alright. Good to see you. Bye. Alright. Bye bye. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to another episode of "Dishing with Stephanie's Dish," where we dive into the world of food with our guests from all corners of the culinary landscape. This time, we're delighted to have Nicole Aufderhar with us, known for her Instagram page @TenThousandBakes, where she showcases her incredible baking creations. Our conversation traces her baking journey from family traditions to competing on the Great American Baking Show, where she reached the final three and participated in the finale. Nicole shares her love for Minnesota State Fair Baking and her insights into balancing a creative passion with an artistic career. Join us as we explore her baking adventures, inspirations, and the sweet success she's found along the way.EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:Stephanie Hansen [00:00:16]:Hello, everybody, and welcome to Dishing with Stephanie's dish, the podcast where we talk to people in the food space. And today, my guest is Nicole Ofterhauer, and she is at 10000 Bakes on Instagram. And we became friends, kind of funny, through the Jason show's hottest day on record at the state fair.Nicole Aufderhar [00:00:36]:Yes. Where we were all dying and couldn't think straight.Stephanie Hansen [00:00:40]:Yeah. We were just, like, sweating ourselves off, and you had made these super beautiful blueberry macarons. And you were there to talk about your experience that you'd had as a state fair baker, but also on the Great American Baking Show, which if people don't know because I still think people don't know that that show exists.Nicole Aufderhar [00:01:01]:They don't know. Even, like, my friends and family sometimes don't know that it exists. It's yeah. Everyone knows the British version, but surprise, there's an American one.Stephanie Hansen [00:01:10]:Yes. So The Great British Bake Off, spun off a great American baking show, and Nicole was a guest on it and did very well. Weren't you, like, in the final 3?Nicole Aufderhar [00:01:20]:Yeah. Yeah. I made it all the way to the finals.Stephanie Hansen [00:01:22]:Okay. So that's exciting. And I just wanna point out, I don't know when people are gonna listen to this because I'm probably gonna release it maybe this Friday or the next Friday. I haven't decided yet. ButNicole Aufderhar [00:01:34]:Mhmm.Stephanie Hansen [00:01:35]:If you haven't gotten a chance, please go right now to Nicole's Instagram page and look at 10,000 Bakes. Because, honestly, she has some of the most amazing spooky treats on there. Girl, I mean, those the skull truffles with the raspberry filling, are you kidding me?Nicole Aufderhar [00:01:51]:Oh, yeah. Thank you. Yeah. I I've always been kind of a Halloween nut. Like, always been my thing. The spookier, the better. And so for me, Halloween baking is kinda all about embracing kind of the quirky and weird. So I just go all in with it.Nicole Aufderhar [00:02:07]:It's always fun every year.Stephanie Hansen [00:02:09]:I mean, your stuff is real cool looking. Very beautiful. There was also a black was it what kind of a, cake was it?Nicole Aufderhar [00:02:18]:Yeah. So I made it was a peri breast, actually. So, like, a patichou base pastry.Stephanie Hansen [00:02:26]:Yeah. It looked like chew pastries stuffed or filled with, like, a cream of some sort.Nicole Aufderhar [00:02:31]:Yep. Yeah. So I used, black cocoa creme pat, and then there was also you couldn't see the picture, but there was, like, a raspberry gel as well. So kind of that dark chocolate raspberry thing kinda fitting with Halloween.Stephanie Hansen [00:02:44]:I mean, it was unbelievably fantastic looking.Nicole Aufderhar [00:02:47]:Oh, thanks. Yeah. Like I said, it's I get to be my weird artistic self this time of year, so it's kind of fun.Stephanie Hansen [00:02:53]:I like your weird artistic self. Take that and the listener kind of on the journey of how this whole thing started for you.Nicole Aufderhar [00:03:01]:So I have kind of been baking my entire life. You know, like, most people grew up mom in the kitchen, Nestle Toll House, Christmas cutout. You know, nothing, like, crazy, but just, you know, family baking. And as I grew up, I just kinda started to dive more and more into it. I'm kind of a shy person. So when I would go to parties, like, talking to people is stressful, but if I bring a bank, that gives me something to talk about. Sure. So, you know, I kind of started doing that more.Nicole Aufderhar [00:03:30]:And in college, I actually studied photography with, like, emphasis on food photography. And because I don't wanna take pictures of babies. So I decided to do the food route, and then I kinda decided that, well, if I wanna take pictures of beautiful things, I might have to learn how to bake some of these things. And so it's just kind of continued to grow and grow, and it's always been kind of my creative endeavor that's just for me and just for fun and really lets me express myself without the pressure. You know, I'm an artist full time, so I have that pressure there. So this is just just for fun, just for me. And when I saw that there was a great American baking show, which I didn't even know. You know, I've watched the British version for years, and then I saw online that they were casting for the American version.Nicole Aufderhar [00:04:19]:I thought, oh, well, let's let's see. Why not? You know? And I put my hat in the ring, and I made it all the way to the final round of 1st year, which I wasn't expecting. It's a very long process, and I just what I thought would maybe just be something that I'd enter and never hear from again ended up being this multiyear journey of traveling with baked goods and auditions. And after a couple 2 years of auditioning, I was cast on the show.Stephanie Hansen [00:04:51]:So yeah. So exciting.Nicole Aufderhar [00:04:53]:Yeah.Stephanie's Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Stephanie Hansen [00:04:54]:So how long from the beginning of you arriving to start the taping to when you go home is that length of time?Nicole Aufderhar [00:05:04]:So you are there basically for an entire month. For us, it was the entire month of August. You do a lot of prep work stateside before you go, you know, coming up with your own recipes and stuff. But once you are there, you are there the whole time. Even if you're eliminated, then you just kinda get a London vacation, but you're there for the entire month.Stephanie Hansen [00:05:24]:So they do it in the Great British Bake Off same space?Nicole Aufderhar [00:05:28]:Yeah. So for the Great British Bake Off, there's 2 tents. There is a tent where they film the version everybody knows, and then there's a tent where they film, like, celebrity versions, and I believe it's coming from Janae Baycock is still there as well, but, yeah, there are 2 tents. We're in the the other tent, like so it's not the tent, but it's one of theirs.Stephanie Hansen [00:05:51]:Yeah. And Paul and Pru are still judges.Nicole Aufderhar [00:05:55]:Yeah. Yeah. It's the same judges. It's Paul and Pru. We have American hosts. You know, that's the difference. People always kind of, I don't wanna say, hate on the American version, but they always say, oh, we don't like it because they're hypercompetitive, and they don't have the accents and all this. And I'm like, well, yeah, we don't have the accents.Nicole Aufderhar [00:06:12]:Sure. And that's the baddest. Yeah. Yeah.Stephanie Hansen [00:06:16]:So there's that.Nicole Aufderhar [00:06:18]:Yeah. So, you know, I mean, if you wanna nitpick, but it's still, like, a heartwarming, friendly show. Like, once people sit down and watch it, they're like, oh, that's actually enjoyable. I'm like, yes. That's what I've been telling you.Stephanie Hansen [00:06:32]:It is funny that the perception of Bake Off and what people love and what attracted me to it too was just how kind and supportive everybody is. And we've gotten used to watching these, you know, chopped and these sort of aggressive male dominated, like, shows of competition. And it is funny because I do think America in general this is a very gross generalization, but I do think we're more competitive. We're very aggressively business focused, like, success focused. And I think what is nice about The Bake Off is there's a lot of people from all these different walks of life, and they just happen to make pastry too or they're bakers.Nicole Aufderhar [00:07:20]:Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly what it is. And that's when I auditioned because I talked a lot about my state fair, you know, competing background. And they purposely were, like, asking me, well, are you hypercompetitive? Are you how do you feel if you don't win? You know? And so I had to make sure that I expressed that I'm not competitive despite all that. Like, I love the community behind these competitions and the friends that I've made, and they are trying to seek out people for that show that are there to just be with other bakers and have fun and get this experience and aren't there because I wanna win. And, I mean, the prize is a cake plate. You know? Like, you're not getting $20,000 or a book deal.Nicole Aufderhar [00:08:01]:You know? You get a cake plate. So if you're not there to just have a good time, you know, they're not gonna put you in the tent.Stephanie Hansen [00:08:09]:You happen to mention the state fair. Can you talk a little bit about your state fair baking experience? Because you're pretty well known and traveled in the state fair scene too. Minnesota State Fair.Nicole Aufderhar [00:08:23]:Yeah. Yeah. Especially the last year, people have kind of, I don't know, found my like, I've always shared about my journey with it. That's kinda why I started my Instagram page was because I wanted to share this community and show how accessible it is. Like, you don't have to be an incredible baker to enter. You just start. You just start entering stuff, and you get to meet people on entry day. And sometimes you get feedback from the judges.Nicole Aufderhar [00:08:48]:Sometimes you get head scratching feedback from the judges, but, like, it's just a super fun thing. And so I grew up with a step grandma who competed and kinda taught me the ropes from a young age and was kinda harsh about it, but it served me in the long run. And, so then about gosh. It's been 10 years now, I believe, I started. I did my first contest. I just entered three things, you know, just to kinda feel it out, and all 3 of them ribbon. I got 2 seconds and a 5th, and I was like, oh,Stephanie Hansen [00:09:20]:okay. You know? That's either this isNicole Aufderhar [00:09:24]:you know, I wasn't sure what to think. I'm like, oh, this is easier than I thought, or I might actually be kinda good at baking because your friends and family are always like, oh, everything's fantastic, but isStephanie Hansen [00:09:33]:it really? You know?Nicole Aufderhar [00:09:35]:So it's kinda given me this avenue to try new things and meet new people. And over the years, you know, I've I've done pretty well, and I've made some really amazing friends, and I just it's something I look forward to all year round.Stephanie Hansen [00:09:48]:What do you remember what the three things you were that you made in the first?Nicole Aufderhar [00:09:53]:Yeah. They weren't even I'd call them baking light. Honestly, it was like a granola bar and then some granola, and then they used to do this thing called the recipe challenge Yep. Where everyone would get the same recipe. You know? So it's kinda like the technical on the makeup, honestly, which is what appealed to me is you all get the same recipe. You kinda have to interpret it. And so I got a second place on that. I got a second place on the bars, and then I got a 5th place on the granola.Nicole Aufderhar [00:10:23]:And the the funny thing with the cookies was I was always under this belief that you had to enter things freshly baked that morning, you know. So I woke up early to do my final round, and they didn't they failed. The dough, I don't know what I did wrong or if it was the heat, it failed. And so I'm crying in the kitchen. I'm like, what do I do? Well, I had ones that I had stored in the freezer, like, 3 weeks ago. I mean Yeah. I was like, I wanna save them just in case, and I'm so glad I did because that's what I ended up entering were 3 week old transfer cookies, and they still placed.Stephanie Hansen [00:10:55]:Yeah. And a lot of people do that. Like, I know another woman, and she enters, like, 82 contests. And some of her stuff comesNicole Aufderhar [00:11:03]:inStephanie Hansen [00:11:03]:the freezer, and she pulls it out the night before, and that's what they enter.Nicole Aufderhar [00:11:07]:That's what I and that's what I've been telling people this year, especially, people are surprised to learn that I did that. And I'm like, yeah. And they're like, well, but don't they taste them? Like, yeah. You know, you can kinda tell freezer goods from the fresh, but that's what everybody else is doing. So if you're the best of the freezer bunch Yeah. You know, and it works.Stephanie Hansen [00:11:25]:How many categories did you enter this year?Nicole Aufderhar [00:11:28]:This year, I ended up doing 12, I believe it was, which I'm not I mean, there's people that show up with laundry baskets full of stuff, you know, and max out at 20. I doing 12 was a lot for me. I usually, like, keep them in the single digits. But, yeah, it went really well. Half of them ribboned. I got a smoked steaks for the first time, so it was a lot of fun this year.Stephanie Hansen [00:11:52]:Yeah. And what people maybe don't know I mean, you said mentioned that you're an artist. You make, leather bound journals and leather goods. And, what's your website for that? Because I wanna make sure we tell people because your work's reallyThanks for reading Stephanie's Dish Newsletter! This post is public so feel free to share it.Nicole Aufderhar [00:12:07]:So my website is wayfaringgoods.com, and it's not wayfair like that big furniture supply place or whatever. It's spelled wayfaringgoods.com.Stephanie Hansen [00:12:21]:I love it. Yeah. Because you're not doing this in a professional scope.Nicole Aufderhar [00:12:28]:No. Baking is right now, you know, probably, you know, I don't know, forever. It's just for fun. I I love what I do with my leather business. That has been something I've been doing full time for 15 years. Like, that's really where my I don't know. I'm as passionate about baking as I am about leather, but I like keeping my leather as my business and my baking as my creative passion, which I think is important for professional creatives to have that thing without the pressure of selling.Stephanie Hansen [00:13:03]:And let's talk about that for a second because that's sort of uniquely American too. I think that this idea is like, oh, well, she's making all this stuff. She's in competitive realm. She's doing really well, so she must be planning a bakery because we, like, don't really just allow ourselves to have these creative outlets without making them into something. We feel the pressure from ourselves.Nicole Aufderhar [00:13:28]:Yeah. Oh, exactly. And I think I mean, it's so important to have that creative passion that you don't have that pressure behind. And I I think so I started my business right out of college. I could have either gone the professional photography router than what I did. And so I think because I started young, I learned how important it is to have that creative passion just for fun. I see a lot of my friends that have since pursued kinda similar art businesses, and I see them now struggling with this. Like, oh, well, I'm also good at this, so I should sell this and I should do that.Nicole Aufderhar [00:14:05]:And it's like, no. You don't have to sell everything you make. Like, if you're a creative person, you might be good at a lot of different creative things.Stephanie Hansen [00:14:13]:Yes.Nicole Aufderhar [00:14:14]:You know? And it stops being fun when you know, like, if I have a failure in the kitchen, I'm disappointed. You know? I get frustrated, but it's okay because it's not going anywhere. I don't have to worry about someone a customer coming. I don't have to, you know, it's a different kind of failure versus the feeling when you're struggling with the business. And so I I like having those two things very separate.Stephanie Hansen [00:14:41]:Yeah. I can see that too. And, also, like, this idea that because you're good at something or because you make something, then it's becomes less a hobby and then a job. And sometimes I struggle with that because I'm just cooking now between the cookbook and the show and the adjacent appearances and, my blog.Nicole Aufderhar [00:15:02]:I feelStephanie Hansen [00:15:02]:like I'm just cooking all the time. And sometimes, like, I feel another like, I have to, like, videotape everything I'm doing. And, like, the other day, I was like, I'm not pulling out the video camera. I'm going to cook something that could I? Sure. But, I'm just going to make these apple muffins because I have apples and I feel like an apple muffin and I'm not going to videotape it and you know what? I'm not even going to write down the recipe. And I just was like I just sat in the moment. I enjoyed the bake. I loved the smell it made my house.Stephanie Hansen [00:15:33]:The muffins came out. I ate 1. I gave one to the dog and then I went and distributed them the neighborhood and got rid of them and came home and was like, oh, that was fun.Nicole Aufderhar [00:15:43]:Yeah. Isn't that's the best. That is those are that's the best feelings. And I know exactly even though, like, I don't do my baking on a professional level, just in the world of social media. Like you said, you have this pressure to film everything you do and turn everything that you do into some form of content. And that just sucks sucks the fun out of it. You know? Like, you know, sometimes it's fun, you know, but if you're not feeling it, like, don't do it. If Yeah.Nicole Aufderhar [00:16:11]:I don't know. You know, it's important to, like obviously, for you, it is part of your work.Stephanie Hansen [00:16:17]:But But is it I mean, also and I'm sort of like I don't know. I'm just sort of working through this too. Like, we give a lot away of ourselves as creators, as people in a social media space, and it's just demanding. And I don't wanna, like, sound not grateful because I am because you build a platform and people really dig your stuff and that's fun, but also, like, trying to recognize what's real and what's not real sometimes.Nicole Aufderhar [00:16:50]:Yes. Yep. Yeah. Because people see a version of you and and a version of what you do, and they expect that over and over and over again.Stephanie Hansen [00:17:00]:Yeah.Nicole Aufderhar [00:17:00]:And it can be exhausting. Yeah. And some daysStephanie Hansen [00:17:04]:you don't feel like delivering that.Nicole Aufderhar [00:17:06]:Yeah. I don't. You know? And and then sometimes I feel like, oh, I have to put it out there because I put everything out there, and then I do it and it doesn't do well or whatever. And then I stress out about that. It's like, why? Why?Stephanie Hansen [00:17:17]:Yeah.Nicole Aufderhar [00:17:18]:You know?Stephanie Hansen [00:17:20]:Well, you and I had coffee, and I think you well, we met at the hottest day of the year, and then you followed up. And you're like, would you ever wanna have coffee? I was like, yes. Of course. And I I also loved that you reached out to me because I do like bringing this creative online life sometimes into the real life of you and I just sitting and having a cup of coffee and talking about what we're into and what's fun. And I just I was I was appreciative that you reached out. And I I wish more people would do that kind of in a real space because I think that's how you grow and how you can help mentor others and help others find their path because so many people have helped me along the way. My goodness.Nicole Aufderhar [00:18:04]:Yeah. No. Yeah. And I I'm still so grateful you said yes because Sure. It is super important. And I think that people are kinda surprised when others are willing to do stuff in person and meet in person. And even for my tiny little thing that I do at the state fair, I met people online and they were worried about bugging me or asking me questions. And I'm like, why? Like, oh, I Yeah.Nicole Aufderhar [00:18:27]:I I and maybe not I love talking about that kind of stuff. If I can help somebody else, like, I go to competition. I'm like, so, like Yeah. Like, it's better for all of us in the long run, you know, if we're encouraging others to do it and get better and help the people where we can with stuff that we've learned along the way. And, like, I personally enjoy doing that. So that's why it was so exciting to Yeah. Get to sit and talk with you and, you know, meet someone else of the food, you know, yeah, and just learn from each other.Stephanie Hansen [00:18:59]:So what's next for you, Nicole? Have you thought about that?Nicole Aufderhar [00:19:05]:All the time. No. Again, after having done the show and now I've I've been very fortunate since the show came out with opportunities that have come my way. You know, you never know if anyone's gonna notice or pay attention or anything, and I've honestly been quite overwhelmed with the amount of stuff that I have done. And so people, you know, they expect the bakery. They expect us to expect that. That is not that's not on my realm. That's not what I'm thinking at all.Nicole Aufderhar [00:19:36]:I long term dream, short term dream. I don't know. I always tell people I would like to do a cookbook. That is something I thought of wanting to do years. I mean, that's kinda always been in the back of my head because Yeah. I enjoy the recipe development portion of baking. So that's kinda where my strong suit is. That's where I that's what I enjoy the most.Nicole Aufderhar [00:19:59]:So, you know, obviously, I'm gonna be continuing on with my leather business as always Yep. Gearing up for holiday season right now. So that's, you know, the main part of my life, but I'm just gonna continue to create recipes, share that, share the state fair knowledge, and just be willing to embrace and be open to whatever might come from it.Stephanie Hansen [00:20:26]:Alright. Let's do something fun. Are you ready for fun? Maybe. Always. I have, like, 5 to 10 questions. We'll see how it goes. Just random kinda rapid fire questions.Nicole Aufderhar [00:20:40]:Oh gosh.Stephanie Hansen [00:20:42]:They're not hard. They're they're all about you. They're not hard.Nicole Aufderhar [00:20:46]:Okay.Stephanie Hansen [00:20:46]:Oh, okay. Here's number 1. What is the first bake you remember making yourself?Nicole Aufderhar [00:20:54]:Cupcakes. Cute. Yeah. Like, as a kid? It's so basic, but that's yeah. Strawberry cupcakes with Swiss meringue buttercream. Yum. That was my first, quote, unquote, real bake that I did.Stephanie Hansen [00:21:08]:I love it. Okay. When you go to a potluck, what do you typically bring?Nicole Aufderhar [00:21:16]:Macarons.Stephanie Hansen [00:21:18]:Oh, fancy. Yes.Nicole Aufderhar [00:21:20]:They're easy to share. They look impressive, but they're pretty easy to whip up.Stephanie Hansen [00:21:25]:Okay. What is the first thing you eat from a Halloween candy bucket?Nicole Aufderhar [00:21:32]:That's funny. Snickers popped into my head first, but Reese's are my favorite, but I guess Snickers would be my first.Stephanie Hansen [00:21:37]:Okay. I love that. Reese's is the number one popular candy. You probably know that.Nicole Aufderhar [00:21:41]:Yeah.Stephanie Hansen [00:21:41]:Yeah. What, is the restaurant that you've been to more than any other?Nicole Aufderhar [00:21:51]:Well, green scene since moving up to Walker. That would be yeah. Okay. I love the green scene here in town.Stephanie Hansen [00:21:57]:And you live in Walker. I should mention that. Yes. What's your most used pan?Nicole Aufderhar [00:22:05]:I my little I have a little saucepan, and I will shove anything I can into it even if it's not supposed to fit. I love it.Stephanie Hansen [00:22:12]:I have one of those too, and it's funny. Yeah.Nicole Aufderhar [00:22:15]:Yeah. Yeah. Doesn't fit. Okay. I just did that last meal with some jam. It was poor decision but I think it worked.Stephanie Hansen [00:22:21]:But you still loved your pan. Okay. This is your last question in the in the final round of the rapid fire questioning. What's an existing cookbook you wish you had written?Nicole Aufderhar [00:22:36]:Oh. Oh. I'm looking at all my cookbooks. I know. It's aStephanie Hansen [00:22:41]:hard one.Nicole Aufderhar [00:22:42]:That is a hard one. I can't I well, it's funny because I feel like picking any of them. I'm not worthy of any of them, but I have they're all old vintage ones. Like, I have this rose what's her last name?Stephanie Hansen [00:23:03]:Birnbaum Levy Birnbaum.Nicole Aufderhar [00:23:05]:I use a lot of her books. I wish I had the skill and the abilities to write something like that.Stephanie Hansen [00:23:11]:Do you know that that cake bible book that she wrote is having its 35th anniversary this year?Nicole Aufderhar [00:23:17]:I don't see that. I know. I can't believe it because except I have all, like, the real old vintage ones of it, and it's it's so cool that it still has stood the test of time.Stephanie Hansen [00:23:27]:Yeah. No. I love that you have those. That's amazing. Well, Nicole, I hope people will follow you on Instagram at 10000 Bakes. We're gonna for sure have you on, Jason's show next summer so we get a chance to connect with her there again. Wonderful. Also been doing reviews of Great British Bake Off with Bradley and Dawn on my talk 107.1.Stephanie Hansen [00:23:50]:Yeah. Yep. People should follow you, and you're making really cool Halloween stuff right now.Nicole Aufderhar [00:23:56]:Yeah. Thanks. Yes. We're having fun over here.Stephanie Hansen [00:23:59]:Yeah. It's amazing. Alright. Well, when you're gonna be coming down to town next or not downtown, down to town, next, give me a shout, and we'll have coffee again. It was fun.Nicole Aufderhar [00:24:09]:Oh, definitely. Totally.Stephanie Hansen [00:24:10]:Alright. Thanks, Nicole. I appreciate you spending time with us today. Yeah.Nicole Aufderhar [00:24:14]:Thank you.Stephanie Hansen [00:24:14]:We'll talk soon. Bye bye. Bye. Stephanie's Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

This week, we're excited to bring you a thought-provoking conversation with the wonderful Stephanie O'Dea, bestselling author and advocate for slow living.In this episode, Stephanie O'Dea dives deep into her journey from being known as the "crock pot queen," where I first connected with her (see her Slow cooker Brussels sprouts and Apricot Brie recipes below) , to embracing a more deliberate and slow-paced lifestyle. While we are in the month of Crocktober and Stephanie's book, “Make It Fast, Cook It Slow,” is never leaving my shelf, I also was really interested in her new “Slow Living: Cultivating a Life of Purpose in a Hustle-Driven World” pivot.Here's a quick look at what we talked about and… a recipe!

We had a lovely chat with Erin Clarke, from @Wellplated on Instagram and author of “Well Plated” and her new book, “Well Plated Every Day.” Scroll down for Erin's pumpkin gingerbread squares with spiced cream cheese frosting recipe.Cookbook Signing Event DetailsJoin Erin at ModernWell in Minneapolis on 10/30, 7:00pm-8:30pm, for her book signing event!  The Well Plated Cookbook, Erin Clarke, and Lee Funke of Fit Foodie Finds!Erin discusses her journey, from the influential blog Well Plated by Erin, to the creation of her popular cookbooks. You will sample one of Erin's delicious recipes – and leave with a signed copy of Well Plated Everyday (Books provided by Valley Bookseller)Thanks for reading Stephanie's Dish Newsletter! This post is public so feel free to share itErin shared her Pumpkin gingerbread squares recipe from her new book, “Well Plated Everyday,” to give you a taste of the deliciousness in its pages.Pumpkin gingerbread squares with spiced cream cheese frostingIngredients for the Cake1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar2 large eggs, at room temperature3/4 cup pure pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)1/2 cup canola oil, or melted and cooled coconut oil1/4 cup unsulfured molasses (not blackstrap)2 teaspoons ground cinnamon11/4 teaspoons ground ginger1/2 teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg1/4 teaspoon ground cloves1/2 teaspoon kosher salt 1 small orange1 cup all-purpose flour1/2 cup white whole wheat flour or regular whole wheat flour1 teaspoon baking powder1/2 teaspoon baking sodaInstructions For the CakePlace a rack in the center of your oven and preheat to 350°F. Coat an 8 by 8-inch baking pan with nonstick spray. Line the pan with parchment paper so that two strips overhang opposite sides like handles.In a large bowl, whisk together the brown sugar and eggs until pale and foamy, about 1 minute. Add the pumpkin puree, oil, molasses, cinnamon, ginger, cocoa powder, nutmeg, cloves, and salt. Zest half of the orange directly into the bowl (about 1 teaspoon). Reserve the remaining orange to zest for the frosting. Whisk until smoothly combined.Sprinkle the all-purpose flour, white whole wheat flour, baking powder, and baking soda over the top. Whisk until combined and smooth, stirring only as long as needed to incorporate all the ingredients.Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Gently tap the pan on the counter to remove any air bubbles. Bake the cake for 20 to 24 minutes, until it is puffed, the edges are starting to pull away from the pan, and a tester inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Use the parchment overhang to lift the cake onto a wire rack and let it cool completely.While the cake cools, make the frosting: In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted recipe and ingredients continueIngredients For the Spiced Cream Cheese Frosting6 ounces reduced-fat cream cheese, or Neufchâtel cheese, at room temperature2 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature1 1/2 cups powdered sugar plus a few additional tablespoons as needed1/2 teaspoon orange zest (use the same orange from the cake)1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon or pumpkin pieInstructions for the frostingWith the paddle attachment or in a large mixing bowl with a hand mixer, beat together the cream cheese and butter at medium speed for 2 minutes or until very smooth and well combined. Add the powdered sugar, orange zest (zest from the reserved orange directly into the bowl), vanilla, cinnamon, and salt. Beat on low speed for 30 seconds, until the powdered sugar is pretty incorporated. Increase the speed to high and pro tips beat until smooth, creamy, and fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes more. If you'd like a stiffer, sweeter frosting, add two tablespoons of powdered sugar until your desired consistency is reached. Spread the frosting on the cooled cake. For easier cutting, transfer to the refrigerator for 20 minutes to allow the frosting to set up (or go for it). Slice into squares of desired size and enjoy. EPISODE TRANSCRIPTStephanie [00:00:16]:Welcome to Dishing with Stephanie's dish, the podcast where we talk to cookbook authors and people obsessed with food generally. I am here today with Erin Clark. Erin is well plated on Instagram. She's also a best selling author of the well plated cookbook and the soon to be well plated everyday cookbook. You are gonna be having an event in the Twin Cities in Stillwater. I'm so excited for you.Erin Clarke [00:00:42]:I am thrilled as well. Can't wait. I worked to live, Yeah. Yes. So I lived in the Twin Cities at the very beginning of my career. I worked for Target, their corporate headquarters, so I just have a really big soft spot for the area, and I'm really looking forward to being back there again.Stephanie [00:01:00]:And do you live in Milwaukee now?Erin Clarke [00:01:02]:I live in Milwaukee now. Yes.Stephanie [00:01:04]:Okay. Because my family is all from Milwaukee, and I was looking on your Instagram. You make Milwaukee look more fun than I recall because we've been all over, like, the third ward, and you found some hidden gems that I was like, oh, she knows her way around here.Erin Clarke [00:01:20]:Yeah. I moved there about 10 years ago kicking and screaming because I married a Wisconsin boy and he's from Milwaukee, so we ended up back there. And I, like, I loved the city so much. I was like, I don't understand why I'm moving to still be cold and still be in the Midwest to this, like, random city. Minneapolis is great. And then I just fell in love with it. Like, it just has there it there's so much to do. The city has grown so much even just since I have been there.Erin Clarke [00:01:46]:We've got a great food scene. People are friendly. You're right on, like, Michigan. Like, it really has a lot going for it.Stephanie's Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Stephanie [00:01:52]:Yeah. I really my family is in Delafield, but we go into Milwaukee and spend a couple days during the holidays and during the summer. I really like it. So, okay. Well, you're on the verge. Is has your new cookbook come out yet? I imagine it's already out.Erin Clarke [00:02:08]:No. It is t minus 11 days. Not that I'm counting. I am absolutely counting every single day. Okay. I just cannot I'm just so giddy. I, like, cannot wait for people to have it in their hands. You are gonna have a 100 recipes in the book, but will you,Stephanie [00:02:20]:like, get people that maybe aren't familiar with your profile kinda what your point of view is?Erin Clarke [00:02:29]:Absolutely. So I grew up cooking and baking with my grandmothers in Kansas, like pure Midwest comfort food. And then after I graduated college and started living on my own, I realized that I wasn't going to be able to live on grandma's cinnamon rolls and cakes that she taught me to make. So I needed to learn how to cook, and that was where I really started going to farmers markets, like, really just kinda discovering the beauty of eating seasonally, which I feel like we talk about very, you know, it's just so, like, a part of the conversation now. But for me back then, it really wasn't. Like, in my family, like, corn and potatoes are the primary vegetables. So, you know, so I was trying to explore markets, learn how to cook, but I found myself to do this, like, really missing my grandmother's cooking. So I would call my grammy and be like, hey.Erin Clarke [00:03:18]:Like, can you tell me about, like, your recipe for enchiladas? And she would, like, in detail, tell me on the phone while I was taking notes. And then I started to think like, okay. Well, you know, I'm learning to cook. I'm trying to feed myself well. Maybe I can make grammy's enchiladas, but let's just do a couple of little swaps, like, that could make it healthier. Let's try it with Greek yogurt instead of sour cream. Let's try a whole wheat tortilla. And then around that time, a friend had encouraged me to start a food blog, and I was like, what is a food blog? Like, I this is very, like, OG days, and I ended up posting the recipe, and I had a few friends from high school make it and love it.Erin Clarke [00:03:57]:And they're like, hey. Do you have any other recipes? And I was like, yeah. Like, I do. And so that it that just, you know, kinda sharing the lightened up versions of my grandmother's dishes just sort of started me off, and I still, like, very much keep the midwestern sensibility and unfussiness with my recipes. So if I could describe them briefly, it would be their easy, healthy with, heavy emphasis on lightened up everyday comfort food.Stephanie [00:04:27]:Which is perfect. I mean, honestly, that's what I love. I'm kinda more on the comfort food side, but I feel equally as comfortable cooking with kale, you know, as I would, I don't know, corn and potatoes. Right? And justErin Clarke [00:04:42]:Yeah. And I think it's wonderful that people have gotten you know, those ingredients have gotten more main stream. And I really like the idea of finding ways to make healthy eating more accessible. So for example, in my cookbook, on my blog, I will not put an ingredient in there if it's gonna require you to go to a food store. I try to keep the spices, like, very streamlined. I get it. Like, we're all busy and sometimes you're not in the mood to cook. So how can we get to a result that's good for you faster, but it's still delicious? Because life is also just way too short for boring chicken breasts and rice, like, every single night of our lives.Erin Clarke [00:05:23]:So how can we have a little fun with it without, you know, making it a ton of work for ourselves either?Stephanie [00:05:30]:So how long have you had your blog then?Erin Clarke [00:05:34]:Going on 13 years.Stephanie [00:05:35]:I was gonna say it has to be about we've had a radio show about food for 15 years, and we kinda started right at the very beginning of, you know, food culture. And that was one of the lot of the bloggers were getting started. And do you still blog a lot, or are you kinda to the stage where you're repurposing recipes and relooking at some of your old content?Erin Clarke [00:05:57]:We are doing both. So I still publish about 3 new recipes a week to my blog, and then we're constantly going back especially to some of those older recipes and seeing, you know, if there are tweaks that we can do to make them better. At the beginning, I was the photographer with my, like, flip phone under the our, you know, awful, like, orange light in our kitchen. So some of those recipes, it's been fun to go back and spruce them up. And then as, you know, video has taken over social media and with me being the face of the brand, a lot of the we've been shooting videos with me in them, and that has actually been a ton of fun in the sense of just, like, rediscovering, you know, favorite recipes that I haven't made in years.Stephanie [00:06:37]:Yeah. And looking back on, what would you say are, like are there some that are you're known for or that are, like, your specialties?Erin Clarke [00:06:47]:I would say I definitely am known overall for 1 pot meals. Like, if I can one pot or one pan something, I will absolutely do it. Recent one that we did, and this is just top of mind because we did the video a couple of weeks ago, is a homemade version of Hamburger Helper. So I grew up, like, Hamburger Helper House all the way, and there's still something, like, very nostalgic and comforting about it. Except, I mean, this will sound hysterical to describe it this way, but it is a gourmet Hamburger Helper. There's just I always like to find, like, just a couple of little things that you can tweak. You know, first of all, it's from scratch. It's easy.Erin Clarke [00:07:24]:You don't need the box. And I add a little bit of hot sauce and a little bit of Dijon mustard. You cook everything together in the same pot so that as the pasta cooking liquid reduces and the pasta releases those starches, it makes this really, like, luscious silky sauce without the need for any cream, and everyone loves this recipe. My husband loves it. My nieces love it from Yeah. My nieces that are the age from, like, 4 to 6. They all love this hamburger helper. Like, it's something that the whole family can really sit down and enjoy.Stephanie [00:07:55]:I love it. And you really do have a very distinct point of view in how you're thinking about your individual recipes. So I'm guessing you don't have za'atar in any of your ingredients.Erin Clarke [00:08:07]:I don't. Even though I personally love za'atar I do too. You know, I love it. I cook with it at home, but I recognize that, like, every single person doesn't have the spice cabinet that I have. So while I'll do, you know, Middle Eastern inspired dishes, and I love to travel so a lot of my dishes are inspired by my travels, I try to do it in a way that brings it home to the Midwest and makes it just as attainable for people as possible.Stephanie [00:08:34]:Right. Where is the last place that you traveled to, just out of curiosity?Erin Clarke [00:08:39]:We spent a month in France this spring, which was just wonderful. I never I speak pretty good French, and I you know, you just have to go back to practice. Yeah. Really purely academic.Stephanie [00:08:53]:Where did you go? What region?Erin Clarke [00:08:55]:So each time we go, we try to visit a different region. This time we did Alsace, which is right on the German border, and it is just right out of a fairy tale. It's the some of the little villages around there are what inspired Walt Disney to design Belle's hometown in Beauty and the Beast. And it really was it was like stepping into a storybook. It was just so charming.Stephanie [00:09:19]:Are you able to as a content creator, are you able to take, like, a month off and fully unplug, or are you just working remotely? How does that work for you? Because I imagine you've got a team at this point.Erin Clarke [00:09:32]:I do. I have a wonderful team. They're just fantastic. Like, well plated would not be able to offer the content that we do without them. And I think that they would probably be more okay with me unplugging than I am okay with myself being totally off. You know, and this is just the reality of being a small business owner. Like, for us, even getting a full day off on the weekend is really, really challenging. And you kind of it kind of bites you the next day, you know, or Monday wouldn't get back.Erin Clarke [00:10:02]:I'm trying to be a little better about finding at least one day where we don't do any work. So even when we travel, we are always checking in. We put in a few hours here and there. We're often creating content while we're out there. But I also just view it as, like, wow. How cool is it that I get to yes. You could view it as, like, I'm in France and I'm working.Stephanie [00:10:22]:Yeah.Erin Clarke [00:10:22]:I view it as, like, how cool I can go to France while I work.Stephanie [00:10:26]:Yeah. And it is really like a change in lifestyle. Like, the creative culture has created so much flexibility for so many people. Do you get caught up and worried about, like, the algorithms and when things change and traffic goes down, and are you always kinda chasing that?Erin Clarke [00:10:43]:I mean, we are chasing it in the sense that, you know, it is our livelihood. Like, my site depends on traffic, and that traffic primarily for us comes from Google search. So I'm constantly, like, reading articles, trying to stay up to date. At the same time, ranking a friend of mine described it as, like, checking your rankings is, like, standing on the scale every single day. Don't do it. Just overall, you know, we're always looking for healthy growth, and the truth is, like, you are constantly you win some, you lose some. This is a particularly challenging time for online content creators just with AI. You know, no one is really certain of what what that's gonna lead to.Erin Clarke [00:11:29]:You're seeing AI appear in search results where independent content creators like myself and my peers used to have our recipes appear. Now it's AI. And just over really, especially the last 5 years, I feel like it's gotten supersaturated. And so Google is sorting through what's quality content and what's not. And so there's less there's just overall there's just less space to go around, and there's less content than ever. Or excuse me, less space to go around and more content than ever.Stephanie [00:12:01]:And this idea of low quality is sort of a you know, to get to these advertising tiers, people need to have high quality content. Google's just like, oh, we spotted some low quality content. And you're just like, what? Like, help me figure this out. I so many people have been caught in that kind of trap of trying to grow and not really getting direction very much from Google. And it is just changing the game, I think. And then I wonder, like, okay. As creatives, we're gonna find the next thing. Right? So is it like, I'm seeing a lot of people you mentioned video.Stephanie [00:12:39]:I'm seeing a lot of people on YouTube creating their own TV shows. I'm seeing substacks. Is that something that you're exploring? Any of those other alternative avenues?Erin Clarke [00:12:50]:It's one of those things where, like, if I could clone myself, I would try to do them all. Substack, I think, is really fun and intriguing to me because it gives people a way to directly support at a very affordable rate their favorite authors, creators. For us, I've but I feel like a key to making that work is to offer content that you can't get anywhere else without paying. Currently, Well Plated is free for readers to access, and we don't really have the capacity to create additional free content on top of that. So kind of the way that we have structured our strategy is to give away as much as possible. Not only are the recipes free, we do free meal plans. And my hope is that we'll make Well Plate as a resource for you and make it the place that you wanna go. And then, you know, for now, if by cultivating that loyal reader base, that can kind of be a foundation of our business that's not subject to algorithms.Stephanie [00:13:51]:Yeah. Like maybe creating modules or workbooks or, PDF content that can be about, you know, the top 30 things you need to have in your pantry and blah blah blah.Erin Clarke [00:14:03]:Mhmm. Yeah. We're always looking to offer resources right now. We're working on putting together updated super comprehensive Thanksgiving guide that gives you the realistic week of Thanksgiving prep list, not the like I mean, yes. It would be great. I know I can pre freeze pie crust 3 months in advance. I am not freezing my Thanksgiving pie crust 3 months in advance. I'm just not that person.Erin Clarke [00:14:26]:I admire that person. I'm not that person. So what say we start on Sunday. Like, how can we really get this done? Yeah. How are we gonna streamline our shopping list? Like, I'm always looking for ways to provide value. So we're really excited about that PDF that'll be coming out here at the end of the month.Stephanie [00:14:41]:How many people do you cook for at Thanksgiving?Erin Clarke [00:14:45]:I'm very spoiled on Thanksgiving day, and then I get to go to my mom's house. And she and my stepdad are fabulous cooks and take off, like, 2 days of work. And the turkey is like a masterpiece. But for about the last now going on almost oh my gosh. How many years has it been? Now going on almost 15 years, I've been hosting Friendsgiving. Oh, yeah. At its smallest, it was probably about 7 people. At 1 year, we got up to 35 people.Erin Clarke [00:15:12]:Now we're kind of somewhere in the sweet spot with around 20. So that every year is just really just it's like chaos, but in the most fun way. Now that, you know, when it started out, it was all adults. We set nice tables. Now my friends have families, so you have kids, like, running around all over the place.Stephanie [00:15:29]:Right. Do you do it at a certain time a year, or do you do it in the month of November? Some people I know do, like, it in February and call it febsgiving.Erin Clarke [00:15:38]:That's well, with how crazy busy holidays are, I completely understand. And, like, let's be honest, there's not that much to look forward to for most of February March holiday wise. We do we do November. So I guess I'm just lucky because I get I love Thanksgiving food. I'm like, this is great that I get to eat this more than once. I'm gonna eat it for Thanksgiving, and then I'm gonna go home and I'm gonna eat it on the actual holiday.Stephanie [00:16:01]:Yes. Super delicious. Okay. So let's talk a little bit more about your book. Like, do you have it organized in any certain way?Erin Clarke [00:16:09]:Yes. So I like to and I know cookbooks all take different approaches, and it's kind of fun to see how different cookbook authors differentiate things. For me, I think it's just like, I'm a very traditional cookbook girl in the sense of the organization. So, you know, we start out with breakfast, have appetizers and drinks, salads, and then the main dishes are really the meat and potatoes of the book, pun intended. Just because that is where I know that people need the most help. Like, everyone has to cook dinner. So having a robust assortment of recipes and then organizing those well is really important to me. So we actually ended up breaking the main dishes down into 3 different categories.Erin Clarke [00:16:55]:So there's an entire chapter that's just pure one pot meals. One pot, one pan. Boom. We have a chapter, that's mostly focused on lightened up comfort food. And then we have this 3rd chapter that I did not intentionally set out to make it a vegetarian chapter just because I never want vegetarian food to feel lesser than or like it needs to get singled out. But we just ended up with this really wonderful collection of vegetarian dishes. They're also pretty heavily globally inspired that ended up being their own chapter as well. So we call those the veggie mains with all the flavor.Erin Clarke [00:17:31]:And then you've got your, you know, your soups, your sides, and, of course, your sweets.Stephanie [00:17:36]:How do you find, like so you have a team of people. How do you find them? Do you just advertise for them and interview just like a normal company would?Erin Clarke [00:17:46]:It's really hard. It's really hard to find good people. Like, I feel incredibly lucky. I've worked with most of my team for 5 years or longer. Some of it has been word-of-mouth. You know, like, other bloggers will work with someone and say, hey. You know, my social media person you know, I might reach out to a friend and say, hey. I'm really looking for someone to help me with my Facebook.Erin Clarke [00:18:08]:And, you know, friends will generously say, like, hey. My social media manager is great. Why don't you reach out to her? You know, some of it has been we went through our when we hired our first full time employee, we did the whole post on Indeed, like, a really rigorous application interview process. And I actually ended up finding Brenna, our first employee, because I posted on my Instagram. And so she reached out, applied through Indeed, you know, and we'd really went through that formal process. But it is truly time consuming and exhausting. Yeah. It's hard.Erin Clarke [00:18:38]:And I think every business I don't exhausting. Yeah. It's hard. And I think every business, I don't find myself unique in that way. And I think the first hire or the first couple are also reallyStephanie [00:18:46]:hard because you're probably getting to the point where you can monetize some things, but it, like, takes money to make money, and it takes more hands to make money. SoErin Clarke [00:19:01]:Mhmm.Stephanie [00:19:02]:How did you feel like you knew when that time was right?Erin Clarke [00:19:07]:When I just could not it just got to a point where I either had to be we either needed to hire someone or we needed to be okay with doing a lot less.Stephanie [00:19:18]:Yeah.Erin Clarke [00:19:18]:And I just could not you know, at that point, I had managed to outsource, you know, the recipe photography, the social media, But I really was so burned out, and I was like, I can't you know, I love what I do, but I can't do it at the right capacity. And I'm not enjoying my life. So how do I find someone that I really want to invest in? And invest is the word to use because as you said, it is not cheap to hire someone. Not only to pay, you know, if you wanna hire someone good, they deserve a great wage.Stephanie [00:19:51]:Yep.Erin Clarke [00:19:51]:And then also even expenses like setting up a 401 k, kind of thinking through some of those pieces. Like, that is administratively very time consuming, and it is costly. But it's worth it. Like, I that was, you know, one of the best decisions I've ever made for my business.Stephanie [00:20:08]:And things like health care. I mean, if you are employing people full time, they want benefits.Erin Clarke [00:20:14]:Yeah. Exactly. And you can choose not to offer benefits, but then you're not gonna get the quality of candidates that you're looking for. And also just personally, for me, like, building a company where I can provide benefits for people, like, that's something that I'm proud of and that we wanna be able to offer.Stephanie [00:20:31]:Yeah. It's funny that you mentioned that because I had a business before getting I'm mostly a broadcaster who happens to write some cookbooks that are regionally based. But before being a broadcaster, I did have a small business, and I was really proud of the fact that we always offered health care. Like, it just felt like, businesses. I didn't it's not the business's job, but it is the way our society is set up. So if that's the way it's gonna be, then let's participate. Let's do it. Let's take care of our employees.Stephanie [00:21:00]:At some point, I wish that everyone could have a single payer health care system and just pay into it, but that's my utopian fantasy as a freelancer out here still, you know, paying for health care on the open market. It's not cheap.Erin Clarke [00:21:13]:No. It's not. It's really challenging.Stephanie [00:21:15]:I know. And that someday we're all gonna get together. Like, there's a 150,000 creatives just in the state of Minnesota all buying independent health care. It'd be cool if we could find some way to all band together and bring everyone else's cost down too. Right?Erin Clarke [00:21:29]:Yeah. I love it. Yeah.Stephanie [00:21:32]:Can you tell me some of your favorite cookbooks? Like, do you, like, even look at cookbooks anymore, or are you just so focused on your own?Erin Clarke [00:21:41]:No. I just love cookbooks. I read cookbooks like people read novels, which is why, you know, if you read my first cookbook and my second one when it comes out, like, the writing is incredibly personal to me. I pour, like, so much of myself into that because food you know, the recipes need to work. They need to be rock solid. That's the number one thing with a cookbook. And we work incredibly, incredibly diligently on that. My whole team does.Erin Clarke [00:22:06]:But from there, like, I just want a cookbook with some personality.Stephanie [00:22:10]:Yeah.Erin Clarke [00:22:10]:And so, like, I just find it so inspiring to hear both the food, hear the stories. And then I can say, like, anyone can post a recipe online, and I absolutely stand behind the quality of the well plated recipes that we do online. But there is something special and a higher standard about a cookbook that, there it's just, like, sacred to me. Like, I feel like you're, like, getting a a piece of someone. And I have a lot a lot of cookbooks. I joke, but it's not it's actually quite true that Ina Garten taught me how to cook when I started. When I started my blog, my husband was in law school. We were on a budget.Erin Clarke [00:22:49]:Like, we were not going out to eat, And he had a voracious appetite. So I was like, okay. I gotta figure out how to cook food that tastes good because we enjoy you know, that we'll enjoy eating that, you know, makes a decent enough quantity to feed him, like, start hosting friends. And so I just checked out Ina's cookbooks from the library and would read them and, you know, work my way through them. So from there so the foundation of my grandmother's and then, like, moving on to Ina Garten.Stephanie [00:23:19]:Yeah.Erin Clarke [00:23:19]:Some of the and then I also, you know, now that I am a professional recipe developer, I also have taken lessons from the way that some of the best of the best write their recipes. So one person that always comes in mind to me is Dori Greenspan. I just think she has this beautiful way of writing recipes, and she's kind of who I learned. Like, don't you can't just don't just tell me the time on the stove. I need you to tell me what it smells like. I need you to tell me, you know, if the color's golden. Like, how do we appeal to all of these different senses to make people feel really confident? And that confidence aspect is really important to me too. So I want you to feel good the entire time you're making my recipe, not just be, like, pleased at the end that it turned out.Erin Clarke [00:24:04]:So, you know, if you're making a cake batter and it looks curdled, I'm gonna tell you it will it looks curdled. It'll be fine. And I feel like I picked some of that up from Dory Greenspan as well.Stephanie [00:24:17]:Oh, wow. Those are some of my heroes too. So it's fun to hear you say that. Have you I just started reading the Ina Garten memoir.Erin Clarke [00:24:24]:Oh, I'm listening to it. I'm about a third of the way through. It's just delightful.Stephanie [00:24:28]:I know. She's so great. I does she read it? I probably should have listened because I just find her so she's so funny.Erin Clarke [00:24:36]:She really is. Yeah. She it's just it's delightful.Stephanie [00:24:39]:Yeah. Okay. So people can come to your you can do a reading. You're gonna be at Valley Booksellers in Stillwater on October 13th.Erin Clarke [00:24:48]:We are doing the event at Modern Well. So it's in partnership with Valley. So it's in Minneapolis, and I will have a partner in conversation, Leigh Funke, from Fit Foodie Finds, who is a friend and just, like, a rock star food blogger who is also based in the Twin Cities. So she graciously agreed to do a q and a with me. We'll be having some snacks passed out from the book. It's just gonna be a really funny thing of conversation. Of course, everyone will leave with a signed copy of the book, and I'm just so looking forward to having that in person connection.Stephanie [00:25:23]:Yes. I'll go ahead and put a link for tickets in the show notes. I'm gonna bump up when I, release this podcast so that people have time to get tickets. It was super nice to talk with you and to meet you. I'm excited about your book. I have followed you on Instagram, so it's fun to get a chance to talk with you. And I loved hearing how thoughtful you are about your point of view on the recipes. It really shows in the work that you do.Stephanie [00:25:49]:You're doing a really goodErin Clarke [00:25:51]:job. Thank you so so much. That really just means a lot. I can't overstate how much that means because sometimes you just feel I mean it's hard.Stephanie [00:25:59]:You're in the void.Erin Clarke [00:25:59]:It's hard. It's a lot of work. Yeah. Mhmm.Stephanie [00:26:01]:Absolutely. Alright, Erin. It's great. Good luck with the book and I maybe we'll see you at Modern Well. Who knows?Erin Clarke [00:26:08]:Yeah. I hope so. It was great meeting you.Stephanie [00:26:10]:Okay. Thanks, Sarah.Erin Clarke [00:26:11]:Thanks again. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

@Lauren_McDuffie, is the author of the beautiful and inspiring cookbook "Homemade-ish: Recipes and Cooking Tips That Keep It Real" Known for her knack of blending home-cooked charm with modern-day convenience, Lauren's work has been making waves in the culinary world. We'll dive into her creative process, chat about her beloved blog "My Kitchen Little," and get a glimpse into the life of someone who beautifully marries food, photography, and writing.So grab a cup of coffee, settle in, and get ready to be inspired by the delightful Lauren McDuffie.TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS:Stephanie [00:00:15]:Hi. Welcome to Dishing with Stephanie's dish, and I am here with the author Lauren McDuffie, Talking With My Mouth Full , and she is someone that I'm just getting familiar with. So Lauren, welcome to the program.Lauren McDuffie [00:00:26]:Thank you so much for having me.Stephanie [00:00:28]:Yeah. Your book, Homemade-ish, I think I saw it, like, on maybe a publisher's weekly list, and then I started paging through it. And you're I I hope this, like, hits you in the right way. You're kind of, like, sort of semi homemade ish, but not exactly.Lauren McDuffie [00:00:48]:Yes. No. That's you really hit the nail on the head with that. Okay. Yeah.Stephanie [00:00:52]:I used to watch semi homemade with Sandra Lee you. In the beginning of the Food Network days, and she's kinda gotten a bad rap. What I loved about her and what I loved when I was going through your book too is just this idea that we don't have to, like, make every single thing from scratch in order to put a decent meal on the table for our family.Lauren McDuffie [00:01:16]:Right. It's just that's just true.Stephanie [00:01:19]:And it prevents people sometimes from cooking at all. This idea that cooking is so complicated and so hard. And as someone who I mean, I'm just a home cook, and I feel like that's a great space where you can sometimes take shortcuts and also knowing the shortcuts to take.Lauren McDuffie [00:01:38]:Yes. Exactly.Stephanie [00:01:40]:So your book, Homemade-ishLauren McDuffie [00:01:42]:Mhmm.Stephanie [00:01:43]:Is really lovely. And I felt like was the modern day version of sort of that idea because your food looks incredible. Your you must be a are you a a photo stylist? Because your food in your book is, like, amazing.Lauren McDuffie [00:01:58]:Thank you. Yes. I did the photography and the styling for all my books, and it's I just love that part of the process so much. So thank you for saying that.Stephanie [00:02:07]:I did laugh because you have a piece in there you, talk about, like, I just love this. This is my joy. And I'm in the middle of finishing a second book, and I'm not feeling that it's my joy.Lauren McDuffie [00:02:23]:I get that too. Yeah. That's fair. I was like, I'm all the time. So I under Yeah.Stephanie [00:02:30]:I have 35 pictures left, and I don't even wanna eat the food anymore because I'm so sick of it.Lauren McDuffie [00:02:35]:Yep. You've spent enough time with it probably. Yes. I get that. I do.Stephanie [00:02:40]:So catch my listeners up a little bit about you and who you are and your blog.Lauren McDuffie [00:02:46]:Okay. So I yes. I run a, a recipe website called my kitchen little, which I think it just turned 5, like, within the past week. So I I don't know. In blog years, that's not a baby anymore. So and and I run it as a business, which I really, I really enjoy. But prior to this website, I had a blog, which was very much a writing space. I love to write, and I started that, I don't know, maybe 12, 13 years ago, a long time ago back when food blogs were still sort of a novel thing.Lauren McDuffie [00:03:19]:Not everyone had one at the time. So I started I started that when my daughter was was a baby, and I just needed an outlet. And for me, cooking has always been my favorite sort of creative outlet. I love food. I love to talk about food, and a blog just seemed like a really nice way to gather together my creative interest with writing and cooking. And and, eventually, I fell in love with photography just by necessity because I learned that people want to see what you're talking about. Yes. So I grew a new love for that whole side of it too.Lauren McDuffie [00:03:50]:So so I had a food blog for a really long time purely as a hobby, but I I I met a lot of other people along the way who were in in food land just like me but in different ways. And, I had the opportunity to do my my first cookbook several years ago, which was kind of an homage to my Appalachian roots. And then I did another book a few years later, which is called Southern Lights. I lived in Charleston, South Carolina at the time. AndStephanie [00:04:15]:You did? My brother lives there. I love Charleston so much.Lauren McDuffie [00:04:18]:I love you. We moved to Portland a year ago from Charleston, and I was very sad to leave. But I love Portland too. So so it's it's been fine. But, yeah, I have a special spot in my heart for Charleston, and that book sort of was inspired by just my time living in, the low country and in the south, and I wanted to show off the healthier side of the southern table, which was a really fun book project. But, this book, Homemade ish, I just really enjoyed doing because I've found that a lot of my actual friends, like in my neighborhood and in my real life, are really drawn to things that are genuinely easy, truly low maintenance, and unintimidating. You know, I love a long cooking project with the best of them, something that takes all day and then I have to go out into the world to find really obscure ingredients. I like that because I'm a food nerd, and that's the kind of stuff that makes me happy.Lauren McDuffie [00:05:11]:But a lot of people, in fact, most people that I know, they're not like that. They they do, however, want to make food themselves in their home because there's a lot to be said for that, but they wanna do it with the least amount of fuss, you know, possible. And so that's really where the idea for this book came. And I also did use to watch semi homemade, and I appreciated kind of the heart of the show. The point of it made so much sense to me. So, yeah, I kind of wanted to breathe some modern new life into that concept. And because ready made foods and store bought foods have really come a long way since the nineties, and there's so much out there, that's that's really great fodder for jumping off and being creative and doctoring up into something new. And that was that's kind of the point of the book.Stephanie [00:05:57]:Yeah. So you take something that's maybe giving you a a a helping hand as it were, like pesto or deli meats or even, rotisserie chickenLauren McDuffie [00:06:08]:Yes.Stephanie [00:06:08]:And then you kinda take it the rest of the way.Lauren McDuffie [00:06:11]:Absolutely. Yeah. I think that cookbooks really serve a wonderful purpose in just giving ideas also. I think sometimes just coming up with what to make for dinner can be, you know, a deterrent in and of itself. And so I'm I'm hoping that these recipes are also fodder for people's own just riffing and and their own interpretation. So, hopefully, it'll help people see their grocery stores kind of in a new light. Like, what do you mean for me? Yeah. Yeah.Stephanie [00:06:38]:You mentioned in the book, I think it's 5, like, of your favorite products that everyone should have in their pantry at all times that you always have a meal available. And maybe it wasn't exactly 5, but I think it was pesto was 1. Yep. Curry. I think prepared curry was theLauren McDuffie [00:06:58]:paste. I love I love a curry paste.Stephanie [00:07:01]:And can you share a few more?Lauren McDuffie [00:07:03]:Sure. And I think that this list probably changes, a little bit, but for me, a rotisserie chicken is always a go to. I I tend to never get sick of finding ways to wield a rotisserie chicken because you can just do so much with them. But I think this is gonna you know, people scoff at at bagged salads sometimes, which is silly to me, but I do a lot in this book with bagged salads. I usually have one in my fridge to play on and and riff on. I think they're really valuable because it saves you time with chopping and Yeah. Procuring all of the individual things. I just there's something to be said for that.Lauren McDuffie [00:07:41]:SoStephanie [00:07:41]:Do you have bagged salad? Like, are you an Aldi person? Are you a Trader Joe's person? Are you whatever your grocery store is where you are? Because they apparently someone told me once that the bagged salads at Aldi that are $3 are really quite good, and I've never hadLauren McDuffie [00:07:57]:I haven't either. Although, I'm people I see people talking about Aldi more and more singing its praises. So I will have to check that out. That's really good intel.Stephanie [00:08:07]:I can't get past the quarter to get the cart.Lauren McDuffie [00:08:10]:Oh. Oh, yeah. I can't do that.Stephanie [00:08:12]:I'm like, come on. Like, it's a quarter, but people say it ensures that the people bring the carts back into the store.Lauren McDuffie [00:08:21]:I see. Okay. Okay. I'm just like, chargeStephanie [00:08:24]:me a dollar. I don't care. I just want I don't wanna have to fish around in my bag for a quarter.Lauren McDuffie [00:08:29]:Right. I know. That's true. I didn't know about that whole thing. Okay. That is interesting. But it's funny you mentioned Trader Joe's because I just went there last week for the first time in, like, 6 years for no reason other than that. I've moved a few times and COVID happened, and I just hadn't been in a while, and I forgot how much I love that store.Lauren McDuffie [00:08:49]:Yeah. And it it's perfect for this book because they have so many wonderful things that are already kind of made and started for you. But, yeah, I almost panic bought so many things when I went in there because I was like, oh gosh. It all looks so good.Stephanie [00:09:03]:You are my person because I'm a panic shopper. Yeah. Like, where I just and and during COVID, I mean, I have still nightmares about trying to go to the grocery store during COVID and just literally throwing things in your cart and running out. But I'm also a panic orderer at a restaurant because I want everything.Lauren McDuffie [00:09:23]:Oh, I know. I I feel you on that. I'm a little bit like that. I close my eyes and just play roulette andStephanie [00:09:29]:Yes.Lauren McDuffie [00:09:30]:That's like your dog. No. I get that. But I did I got some salads there last week to your point that were very good. So but, yeah, normally, I I grocery shop so much just for my work that it's almost a daily thing. And, I do get delivered groceries, which people think is funny because I don't always pick out my own individual this and that. But for pure efficiency sake, again, which is sort of the heart of this book, I just shop at, like, my big local supermarket and and get all my bagged salads and sundries there and, you know, use them in a pinch. They're always helpful.Stephanie [00:10:04]:Every day, what does your day look like? Like, are you already working on the next book, and is that what you're doing every day?Lauren McDuffie [00:10:11]:Yeah. You know, I, I did this book right before we moved from Charleston to Portland, and I did it really fast. For me, it was it was fast. And it didn't burn me out, but it definitely gave me a nice kind of pause in in the the cookbook making because I had a book come out a year ago as well. So I had 2 come out pretty close together, which has been really fun. But I'm just kind of enjoying sitting back a little and looking at the stuff I've made, and and I'm actually working on a non food related book, right now just to see, if that can go anywhere. So but I've been focusing a lot on my my website and growing that. I just you know, as I said before, it's past the 5 year mark, and it's really nice to see that, coming more to fruition and and doing doing pretty well.Lauren McDuffie [00:11:02]:So I've just kind of thrown myself into the to that side of things, but I'm sure another book idea will will will surface because I love making them. But, like, you you were just saying, it's a lot when you're in it. It's like, woah. I'm I why am I doing this? But it's it's great when all is said and done, but, yeah, I took a little break.Stephanie [00:11:19]:There's been a kinda trend that I've been seeing with cookbook authors and recipe developers. I'm curious if you're thinking about this at all. We have a lot of people that have launched substacks, and Instagram and TikTok are just full of recipes. And we're in some respects, I feel like have reached this, like, everything is just like this free recipe, and people just comment like recipe, recipe, recipe. Yes. And Yes. With that, which is great because you build an audience and you build a community, there are some creators that are like, wow. I'm just putting all this time, energy, and money into this thing that the books aren't making money like they used to.Stephanie [00:12:06]:Podcasts have never really made money unless you're, like, the top 20. And so we have all these creators spending all this energy, and we're all chasing, you know, the few scents that you get when someone watches something on a YouTube. So I'm wondering if, like, we're almost at, like, some of the creators, Carolyn Chambers has talked about this, about taking all of her recipes off of her website and really funneling people only into recipe ways that she can monetize. Have you thought about that at all, or do you think about that when you're working on your blog?Lauren McDuffie [00:12:41]:Yeah. I do. Because sometimes it does start to feel almost futile when you really sit back and you think of I mean, and you just summarized it really well. I go back and forth. I mean, I actually started a substack, as well, and I've enjoyed that as a separate space for me to write more creatively because no one comes to food blogs anymore, as you know, to hear hear what anyone has to say about their life. I mean, that's a that's a big joke now. You know, get to the recipe already. And so my self stack became sort of that.Lauren McDuffie [00:13:09]:I think for me, it's been motivating because my own traffic on my website has grown exponentially over the last year, really, year, maybe year and a half, and that keeps me in the game. But I do sometimes wonder and I had someone ask me just last week about, another factor, which is AI is now a part of things as well too, which is so intimidating and it makes me wonder, is that where people are just going to stop, you know, for all of their their recipes? And are we gonna become obsolete? I don't know. It's scary actually to think about it. But but I have some very, very dear friends who are full time food bloggers and are very helpful resources for me and have taught me a lot about SEO, so I which is search engine optimization, and it's sort of how to play the game with Google so that you get your content in front of all the people out there who are googling things all the time. And it keeps me inspired and motivated when I talk to other people who have found real success in this. But I don't know. To your question, it is a little bit nerve wracking and and scary to think about what's gonna happen 5 years from now. I don't really know, but I just know that I enjoy doing it and I I'm enjoying the little wins and little successes that I'm seeing month to month right now, and that's keeping me going.Lauren McDuffie [00:14:27]:And and the books, like you said, you know, I don't know many people who write cookbooks to get rich, but, it's a wonderfully legitimizing thing to have. I love having a tangible representation of of my work, and it's it's just I I love them. I love that I've that I've done them, and it's it's valuable in other ways that aren't necessarily monetary. And and it all kind of works together as this little food machine and who knows exactly where it's going, but I I'm confident and optimistic that it'll still be, there's still a place for our blogs and recipe websites.Stephanie [00:15:01]:Well and to your point, I think what is also happening, which is sort of in your wheelhouse, I don't consider myself a writer. My husband actually is a writer, So I'm pretty careful about what that looks like in that space. I am a 300 words or less person. I am a bullet pointed list. I just that's how I think, and that's what works for me. But to your point, if you have, like, talent in the writing space and having your own personal points of view, I do think that there's always gonna be room for that where people align with your vision or your values or your lifestyle choices, and they get to know you and they wanna be more in your world?Lauren McDuffie [00:15:44]:Hope so. Yeah. I think so too. I really do. That that human element of the equation is special, and I think people like it. It's it's a really nice thing. And so I'm hoping in fact, you know, I've actually made a commitment to invest more into the writing in my website even though I'm not telling you a story about my life anymore.Stephanie [00:16:05]:Right. But youLauren McDuffie [00:16:06]:can still weave your voice into how you explain food. You know, most of my my blog posts, I don't even really call it a blog anymore. It really is more of a recipe website, but there's still tons of words in there. And you could pick and choose which words you use, and I try to make mine as useful, but also entertaining and worth people's time to read, and that's one way you can separate yourself from the bazillions of other people who are doing the same thing. SoStephanie [00:16:32]:Yeah. So I'm talking with Lauren McDuffie, and her book is Homadish. Couple of other things in your book specifically that I really loved. I I don't know. I I was, was thinking about this today. I was, doing a TV segment with a friend and there was a laundry guy on and he was talking about, know, the 5 things you need to have in your laundry room. And I thought, wow. You know, there's blogs and I've got, like, kitchen essentials and you really broke it down this in in your book, some things worth noting about what you should the 13 things you literally need to have in your kitchen.Stephanie [00:17:10]:I've never seen a list so small and so spot on. So good for you.Lauren McDuffie [00:17:15]:Thank you. Yeah. I, I that list came to be because I was photographing the book, and, I realized I have I have rooms filled with props and things that I've used for years because I work as a food photographer and a stylist. But in, you know, in the name of keeping things real and, authentic, I just used the stuff that I genuinely cook with in my real life. So, yeah, it made it it made it very clear that you don't need a lot. I love minimalism. It makes me feel good, and so I wanted to kinda capture that.Stephanie [00:17:47]:Yeah. So it was a cutting board, a chef's knife, a large deep lidded pot, a large skillet, a medium lidded pot, large baking sheets, a muffin pan, which I might argue with you on the muffin pan.Lauren McDuffie [00:17:58]:Yeah. Yeah. I know. I had to sneak that in because there's 2 recipes in my book that require it.Stephanie [00:18:03]:Okay. Alright. A Dutch oven, a grater, a can opener, a large spatula or spoon, a blender, or and a strainer. And and, like, I guess because the one thing that the muffin pan is is you can't replicate a muffin pan, really.Lauren McDuffie [00:18:17]:Well, that's true. Well and I think, specifically, I was just trying to say that you can literally make every single thing in this book with just these 13 things, but I'd be willing to stretch that and say you could probably get by with cooking a lot more for a lot longer with just these things. You really don't need I mean and you're right. The muffin pan is very unique to the to the book. But, yeah, I I think in general, less is more. I'm not a big, single use kitchen tool person. I used to be, but we have moved so much. Like, my family, we've moved a lot, and that'll make a minimalist out of you.Lauren McDuffie [00:18:52]:Yeah. It had it had me. So, yeah, I wanted to weave that notion into this book because I think it's kind ofStephanie [00:18:58]:refreshing. So do you have an instant pot or a slow cooker?Lauren McDuffie [00:19:01]:I do have a slow cooker because I love them. They're so helpful, and I love a slow cooked thing. Like, we're getting into that season now, so mine's like, I've just dusted it off and it's ready to go. But, yeah, I I don't have an instant pot, and I'm sure I would like it. I mean, I'm sure I would like an air fryer. I don't have that either, and I I know people love them. But that's just me probably being resistant to one change. And then also, you know, if we move again, that's another thing I'm gonna have to pack and unpack.Lauren McDuffie [00:19:31]:SoStephanie [00:19:32]:Yeah. You don't need a air fryer. And the only thing I would say about the Instant Pot is the pressure cooking aspect is really nice, and it's a slow cooker too. Oh, yes. But there's something kinda homey about your ceramic slow cooker. You know?Lauren McDuffie [00:19:49]:Yes. And I love just I love a Dutch oven, like, old school just but I also work from home, and so I'm here to to do that. But for I used to not work in my house, and I loved a slow cooker because it just it made everything so easy.Stephanie [00:20:04]:Yes.Lauren McDuffie [00:20:04]:Yeah.Stephanie [00:20:06]:So as you're thinking about food trends and kind of new products, like, one of the, you have a recipe that's kinda like this. You know, we went through a shakshuka phase.Lauren McDuffie [00:20:18]:Yes.Stephanie [00:20:19]:Mhmm. Are there any, like, trends that you're seeing on the horizon that you're like, oh, I need to simplify that?Lauren McDuffie [00:20:28]:That's that's a great question. I well, one trend that I've literally been working on just this morning is I'm really obsessed with chili crisp, which is something I see all over the place. I like spice. And so I've been trying to think of ways in fact, I just shared in my, I think I shared in my news letter, or I'm getting ready to, ways to kind of make your own but using a store bought one as your just like with homemade ish, using it as a launch pad. So I took a chili crisp that I bought, from maybe Trader Joe's, and I turned it into a southern style chili crisp by adding something like candied pecans and a little apple cider vinegar and, like Yum. Like, so it it and brown sugar, I think, or or molasses is what it was. But, anyways, I southernized, an already store bought product, which is very much what this book is sort of all about. But I keep seeing chili crisp everywhere, and it makes me so happy because I love it.Stephanie [00:21:23]:I really wanna put that on a white bean or cauliflower or puree. I'm just hearing you talk about it.Lauren McDuffie [00:21:30]:That's the perfect idea. Yeah. That would be fun.Stephanie [00:21:33]:Do you like, some of the as I look at cookbooks Mhmm. Sometimes I see, like, that and this is why I'm probably not a very prolific person when I do this. I kind of plot along. Like, oh, I'm gonna make, you know, this, double stuffed something. And then they find 12 other ways to make the same thing, but just with different twists on it. Do you think like that?Lauren McDuffie [00:22:01]:I think I do now, but that's because I have to think strategically about how I publish recipes on and on my website, at least, because that's very that's very useful just for getting views and getting people. It's funny how how my brain splits into when I'm writing recipes for a book. It's a very different it's much freer, actually, creatively. But then, to your question, when I'm working on coming up with recipes for my, for my website, yeah, if I can split something off and offer variations, that serves me really well. So, yeah, I think my brain does work that way. Yeah. The more the merrier.Stephanie [00:22:39]:Yeah. And and I know I I'm always like, there's a reason people are doing it like this. AndLauren McDuffie [00:22:44]:Yeah.Stephanie [00:22:44]:I'm not doing it like that, but I know there's a reason why people are. And it never occurred to me that it was due to SEO, but that makes total sense.Lauren McDuffie [00:22:52]:Yeah. That's why I would do it at least. Yeah. Yeah.Stephanie [00:22:56]:Are there other cookbook authors that inspire you or that like, books that you just will never take off your shelf considering that you've moved, so you've probably pared down?Lauren McDuffie [00:23:05]:Yes. I really have. I donated some books that I'd worn pretty well. But, yes. I, I love Alison Roman's books. I I just I think the well, her food is a lot like the food that I just cook for myself, on any given day because it's very simple. It's nothing more than it needs to be, and I like that. But I really respect and appreciate anybody that truly innovates and carves out their own style.Lauren McDuffie [00:23:32]:That's really hard to do. I mean, I live in this very saturated world of, you know, recipe development and food. And so anytime someone comes along and has a very distinct and sort of fresh feeling, point of view, I just think that's great. I admire that. At it. Yeah. She's good at that. She's she's done that for herself.Lauren McDuffie [00:23:50]:So she's the first person that came to mind. And and I have her books. They're sitting out, and they have been for a long time. So yeah. Yeah. I love her.Stephanie [00:23:59]:When you is there, like, a classic recipe that you just find yourself coming back to that's maybe from your blog that you just love andLauren McDuffie [00:24:09]:Yeah. I always say my, my most, I guess, well loved and well worn recipe, it's, I love Cajun and Creole, Cuisine, and I've got just this etouffee recipe that I have been making for a really, really long time, that's got shrimp and and chicken and andouille, and it's just so good. I've made it for, I think, everyone that has ever come to my house. It's just so tasty, and it tastes better the longer that it sits. Anything that can check that box, I'm gonna automatically be a fan of. But but I think that's my all time favorite, and I love, like, a Cocoa Van, as well. In fact, I'm sitting here today working on chicken stew collection, for my website, and that's just my favorite, I think, category of of food just in general. But my all time favorite would be the this like an etouffee, like a spicy one.Lauren McDuffie [00:24:59]:Yeah. I love them, and I make them all the time. SoStephanie [00:25:02]:Yeah. And that is super southern too. Like Yep. Something that you know, sometimes I think, like, oh, do I even need to, like, tell someone a recipe for this? Like, some of it seems so obvious.Lauren McDuffie [00:25:15]:Oh, sure.Stephanie [00:25:15]:That is something and and I guess you get accustomed. Like, I can make gravy like nobody's business. Yeah. Sure. But I you know, in the Midwest, we had grew up with gravy on everything, so it's Yeah. Sort of unique.Lauren McDuffie [00:25:28]:And appreciate that. I know. I I forget sometimes how, I I assume things are just, so easy and you don't need recipes for things, but then I'll have friends who just are like, Lauren, no. That's why I wrote this book. They're just like, you know, I don't know what I'm doing. My brain doesn't work that way. And so I always equate it to the way that I am with gardening. I don't know how to do anything with plants at all.Lauren McDuffie [00:25:51]:I'm so ignorant, and so I always just try to remember, like, how I am with plants is how some people are with cooking. It's just not your you wanna do it, but you just aren't super well versed in. SoStephanie [00:26:01]:yeah. Alright. Well, I'm gonna put a link to the book, obviously, homemade ish, in the notes here. I will also, remind me of the name of your blog again.Lauren McDuffie [00:26:12]:It's called my kitchen little, and so it's just my kitchen little dot com.Stephanie [00:26:15]:It's cute. And then, I'll find your substack, and I'll link to it too. Great. And we'll go from there. But it was really lovely to spend time with you. I Right. Really think the book is clever. I felt like I knew right away people in my life that would really get a lot out of this.Lauren McDuffie [00:26:33]:Good to hear.Stephanie [00:26:34]:And, it's beautifully shot, which is also I really admire that because I'm over here with my stupid iPhone, but it's, it's beautifully shot. It looks great, and I would recommend that people buy it. I when I really sat down with it and went through the recipes, I liked it very much. It's homemade ish. Recipes and cooking tips that keep it real. And I liked your 13 things you need in the kitchen probably minus the muffin pan.Lauren McDuffie [00:27:01]:That's fair. That's fair. I get it. Alright. Thanks, Lauren. Thank you so much.Stephanie [00:27:06]:Okay. We'll talk soon. Bye bye.Lauren McDuffie [00:27:13]:Bye bye. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Subscribe to Jason DeRusha Substack Newsletter here The DeRusha Download: official newsletter of Jason DeRusha TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS:Stephanie [00:00:15]:Hello, everybody, and welcome to Dishing with Stephanie's dish, the podcast where we talk to people that are obsessed with food. And, Jason Derusha, I don't know how you feel about being introduced as being obsessed with food. I probably should start with that you're a very professional broadcaster first.Jason Derusha [00:00:32]:I'm pretty obsessed, though, so I think it works. I think it works.Stephanie [00:00:36]:Jason is the host of Drive Time with Derusha from 3 to 6 on WCCO Radio. And you may have known him from making the leap from being a TV news anchor to a broadcaster over in the audio space. You and I are are friendly. We, see each other at things and we chat and you've been super helpful for me in my freelance journey. But I just really wanted to chat with you about, like, how's it going? Most people, I think, see the idea of being on, like, the evening news and then going to AM radio as a step back. But I thought it was super fascinating for you, and I'd just love to see how it's going.Jason Derusha [00:01:18]:Well, thank you, and I appreciate you asking me. It is, I I had to get over my own sort of mental block as to whether or not this was a step back. And, also, like, is that even a relevant question? Like, who cares if it's a step back? Right? But, all of these things are sort of wrapped up in, oh, gosh. It just goes back to, like, when you're a kid. Right? Like, what was your vision of yourself? Is it okay to stop and say, like, I think I've achieved what I need to achieve? And that that sort of I don't know. It was an emotional decision for me because very much my identity was wrapped up in being the TV news guy.Stephanie [00:02:03]:Yeah.Jason Derusha [00:02:04]:And probably for my 1st year at WCCO Radio, when I would do events, I would I would, still, like, sort of struggle with how do I introduce myself. And even stuff like talking to my my, kids about you know, as an alum of Marquette University, when I was the morning news anchor, like, there was some prestige with that. When you are the afternoon radio talk show host on AM radio, It's just a little different for a younger generation. I will say this. Releasing yourself from sort of the burden of your own self expectations is incredibly liberating. And doing something because you wanna grow and you wanna challenge yourself and you want to be sort of okay at something and then get better, oh my gosh. Like, it has been so invigorating for me. I'm so glad I did it.Stephanie [00:03:07]:It's such a weird thing too because I came from radio and did then go to TV.Jason Derusha [00:03:14]:Yeah.Stephanie [00:03:14]:And and people act like TV is like the holy grail, but yet you've been doing something for 15 years over here. And the mediums are both broadcast, but the way you interact with people is super different.Jason Derusha [00:03:28]:Yes. Yeah. I've found you know, morning news and talk radio have a little more in common than when I was on the nighttime news. I remember when I was the Good Question reporter in the 10 o'clock news at WCCO TV. When I went to the morning show, all of a sudden, there was this much more personal intimate connection with the audience. And doing talk radio is like next level of that. Where on television, like, people got little glimpses into my life. And on radio, you know, all last week, and we're recording this in early September, but when when I was at the Minnesota State Fair, people were coming up to me wishing me good luck at dropping off my oldest at NYU because they knew this weekend I was going to New York to drop off my oldest.Jason Derusha [00:04:17]:Like, they just have that relationship with you, which is really fun. I mean, I think I've always had, maybe more of a personal relationship with the audience and, like, the traditional, you know, stand on mount anchor desk and deliver the sermon sort of TV news anchor that's never really been me. But it's just different when you have 3 hours to talk to people. You know?Stephanie [00:04:39]:One thing that's really struck me as a talk radio fan, and I have been for, I don't know, my whole life really from the time that my dad made me listen to WCCO in the 5th grade on the drive to school. I'm very impressed with how you handle this time that we're in where politics is so polarizing and people are just so feeling their feels all the time and really need to share those feelings with you. I just was noticing on, posts that you did that someone was mad that you weren't at the state fair on Labor Day and it's like, wow. People. But, also, I love the way that you you let people have their opinions, but you also don't let them abuse you, and I think there's a difference.Jason Derusha [00:05:26]:Yeah. Yeah. It's tricky. I mean, in TV news, I spent 25 years trying to get the audience to trust me. And part of that is, especially in morning news, you wanna be liked. Not that you shy away from asking tough questions, but you wanna do it in a likable way. That's what the audience wants. And here in in the talk space, it's it's hard.Jason Derusha [00:05:56]:It would be very easy if I were a left wing talk show host or a right wing talk show host, and then you just play the hits. You are essentially KDWB of political ideas. You play the top 40. You people know what you're gonna do, and you do it. And they like it. And people see in me what they want to see. So if they want to be mad at me and they are, Republicans and you're like you can make a line between Trump supporter I try to with Republican listeners. Like, look.Jason Derusha [00:06:37]:I am open to many Republican ideas. I'm not open to Donald Trump. Like, sorry. He's disqualified himself for me. That is not something I talk about a lot on the show because what's the point Other than making yourself feel, you know, good, I guess. I I I always think of my show as, like, the Thanksgiving table growing up where my uncle was, my uncle was a lawyer. He went to Madison. My grandfather was a hardcore Ronald Reagan Republican.Jason Derusha [00:07:14]:And everyone would duke it out, and everyone was welcome to join in. You're sort of expected to join in. And it was fine. Today, we've taken and I get it. Some of the issues we're talking about are very fundamental issues to different people. Right? It's it's a very white male sort of, privileged position to say, like, most of these issues for me are not life and death. But I also think it's not good for political discourse that we've turned everything into life or or death. And I don't I don't know that that what does that get us? Do we have better discussions? Do we have better participation? Do we have better policy because we've turned everything into a fundamental life and death, good or evil question? I I don't see a benefit to it.Jason Derusha [00:08:06]:So I try not to do that on my show.Stephanie [00:08:09]:I have noticed a change in you from when you first started broadcasting on the station, and I thought this was interesting because as a TV newsperson, you weren't supposed to have a lot of personality. You were supposed to be fairly impartial and just like a blank slate ofJason Derusha [00:08:27]:Yeah. The news for you. Star. Right? The news is the star, not me.Stephanie [00:08:32]:And I think it took you a little while to find your rhythm of how what to push, what buttons to push, how hard to push. And I'm really, pleasantly surprised and encouraged of the progress that you've made. I think you're just doing great.Jason Derusha [00:08:48]:It it's so nice, it's so nice of you to say that. I have had a tremendous coach at the radio station, and the thing I miss most about TV is the team. And I was more I don't know. I coworkers called me the CFO of our morning show. Mhmm. And that stood for chief feelings officer. My job was to sort of keep the trains on the track and make sure everyone felt heard and validated. And I didn't always tell people they were right, but they always were heard.Jason Derusha [00:09:24]:And so my job was to lift everybody else up. Well, in radio, it's just it's me and a producer. That's it. And we have a a brand manager who's, like, a program director of WCCO Radio, Brad Lane. And he's been tremendous, you know, and you can talk to any of my managers over the year. I've always have good relationship with managers, but I generally don't like to be told, what to do. Typical, media Broadcaster. Broadcaster.Jason Derusha [00:09:55]:Right? But in this case, like, I needed guidance. I needed coaching. I didn't really know how to do this. I I knew how to host, and I knew how to interview, but I didn't really know how to navigate talk radio today, which is different from talk radio 10 years ago. 10 years ago, if you could frame the issue well, people would call in. Today, people react to talk radio sort of like they do a a Facebook status update. They wanna know your take, and then they'll react.Stephanie [00:10:24]:Yeah.Jason Derusha [00:10:25]:Well, that took me a lot of work because, you know, do people really wanna hear my take? Is my take valid? Do I you know, it's all of those issues. And even as someone who's always had sort of an outsized personality in town, I still had that doubt of, like, do I really do I know what I'm talking about? Why are people really and he the the way Brad phrases it is he's like, what is your show about? What is your show about? And a lot of people ask me that. What is your show about? Which is such a funny question because you and I both, like, grew up listening to talk radio. So, like, I grew up in Chicago. WGN talk radio was part of my life. And then there was an FM talk radio, the loop in Chicago. That was more comedians, a little more edgy, a little younger. And you're like, talk radio is about well, fundamentally, it's about whatever the host wants to talk about.Jason Derusha [00:11:25]:So, like, you know, your show that you do, what is your show about? Well, like, the subject matter is food, but, like, it's really about your lens, what you care about. And that seems so egotistical. You're like, oh, it's all about me? Yeah. But it kind of is. Right? That's kinda what it is. So I it took a while for me to learn that. It took honestly, I would say it took a year of doing it 5 days a week until I really got comfortable with it. And I still feel like I'm good, not great.Jason Derusha [00:12:01]:Whereas after 25 years of TV, not being arrogant, but I think I was great. Yeah. And so it's kind of fun to not be great at something and learn it. I've enjoyed that.Stephanie [00:12:14]:Yeah. And I think it's revealed a lot about you as a person, that is hard to tap into and to be vulnerable and to let people see that side. Particularly, you know, we're performing these shows in a really polarizing time and in a time where people just they go after you. I mean, the amount of personal attack that hosts receive on something as benign as a food show, it's real.Jason Derusha [00:12:46]:I'm surprised by it, to be honest. And I'm a very online person, so I shouldn't be surprised by it. But, what's happened, and certainly you get it from people listening to you, but the people who actually listen, get it for the most part. Like, there's some attack, but mostly the listeners I don't know. All during the fair, I have people coming up telling me that, like, they disagree with me politically, but they really like how I do my show, which that's the best. Yeah. But part of the challenge with the digital world and the social media world is, you know, like, I I said this to someone this morning. How much of my energy am I supposed to spend on someone who doesn't listen and never will listen? So all day, every day, both the Republicans and the Democrats run against the media right now.Jason Derusha [00:13:41]:The media is the media where's the media? Why doesn't the media say this? Why is this the headline? Why are you framing it this way? Media, media, media, media, which is sort of interesting considering, supposedly, no one cares about the media anymore, and no one lets no one reads, no one subscribes, no one so you're like, but but it's a great boogie, man. Right? Like, if you run against the media, you don't have to confront the fact that your candidate maybe sucks. Right? Like, it's my fault. And that's been a bit of a challenge for me to figure out, like, obviously, I want to convince people to give my show a chance, but I think most of the people who are engaging in sort of a negative way, are not convincible. Right? Like, they're not so how much of my energy am I supposed to spend on that? I don't know. It's a bit of a challenge.Stephanie [00:14:34]:Well and I do think they listen. I think that people love to have feelings and emotions. And if they're not sure where to have them or they are in a place in their life where they're lonely or they're othered or whatever the case may be, I think sometimes people tune in just to feel something because they feel empty inside.Jason Derusha [00:14:59]:Yeah. Yeah. And you get I don't know. Like, I always try to remember that there are and the same is true of callers or texters on radio. There are a lot more people who are listening, who are lurkers. Right? Like, that's what we would call them on Facebook or Twitter, the lurkers. So by modeling sort of reasonable, friendly, but passionate discussion, I think there's some benefit to that for the people who are observing and don't wanna jump into the mess.Stephanie [00:15:34]:Do you ever think about getting off Twitter? I know a lot of media personalities have.Jason Derusha [00:15:39]:I do. I do. But, mostly, I enjoy it. Like, mostly, I get positive interaction out of it. I've started to curate it a little more. Like, I mute a lot of people that you know, if I feel someone getting my blood pressure rising, I'll just mute them. It's okay. Like, they don't need, like, block.Jason Derusha [00:15:58]:I don't need to do that. But, like, I and people who I have a policy, if you call me or my family a name, you just get blocked. Like, there's no I don't need that. So I I do think about it. It is one of those things where you're like, the upside of something like Twitter acts. The upside is you get a lot of audience. I have, I don't know, 80,000 followers there. Certainly, most people don't see all of that stuff, and who knows how many are are relevant.Jason Derusha [00:16:33]:But, you know, a a normal tweet of mine might get seen might get, you know, 10, 20, 30000. Like, that's pretty good.Stephanie [00:16:42]:It's also so immediate when you're on the air. Like Yeah.Jason Derusha [00:16:45]:You need. For show, it's amazing. Like, what I I never think about leaving. I think about and I have adjusted what I will post about, just because it's not really fruitful for the most part. And you think, like, is my voice needed on this topic? Not really. Like, so do I need to weigh in on a lot of political type things? Not really. So I I've sort of, cut down on that. But you're right.Jason Derusha [00:17:15]:Like, from a listening standpoint, from a breaking news standpoint, it's amazing. It's unparalleled, frankly.Stephanie [00:17:22]:Yeah. I would agree with that. You took a weight loss journey, and I think you lost £40 last I checked.Jason Derusha [00:17:29]:Yeah.Stephanie [00:17:30]:And you've always been someone in the food space. Did that feel conflicting for you to do the weight loss route and at the same time be championing and talking about all the food?Jason Derusha [00:17:44]:Yeah. I mean, people ask me all the time. They're like, how do you eat this much? I'm like, well, I'm, you know, I'm sharing. I'm taking bites or whatever. I do think about it. Right? I think the reason that I lost weight was so I could live, not so I could hide. And so I don't really feel conflicted about that. The truth is, though, could I have lost that weight by eating out 4 nights a week? Probably not.Jason Derusha [00:18:13]:Yeah. So it is a challenge of eating out. I certainly am a little more careful now in how I order. And the way we used to, you know, some of this, like, COVID has changed it, but a normal night for us back in the pre COVID days would be you go somewhere for drinks, go somewhere else for appetizers, go somewhere else for a main course, and go somewhere else for dessert and drinks. And thinking about that while I was on the weight loss journey, like, I was probably eating 4000 3 or 4000 calories a night just in that. Like, not lunch, not breakfast. And so that's not sustainable. But can I do that occasionally? Sure.Jason Derusha [00:18:53]:Yeah. Why not? So I I the biggest thing I was conflicted about is the weight loss journey that I took. You know, I've always been, like, sort of an organic whole foods farm to table type eater. But to lose weight, quickly and sustainably, it's difficult to do it on whole food. It just takes a lot longer. Now I was eating whole foods. It wasn't like a liquid diet or anything. But, like, it is success breeds success.Jason Derusha [00:19:21]:And when you start when you lose that £10 in 2 weeks, you're like, oh, I can do this and then do it. Like, for me, I needed that. Other people, you know, maybe you can lose £40 in 2 years and do it by eating more salads and be more careful. But, like, getting the protein you need and the nutrients and all of that, it's it's just difficult if you go on a severe calorie restriction diet. It's difficult.Stephanie [00:19:45]:It's interesting too. I think for what we're seeing in the media now, like, everyone not everyone, but a lot of people are on the weight loss drugs and taking the shots. Many people are talking about it, many people aren't. Some are talking privately. And as someone who's a bigger person, like I'm not obese, but I'm a size 12 or 14 usually. I think about like, can I manage my weight with a magic, like, pill and No? Do that? Like, that feels like it could be amazing. And then they're also finding that with the reduced inflammation, people are happier or less depressed Yeah. Or sex.Stephanie [00:20:27]:It's like, oh my gosh. Is this the miracle drug? But then at the same time, as people who champion the food space, can you make food the the devil in that situation and still talk about it? It's it's something I both my radio partner and I have talked about a lot.Jason Derusha [00:20:46]:It's tricky. Right? Like, I am cheering for small business. I'm cheering for creativity, for innovation. So I'm cheering for that. Food is and I love food. We love, eating out. We love the experience of it. But food is really I mean, food is the vessel for all this other stuff.Jason Derusha [00:21:13]:Right? So is it do I love, love, love the particular dish, or do I love the experience? So I think, like, you know, you and your radio partner, Stephanie and I, I think the 3 of us have sort of a similar approach as to what makes restaurants, fun and what makes eating out fun. And it's really it's more the social experience, the room, the way you feel, the people you're with. Like, yes, good food, technique, all of that matters, but the other stuff matters more. And so when I was losing weight, my wife and I, you know, we had to sort of radically reenvision what we're gonna do for fun. So because we knew, like, you know, what would we do on a Saturday if we had a day free? Like, go to a maybe go to a a tap room or maybe go to a bar. It's like we can't do that. So we're like, alright. Let's go for a hike or, you know, you're trying some different stuff.Jason Derusha [00:22:17]:It's interesting as you age too. Right? Like, it's I can't eat the way I did 10 years ago.Stephanie [00:22:23]:And, also, like, I became recently aware, which why it took so long, I don't know, of, like, that what I view as fun is always food related. It's always my go to thing, and IJason Derusha [00:22:36]:don't Yeah.Stephanie [00:22:37]:I don't think about, like, oh, let's go have a bike ride. I think about let's go have a bike ride to this brewery or this orchard or it's like the destination, not the journey.Jason Derusha [00:22:47]:We're trying to, like you know, we went to a a show at the Guthrie a couple weeks ago. It's like, oh, and we loved it. And it's like, okay. Let's, like, let's remember to kind of, you know, Yeah. Sprinkle the other stuff into.Stephanie [00:23:03]:I want to, just thank you for some of the folks you've had on Derusha Eats. I was, thinking about Manny from Manny's,Jason Derusha [00:23:11]:Tortoise. Yeah.Stephanie [00:23:13]:25 years, Manny Gonzalez has been over there doing the work, and I was just really taken aback when he said he'd never been on the radio in 25 years. And I thought, well, good for you for having him on, and, wow, why did it take us so long? You just there's so many great voices out there and so much more to our food scene than the typical, you know, James Beard award winning chef. Right?Jason Derusha [00:23:38]:Yeah. Yeah. It that was a lesson I learned in my TV years of doing stories on restaurants. The audience resonated with, like, the neighborhood pizza place a lot more than the James Beard award type place. And, like, I don't know. I think about that often. Right? Like, people get more jazzed about mama's pizza in Saint Paul or Latah Latifs inStephanie [00:24:06]:Plymouth. Yeah.Jason Derusha [00:24:07]:Where they've got, like, the diamond it's sort of the diamond shaped cut. You know, people resonate with that more, and that makes sense. Right? Like, it's the reason The Cheesecake Factory back in the day was, like, the biggest restaurant opening of that year. Yeah. Because, people don't like feeling dumb. They don't like looking at menus where they don't know what the ingredients are, or they don't know how to say it. And neighborhood pizza places are awesome. Right? Like, they support the softball teams, and they support the youth, soccer teams.Jason Derusha [00:24:44]:And so I've always tried to give those guys a voice. It is it is a balance of, like, how do you keep it? So what really helps me is my producer, Dan Cook, does not care about restaurants at all. He doesn't care. He is mister meat and potatoes. He doesn't know anything that I'm talking about. And so when I do an interview where he's like, oh, that was really interesting. Like, he loved the Manny Gonzalez in the interview. And you're like, okay.Jason Derusha [00:25:13]:That's really what I'm trying to do. So I I do think about that a lot. Like, I definitely light up with the classics more. So, like, the Bilkoslag from Jack'sStephanie [00:25:26]:Game Fair. That was a great interview too.Jason Derusha [00:25:28]:Like, the though those ones, always sorta get me going. So it's something that I think about. Like, this month, we're gonna have, Murray's, Tim Murray, and we're gonna have JD Hoyt's. But we're also gonna have a case, Johnson who just, has this, you know, chicken tenders type Yep. Restaurant. So, like, I try to think, you know, can we have more women on? Can we have more people of color on? Do we have the classics who don't get the love on? Like, I'm always trying to think of that stuff.Stephanie [00:26:08]:You doJason Derusha [00:26:08]:have the new new the new new new, I always get nervous about on broadcast. Because if you're reading my stuff in Minnesota Monthly, you opt in. If you're going to a new place, you know. Like, Jason may love it, and you may go on another day, and it might be a train wreck. And that's sort of buyer beware. If you go to a place in the 1st 2 or 3 months, that's gonna happen.Stephanie [00:26:32]:Do you feel like a food reviewer? I mean, that's your title technically in Minnesota Monthly, but I feel like you carved out this other seat for yourself.Jason Derusha [00:26:41]:Yeah. I always feel a little awkward considering myself a critic. I mean, it it's the easiest way for people to understand it, but I'm not doing as much reviewing anymore. And part of the problem with reviewing versus recommending is that to really critically review a place, you need to go 3 times.Stephanie [00:27:05]:Absolutely.Jason Derusha [00:27:06]:You just do. It's not fair to roast somebody. And I can write a review and do the old, you know, crap sandwich with, like, this was good. This was good. Oh, this needs a little work. This was good. And I feel okay doing that on one visit, But, you know, mostly people wanna know where to go and what to order. And so, because I don't have the budget to really adequately review, you gotta do what you can do.Jason Derusha [00:27:38]:So,Stephanie [00:27:38]:like, I company is gonna send you 10 times like they used to send Ruth Reichl at the New York Times.Jason Derusha [00:27:44]:So I just try to carve out my area. I think people know that I'm honest. I'm not gonna deceive them. I'm not gonna puff up a place that's not good. But if I never talk about a place, you probably know why.Stephanie [00:27:58]:Yeah.Jason Derusha [00:27:58]:Like, I don't like it.Stephanie [00:28:00]:Yeah. And it doesn't help sometimes, I think, either to pounce on a place once everyone's identified that it's not great.Jason Derusha [00:28:07]:No. And there is I I think there is a space for, like, informed recommendation. Right? We have, like, the TikTok, Instagram world of, like, this is open. Whoo. Like, you have that. And that has its usefulness too. Like, people like to chase that. That's fun.Jason Derusha [00:28:23]:But I try to be like, alright. I'm gonna I'm gonna give you an informed recommendation. It's not quite a review. I don't know. I I I try I try. It's a it's a tricky thing. Right? Like, what does the audience want? Do people people always say they want critical reviews, but, like, just not about their favorite place. Yeah.Jason Derusha [00:28:46]:Exactly. People really want critical reviews. I I don't know.Stephanie [00:28:51]:I don't know. What's next for you? You've launched your substack. I've got 10 minutes left. And in that 10 minutes, I wanna know what's next and also the most embarrassing thing in your refrigerator.Jason Derusha [00:29:07]:So what's next? For for me, I am hoping to launch, like, a more unified brand. I have, like, all of these different things under my umbrella, and none of it looks the same. None of it has the same logo. Not you're like, what are we doing here? So I I like to unify things a little bit. You know, the Substack, you sort of inspired me to switch over to Substack from doing, like, a Mailchimp email I was doing. I've loved that outlet. So that's been really fun. You know, trying to figure out, like, Minnesota Monthly pays me to write.Jason Derusha [00:29:47]:Like, I gotta write for them. Like, I'm not saving it all for the newsletter. Like Yep. How do you make that work is something that I'm sort of working on. But I would like the other thing that I would like to launch, and I do release my restaurant interviews in podcast form. And over the next year, I I sort of wanna figure out, like, what is the right way to do that. Should I be you know, I experimented. I did an interview with Sameh Wadi where we taped it ahead of time instead of doing it live on the radio.Jason Derusha [00:30:18]:And so I spent 45 minutes with him asking questions, and so it was a longer podcast, and I think people like that. So trying to figure out, like, how do I do the radio? You know, I'm doing 3 hours of radio a day, so it doesn't leave as much free time as, you know, my family jokes that I work 3 hours, but you're like, wellStephanie [00:30:38]:An hour and a half of prep for every hour on the radio.Jason Derusha [00:30:41]:It takes a little bit of reading and planning and all of that. So that's you know, I I the the concrete plan is relaunch jason to russia.com. There's that website was built, like, 8 years ago. I'd like to freshen that up. So brand refresh, website refresh, those are the big plans for the next year. Try not to get fired during this political stretch. Don't get canceled. All ofStephanie [00:31:10]:those things. What's embarrassing that's in your fridge?Jason Derusha [00:31:13]:Oh, what is embarrassing that's in my fridge? There's currently a bottle of Kirkland, sparkling rose in my fridge.Stephanie [00:31:23]:But it is kinda good.Jason Derusha [00:31:25]:It's kinda good. I, you know, I mean, that's a little embarrassing.Stephanie [00:31:30]:That's funny.Jason Derusha [00:31:31]:Yeah. Yeah. That's probably that's probably the most embarrassing thing in there right now.Stephanie [00:31:37]:You know what else is kinda interesting about you? And I work for freelance myself. Mhmm. So I'm 1099 everywhere I work. And I see myself as my own company, my own brand. I also see you as seeing yourself like that, and that's interesting to me and a shift for you.Jason Derusha [00:31:56]:Yeah. At some point, that might be where it goes. I will say, like, as someone sort of new to the side hustle world, it's exhausting.Stephanie [00:32:07]:Yeah. It's really hard.Jason Derusha [00:32:08]:Like, you're pitching yourself all the time.Stephanie [00:32:11]:It's very hard.Jason Derusha [00:32:13]:And, you know, trying there's something to be said for, like, every 2 weeks. Like, the check comes. Yeah. The regular job. It's kinda nice. So when you're, you know, when you're pitching yourself a lot for a $1,000 here or for a trade out, like, oh,Stephanie [00:32:36]:okay. Free meal.Jason Derusha [00:32:39]:Yeah. You you know, I don't do a ton of that, but, like, it it does get exhausting. And then you have different you have different clients who have different needs. So, like, you know, one of the things I'm struggling with right now is there's a there's a restaurant owner who owns, I don't know, 5 or 6 different local restaurants. I love these restaurants. So he asked me about, like, doing influencing for him, doing a little digital campaign. And the trick is, like, at what point, like, if I'm getting if I'm getting paid, like, how many restaurants is that okay for? Like, do people start doubting my reviews? Does that or my recommendations? Like, how do you keep integrity in what you're doing, but also, like, keep the lights on so you canStephanie [00:33:30]:do it? It's a it's a line, and I don't have the answer because I've struggled with it myself. All I can say is if you are approaching it with integrity, but I don't know. When someone sells an endorsement for you on the radio station, they're making $80 and, you know, you're making $5,000. Right. SoJason Derusha [00:33:52]:Right.Stephanie [00:33:52]:I I did an endorsement for Certix, which I know you've done. And people still I mean, people will associate me with Certix till the end of time.Jason Derusha [00:34:01]:Yeah. Yeah. And it'sStephanie [00:34:03]:great because I love the family and I that's why I did the project that I did because I really enjoy them as people and stewards of northeast. But, yeah, it does close doors, and, you know, was it worth it? I don't know.Jason Derusha [00:34:16]:Right. Yeah. It's a little tricky just trying to figure that out. And, like, if I were not writing for Minnesota Monthly, then I wouldn't even worry about it.Stephanie [00:34:27]:Yeah. It would be different for sure.Jason Derusha [00:34:28]:But, like, in the Minnesota Monthly thing is, opens a lot of doors for me. Right? When you say you're the food writer, I mean, how many food writers are there for regional magazines across the country? 15? 10? I know. There are not that many. So, like, so that's sort of a job where it's like it pays for itself. Like, who cares that I don't get paid that much for it? It opens so many doors. So but then if you're not gonna cash in on those doors opening, what are you doing? So, like, trying to figure it all of that stuff is I spend a lot of time thinking about that.Stephanie [00:35:06]:Me too.Jason Derusha [00:35:07]:Yeah. Just trying to keep integrity and also, like, make things worth your time.Stephanie [00:35:14]:And with that, as my free Zoom subscription is winding downJason Derusha [00:35:19]:That's right. That's all that's all we're doing. How many free like, I edit my video on a free video editing? Yes, sir. WeStephanie [00:35:28]:have 3 minutes left to wrap it up.Jason Derusha [00:35:32]:That's right. I invoice using Google Sheets.Stephanie [00:35:35]:Yep. No. I I know.Jason Derusha [00:35:36]:My accounting is like my emails and try you know, it's all a train wreck.Stephanie [00:35:41]:Yes. It is. But it's been super fun to spend time with you and just to I wanted to just tell you you're doing a good job and Thank you. Tell you I've noticed that there's growth happening and that I think what you did took a lot of courage, and I've been a a fan. And I it'sJason Derusha [00:35:58]:fun listening. That means a lot, especially coming from you because I just respect kind of the way you have conducted your business and figured all of this out. And, I think both of us sort of follow what we think is fun and then hope the business type things sort of follow. Yeah. It's worked out okay, I think, for both of us.Stephanie [00:36:19]:So far so good.Jason Derusha [00:36:20]:We'll knockStephanie [00:36:21]:on some wood that we're not both fired inJason Derusha [00:36:23]:the middle of the day. That's right.Stephanie [00:36:25]:Alright. Thanks, Caitlin.Jason Derusha [00:36:27]:Thanks, Stephanie.Stephanie [00:36:28]:Okay. Where do you want people to follow you?Jason Derusha [00:36:32]:Instagram is good. Instagram or Facebook is probably the best way. Right? Like, they can get my my radio show podcast is everywhere, so we upload every segment and all of that. So those are probably the best.Stephanie [00:36:46]:Alright. Well, thanks for being on, and I really appreciate your time.Jason Derusha [00:36:49]:Thanks, Steph.Stephanie [00:36:50]:Okay. Bye bye.Jason Derusha [00:36:51]:See you. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode of "Dishing with Stephanie's Dish," we had a delightful conversation with the talented cookbook author Kelly Jaggers. She shared her insights about her latest creation, "The Ultimate Meal Planning for One Cookbook," and her journey as a cookbook writer. Kelly's passion for creating recipes perfectly scaled for one person's enjoyment shines through her work, making her books a treasure trove for solo diners. She has 4 books currently in the “Cooking For One” series including:Join us as we delve into Kelly's culinary background, her inspirations for writing cookbooks, and her love for food, hockey, and dogs. So, grab a cup of your favorite beverage and join us in this engaging conversation with Kelly Jaggers.COOKBOOK GIVEAWAYI have two copies of this cookbook to give away. To be included in the giveaway, send me any comment here, and I will contact the winner via email and mail the book to your home. FINAL TRANSCRIPT:Stephanie [00:00:15]:Hello, everybody, and welcome to dishing with Stephanie's dish, the podcast where we talk to cookbook authors and people generally obsessed with food. Today, we have a cookbook author, and it is Kelly Jaggers. Welcome to the program, Kelly.Kelly Jaggers [00:00:27]:Thank you so much for having me.Stephanie [00:00:29]:Yes. So you wrote something that I find really fascinating. It's called the ultimate meal planning for 1 cookbook, and you previously wrote the ultimate Mediterranean diet cookbook for 1. Mhmm. What got you into, like, cooking for 1 person? Because I did notice that you're now married.Kelly Jaggers [00:00:49]:I am married. So just because I'm married doesn't mean I don't understand the, ins and outs of what people who are solo might need. Yes. I do spend a few days a week at home by myself. My husband works. Sometimes he travels. And on those dates, I'm just cooking for me. I don't have kiddos, just me and the dogs.Kelly Jaggers [00:01:06]:So it was important for me to learn how to scale down recipes so that I could enjoy them just for myself without having excessive leftovers. And that just really parlays well into the book series that I've been working on, because it's kind of a I wouldn't say so niche, but kind of overlooked audience for cookbooks.Stephanie [00:01:23]:For sure.Kelly Jaggers [00:01:23]:Thinking right. They're thinking about families, married couples, people with loads of kids or planning for parties. But what about those people who are, for whatever reason, cooking for themselves because maybe they're single or they have a spouse or an SO or a partner who works multiple days away from home or maybe they're on a special diet from an SO. And so, like, they're planning just for themselves.Stephanie [00:01:44]:Yeah.Kelly Jaggers [00:01:44]:So lots of reasons why you might just be cooking for yourself. So it's not just because you're a single, although you probably maybe you are. That's also fine. Like, I don't judge. Whatever. So, yeah, it was important for me to kind of, kinda fill that gap and to help, to fill out that market a little bit.Stephanie [00:01:58]:I feel uniquely, interested in this topic after just having spent 2 weeks with my mother-in-law who's 92, and she still does all her own cooking. And every time I was gonna make something, she acted sort of horrified at my portions because she's used to cooking for just herself. So she's always really keenly in tune to not cooking too much so she doesn't have to eat the same thing for 5 days.Kelly Jaggers [00:02:25]:Exactly.Stephanie [00:02:26]:Yep. Because leftovers are a problem when you're when you're single.Kelly Jaggers [00:02:30]:I mean, leftovers are great for 1, maybe 2 meals, but, like, five meals of lasagna in a week or 5 meals of, whatever it is that you've made. Yeah. It can get a little get a little depressing. Right? And it makes you not wanna cook, make you wanna reach for a takeout menu, and that's so expensive. So you're wasting food, spending more on maybe delivery or takeout than maybe you've planned for in the budget. So why not think about meals that are scaled for 1 to 2 portions? I think that makes a lot of sense for people who are thinking about their budget, thinking about ways to reduce food waste, which is so important too. Right? Food is so expensive these days. If you go to the grocery store, it's so high.Kelly Jaggers [00:03:09]:I don't wanna be throwing that food away. I'm gonna eat what I bought. So I wanna plan for meals that I can make, just in the portions that I want.Stephanie [00:03:16]:Your book is beautifully done in lots of ways. So Thank you. First of all, the design of itKelly Jaggers [00:03:23]:Yeah. Yeah. I love They did such a wonderful job with it. It's so, so pretty.Stephanie [00:03:29]:It's pretty. It's simple. It's easy to follow. You have pictures for most of the recipes. You also have, like, calorie counts, fat, protein, carbohydrates. So if someone is watching their calories, that's really helpful.Kelly Jaggers [00:03:45]:Yeah. Yeah.Stephanie [00:03:45]:We've got it also broken down into proteins, which we're kind of obsessing these days about if we're getting enough protein. So I loved that. Yeah. I also really liked the size of it and the paper, and it just feels like a manual I can pop in my purse and, you've got shopping lists, meal plans. It's really quite well done.Kelly Jaggers [00:04:08]:Thank you. Thank you. It's, it was a labor of love. I think that the most challenging part of the book was the meal plans is coming up with the 8 weeks of meal plans and the shopping lists because I wanted to make sure that the meal plans included a variety of recipes from the book. Nothing was too, like, Mexican every single night or, like, chicken every single night. I wanted to make sure there's plenty of variety. And to give an example for people who maybe have never sat down to meal plan before to say, like, this is what you can do. These are the kinds of recipes you can plan for.Kelly Jaggers [00:04:37]:This is an idea of what your week might look like, but feel free to plug and play. Right? Like, oh, I'm not such a big fan of this recipe. I'd rather have this. And you can just plug it into the meal plan and make it easy for you to customize and individualize so that as you start this meal planning journey, you have these great tools and you can just kind of utilize the week over week for yourself.Stephanie [00:04:58]:And the prep list too were really thoughtful. I think when you're cooking for because I do cook from 1 a lot, actually, 2. Mhmm. In my food life, because I'm doing recipe development, I'm, you know, usually making recipes for 2 to 6. Yep. But my husband in the summertime lives at our cabin for the most part. So I am cooking for myself a lot. And if I'm not eating recipe leftovers, which usually I end up giving to my neighbors because I don't really wanna eat what I just cooked.Kelly Jaggers [00:05:29]:I don't know why. Completely understand. I'm the same way.Stephanie [00:05:31]:I'm aKelly Jaggers [00:05:31]:first creature. It. Cooked it all day. I don't wanna consume it. I get it.Stephanie [00:05:35]:I photographed it. I'm just sayingKelly Jaggers [00:05:37]:with it all day, and I just don't want it. Yes.Stephanie [00:05:39]:So I'm, like, always running around the neighborhood, like, who needs food?Kelly Jaggers [00:05:43]:Who's hungry? I have I have meals. Please take these foods from me.Stephanie [00:05:46]:Yes. So, like, then I'm just myself and I'm like, oh, well, okay. What am I gonna just make for myself? And I always end up making too much. So then I've got, like, food and I again, I'm very conscientious about food waste too. But so I really enjoyed, the way that the book was put together. How did you get into cookbook writing? Were you a blogger first?Kelly Jaggers [00:06:08]:I was. I was. So, I had a blog. It still exists out there. I'm not updating it, obviously, but it was evil shenanigans.com. The shenanigans are evil because they're good for your taste buds, but maybe not so great for your waistline. And I started working on that blog when I went to culinary school. I was going to culinary school to become a baker.Kelly Jaggers [00:06:26]:I wanted to open my own bakery. I had these really grand plans. And I walked into bakery pastry management, one of my last classes for my degree, and the teacher came in and she's I'll never forget. She said, first thing she said before she even introduced herself was 90% of bakeries fail in the 1st year. It's about a $1,000,000 total investment. And I was like, and with that, I'm out. I am risk averse. I I know how hard it is to earn my money, and I was not interested in that.Kelly Jaggers [00:06:50]:So now what do I do with this education I've acquired? I don't wanna work in restaurants. I didn't wanna have that kind of, like, you know, chef y lifestyle that that's not me.Stephanie [00:06:59]:The beer doesn't appeal to you?Kelly Jaggers [00:07:01]:No. No. I am a gentle soul. Soul. I don't think I could handle it. I would cry every day.Stephanie [00:07:06]:Yep.Kelly Jaggers [00:07:07]:So I I started writing a blog during my culinary school journey, and so I just kinda focused in on that for a while, trying to figure out, like, what am I gonna do? And about a year into working on the blog, I received an email from a publisher asking if I was interested in working on a book on pies. And I looked around and said, are you sure you mean me? And they did. And so I wrote my very first book, which was the Everything Pie Cookbook. And sinceStephanie [00:07:29]:then had that. Yeah.Kelly Jaggers [00:07:31]:Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. And so since then, I've written, a number of books for my publisher. I write roughly 1 a year right now. So I do the books and also the photography as well. So, on top of the books I write and shoot, I also shoot photography for other people's cook books.Kelly Jaggers [00:07:46]:So, so it's been a lot of fun. Yeah. Just like a nice little transition from, like, culinary school, I wanna be a baker, to now I write cookbooks and study food for a living, and it's the best, and I love it.Stephanie [00:07:57]:And you're not doing or you're not updating your blog at the same time, so your whole focus is really on your cookbook each year.Kelly Jaggers [00:08:04]:Yeah. Yeah. It it it's a labor of love. It's one of those things that, you've, I think, written a cookbook, so I think you understand. And developing recipes too. It's one of those things where I want them to be right. I want the recipes to work. So I do spend a lot of time working on the recipes, thinking about ingredients, studying what's trending, but also thinking about what will still taste good in 10 years.Kelly Jaggers [00:08:25]:So I want things to be up to date and current, but I don't want them to be so up to date that people are like, oh, we're so over this. You know?Stephanie [00:08:31]:Yeah.Kelly Jaggers [00:08:32]:So I spend a lot of time thinking about those things. So, yeah, that's that's what I do. I do photography. I do the cookbook writing, and then I also do, a little bit of light personal chef and catering work in town.Stephanie [00:08:42]:So Where do you live?Kelly Jaggers [00:08:44]:I live in the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex.Stephanie [00:08:46]:Oh, nice. I just, I, I was just doing a cooking demonstration yesterday from 1 from my cookbook, and there's an recipe in there for king ranch chicken that was my mother in law's from Houston. And, you know, I know in Texas, like, everybody knows king ranch chicken is like our wild rice soup. Yes. Yes. Exactly. Was just so impressed with this King Ranch chicken. And I was like, people, I did not invent this thing.Stephanie [00:09:12]:You know? This has been being made in Texas for some time.Kelly Jaggers [00:09:15]:It's called the king ranch. Yeah. It's from the king ranch, and it's, yeah. It's very, very famous in the state. We I think everyone grew up eating it that I knew.Stephanie [00:09:24]:Yeah. And it is delicious. So you can VeryKelly Jaggers [00:09:26]:tasty. Yeah. No. It's it's for that.Stephanie [00:09:28]:It's oneKelly Jaggers [00:09:28]:of those things you kinda can't go wrong with.Stephanie [00:09:30]:So And, you know, they were asking me all these intimate questions about, like, the tortillas and what kind and how long they last. And I just I thought, oh, this is when you write a cookbook, you're writing it in your own vacuum, essentially. And these are the kinds of questions that cooks have that I wasn't thinking about when I wrote the recipe. Yeah. So I'll get better on the second book about thinking about some of that. But I think with each book, you get better. Don't you think?Kelly Jaggers [00:09:55]:Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. It's it's, the first book's a challenge. You you kinda don't I hate to say you don't know what you're doing, but, like, you write recipes. You know how to develop recipes. But have you written a book before? No. No. I ended up writing my first book over the course of basically a week.Kelly Jaggers [00:10:11]:We had a snowstorm in Dallas that year, and it basically shut the entire city down. All the roads were frozen over. We were actually hosting the Super Bowl that year too, so it was kind of like this thing where I was watching the news where the they were like, can we even have it? It's all snowed in, and I'm like, it'sStephanie [00:10:26]:a quarterKelly Jaggers [00:10:27]:of an inch of snow. It's so small. Yeah.Stephanie [00:10:29]:And we were laughing at all of you. Just like, oh my god. What is going on in Dallas?Kelly Jaggers [00:10:34]:Well, we don't have the infrastructure in place, and, also, we can't we drive aggressively. Anyway, so I ended up getting stuck at home for week. And I'm like, well, I guess I'll just work on the book. And so I did writing and testing and writing and testing that whole week. And by the time the week was over, I had about a 110 pies in my kitchen and in the fridge and freezer, and the majority of the book done. Like, it just was one of those things. And I was like, oh, how how will I ever write another one of these? This has been such a ordeal. But as you get into it and you learn, like, your own process, you it gets easier.Kelly Jaggers [00:11:07]:And you also think about those questions. Like, what do I do with the excess ingredients of this? And what will they do with these leftovers? And could they turn them into something else? And what suggestions do I have for substitutions, maybe for our vegan friends or for people who don't eat these kinds of proteins? Maybe you don't eat shellfish or pork. Like, you know, you think about those things and, like, little tidbits you can include in your recipes to make it better for your audience.Stephanie [00:11:31]:Yeah. And you have a lot of that in the book too. Like, in at each page, there if you have some suggestions, like, here's some variations on ways to use grits. Yep. Here is a tartar sauce that goes with this crispy fried shrimp, like Yep. How to freeze seafood. Like, I like that. I thought it was really thoughtful too.Kelly Jaggers [00:11:50]:Thank you.Stephanie [00:11:51]:What are some of your favorite cookbooks that you find yourself getting inspiration from recently?Kelly Jaggers [00:11:58]:Basically, anything from Nigella Lawson. She is the domestic goddess and basically my favorite food person. I adore Nigella Lawson. I love any of the books that deal with, like, specialty one topic cooking. So I love to read books on, like specifically books on, like, vegan cooking or, like, how to cook with chickpeas or, like, specific culinary areas, like, say, books, like, on Israeli cooking or Russian cooking or, German cooking. I love to learn about different food ways. So, I spent a lot of time studying Asian food culture, and now I'm kind of getting invested in more of, like, my own background. So learning about Germanic, Austrian, a little bit of Northern Italian foodways.Kelly Jaggers [00:12:43]:And then, of course, I love reading cookbooks from my home state of Texas. So I have a number of cookbooks from people who are in the state who are just masters of their crafts. So books on barbecue, books on southern comfort food, books on Tex Mex.Stephanie [00:12:58]:Yeah.Kelly Jaggers [00:12:58]:And then even drilling down books on Austin cuisine, on Dallas cuisine. Like, these books are so interesting to me. So I love to I read them like textbooks. Like, I love to just study them. Right? I could just sit there and read a cookbook like most people read a novel. So yeah.Stephanie [00:13:14]:Same. I just I don't know why I'm even telling you this, but it's kind of a cute story. I was traveling, and a woman contacted me, and she was cleaning out her mom's house. And we do a cookbook swap every year, with my radio show. And she said, I've got all these books, and I know you have the swap. She said, can I bring them to you? I said, yeah. You can bring them to me. Here's my garage code.Stephanie [00:13:32]:Just put them in my garage. And she was like, wait. You're just gonna give me a garage code? I'm like, yeah. Just put the books in there. She goes, I can't believe you're just all she goes, can I do anything else while I'm at your house? Can I bring in the mail? I'm like, sure if you want to. So I've got home from the cabin and the books are in the garage. And I started looking at them and they were real, like, treasures. Like, a lot of old Lutheran church cookbooks.Stephanie [00:13:57]:And there was one cookbook that was Minneapolis Restaurants that I only knew of 3 of the restaurants in the book. So it's gotta be, you know, 75 years old. Yeah. And it was just full of treasures and her notes, and there was a box, a wooden box that has actual recipes written in it by hand.Kelly Jaggers [00:14:17]:Oh my gosh.Stephanie [00:14:18]:And so I'm just like and there's 3 boxes of this person's life, you know? And I just I feel like so honored that this woman gave me the boxes of the books, and I've been kinda paging through them at night, like, reading the recipes and thinking, okay. This has olio and shortening. Can I find a way to do something different with it? And how does that work? But, yeah, I get jazzed by the same things.Kelly Jaggers [00:14:43]:I have my old, I don't wanna date myself too hard, but I did grow I did grow in in the elementary school in the eighties. And, I had a cookbook that our PTA put together for our elementary school, and I still have a copy of that, like, construction paper boundStephanie [00:14:59]:Yes.Kelly Jaggers [00:14:59]:Spiral bound cookbook from the elementary school, and the kids all submitted recipes. And most of them, the parents, obviously,Stephanie [00:15:07]:youKelly Jaggers [00:15:07]:know, helped. But, occasionally, it was a kid who, like, made up a recipe for the cookbook. And I loved to read through the book, and just kind of, like, remember, like, all my friends and the teachers and, like, you you know, all that stuff. It's just it's such a treasure. Like, no one else appreciates it than me, but I love it. It's it's to me, it's priceless.Stephanie [00:15:23]:When you what one of the things I liked about this book too is that you have a lot of baking recipes. People don't think about baking for 1, and you I'm just looking. You have a whole cook book about baking for 1.Kelly Jaggers [00:15:34]:I do. I do. Yeah. My first book that I did in the series was the baking for 1 cookbook. I did go to culinary school for pastry. So my my background is, well, my education is in pastry. That's not to say that I'm not educated on other forms of cooking. I did take a bunch of extra extracurricular cooking classes for, like, American cooking, French cuisine.Kelly Jaggers [00:15:52]:I learned how to make the omelette, the whole nine. But, yeah, I I love baking. Baking is my passion. And so when they, were talking about, like, what books are you interested in? I said, I'd love to do some more baking books. And, like, what about baking for 1? And I'm like, I'm your girl. SoStephanie [00:16:06]:I mean, that's a cake for 1, creme brulee for for 1. These are not easy things to make. I love it.Kelly Jaggers [00:16:11]:Yeah. Scaling them down was a challenge, especially for things, you would think you just cut especially, like, things like cookies and cakes. Oh, you just cut it down by, like, a quarter. You don't. You really have to think about your ratios of fat, how the leavening is gonna work with these ingredients. Do I need to add less liquid, more liquid? It's it's a little bit challenging to scale down baking recipes. So that was a fun one to work on just from, like, my nerdy food science brain that, like, I really enjoyed sitting down and working on that book. That was a goodStephanie [00:16:40]:Yeah. The desserts look exceptional. Also, like beef short rib pot roast for 1. Great. I mean, everybody loves that recipe, but it's makes a huge quantity.Kelly Jaggers [00:16:51]:It does. And short ribs are perfectly portioned. Right? Like, you think of a short rib, generally, the kind you get in the grocery store have the bone on and a big chunk of meat on top, that's that's already portioned for 1 person. So that's a little bit of work, and then the extras can be wrapped up, stuck in the freezer, and you can braise them another day or make more pot roast or whatever you wanna do.Stephanie [00:17:09]:And, lobster mac and cheese for 1. I mean, Paul Lee's.Kelly Jaggers [00:17:14]:Mhmm. Yeah. I mean, if you're gonna have mac and cheese, why not have some too? Right?Stephanie [00:17:19]:Like Like, you're only if you just make it for 1, here's you know, because I'm always obsessed with how much I'm eating. Like, I can't overeat it. Right? I can't eat half the pan because I've only made the portion for 1, so I like that too.Kelly Jaggers [00:17:32]:But, like, you get the satisfaction of eating the whole pan. Yes. It's a shortcut. It is a shortcut. It's a little brain hack too. Like, I get to eat the whole thing, and then you eat the whole thing.Stephanie [00:17:44]:I love Yes. All by myself. Okay. Do you do social media?Kelly Jaggers [00:17:48]:I do. I do. You can find me on Facebook, evil shenanigans. I'm on x. That would be Kelly Jaggers. Instagram, Kelly Jaggers. On, threads, Kelly Jaggers. So you can find me on on all the major socials.Kelly Jaggers [00:18:03]:I I don't TikTok. I I'm on there, but I don't actually do anything on TikTok. So, you you know, it's not not for me, but that's okay. Not everything.Stephanie [00:18:10]:It, but it's it's I don't know. It's it's like I have a love hate relationship with it. When you areKelly Jaggers [00:18:15]:I just doom scroll through to to TikTok all the time.Stephanie [00:18:20]:Yes. Absolutely. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Okay. Hold on one second.Stephanie [00:18:24]:Mhmm. My dog is barking. So I'm just gonna pause one second. Alright. So when you open your, let's say, Instagram Mhmm. And a reel pops up from someone, who do you love to follow and love to, like, watch their stuff?Kelly Jaggers [00:18:39]:So I follow such a wide variety of people. My Instagram is is strictly curated to be food, hockey, and dogs, like my three favorite things in life.Stephanie [00:18:49]:Are you a hockey person? That's so funny because my social media state.Kelly Jaggers [00:18:53]:I I'm a huge hockey fan of the Dallas Stars. I also like the Calgary Flames. I have lots of lots of teams that I like to follow, but I'm a diehard Stars fan. So it wasStephanie [00:19:02]:I gotta be honest. Every time I hear someone say the Dallas Stars, it it still have, like, a pain in my heart because they were the Minnesota North Stars.Kelly Jaggers [00:19:12]:North Stars. That's right.Stephanie [00:19:13]:That's right. Still are, like I don't know. Just in my heart and in my, like, growing up childhood, and I don't know. I'm like, Mike Madonna and just I know. I know. They all come back here too.Kelly Jaggers [00:19:27]:I know. Well, Mike Madonna works for the wild now, so that's exciting for him. But we got it we have a statue down hereStephanie [00:19:33]:in Dallas anyway. He was my neighbor.Kelly Jaggers [00:19:35]:Was he really?Stephanie [00:19:36]:Yeah. He did live in Minnesota. But Mhmm. When he came here as a kid in I think it was probably high school or junior high to play Mhmm. He stayed at our neighbor's house. They, like, kind of helped raise him and knew his parents and actually dated my sister for a hot minute. So Oh, wow. Big fans of his and his wife, and they've done so much good work too.Stephanie [00:19:56]:That's crazy. Well, yeah, he'sKelly Jaggers [00:19:58]:he's he's he's kind of a great guy. We we like him down here tooStephanie [00:20:02]:a lot. So Oh, that's so funny.Kelly Jaggers [00:20:04]:Okay. So, yeah, so reels that I'd wanna see. So anything from, some of my favorite fiction authors. So like Deanna Rayburn, Tess Gerritsen, I love to see reels from the authors I love. I love to see reels from, like, New York Times Food, from Tasty. I love to watch those little quick videos where they put things together. I know it's unrealistic on the timing, and it makes it look a little easier than it is. Yeah.Kelly Jaggers [00:20:27]:Hands and pans. But I'm kind of addicted to watching them. They're so satisfying to watch it, like ingredients to completion. Obviously, I we talked about Nigella Lawson before. I will talk about Nigella Lawson until the end of time. I adore Nigella Lawson. But then, like, all of my friends, you know, people that I've known for years who work in food, I'm just thrilled to see what they're doing and the content they're producing. So bake at 360, my friend, Bridget, or 3 bake at 350.Kelly Jaggers [00:20:53]:I'm sorry. Bridget, she's one of my favorite, like, dessert bloggers. She makes the most beautiful cookies. And so, like, she'll post reels about, like, you know, dessert. She's making cookies. She's decorating. I love to see those kinds of things. Yes.Kelly Jaggers [00:21:06]:So, yeah, like, it it's just basically, like, all of my friends and people who work in food. And then, of course, dogs. We rate dogs is another one. Like, if if there's a cute puppy to be seen, I want to see the puppy. So Yeah.Stephanie [00:21:17]:Yeah. Yeah. I've sort of become obsessed with animals eating.Kelly Jaggers [00:21:22]:Mhmm. Mhmm.Stephanie [00:21:23]:Like Sure. The hamster eating a carrot or Oh.Kelly Jaggers [00:21:26]:The little crunch crunch noises. It's just oh my gosh.Stephanie [00:21:31]:Love it. Absolutely. It's so cute. Yes. And also there's one where there's, like, a monkey that's feeding a rabbit. And I don't know why, but that's what I've become obsessed with.Kelly Jaggers [00:21:43]:Yeah. There's there's one, Instagram account that I like to follow, and it's a person and they have these 2 very wild little beagles And they set the a table up, and they make food for the beagles. And then the beagles jump on the table and eat the food, and he's trying to stop them. And it's it's hilarious. And I know it's all set up, but every time, I I get sucked in and I laugh every single time. SoStephanie [00:22:04]:There's also the one that's like that where it's a pit bull that has hands with gloves, and it's made it. Yeah. Like, the food, but it looks like the pit bull's making it, and he has really funny kind of expressions on his face.Kelly Jaggers [00:22:17]:Yes. Yes. Yes. And see, that that combines 2 loves, the food and the dogs. So Sure.Stephanie [00:22:22]:You know?Kelly Jaggers [00:22:23]:Yeah. No. It's Absolutely.Stephanie [00:22:25]:The theKelly Jaggers [00:22:25]:the stuff you see on there is is pretty wild. But, yeah, IStephanie [00:22:28]:love fun talking with you.Kelly Jaggers [00:22:30]:It's been so nice to talk with you. Thank you for having me.Stephanie [00:22:32]:Yeah. It's the ultimate meal planning for one cook book, and your publisher sent me a couple. So I'm gonna do a giveaway with 1 when I put the podcast together. So I'll give, one away to someone, and it's been lovely to see you. When you get your next book going, give me a shout back. I love talking to cookbook authors and hearing about their process. And, again, I really thought your book was super thoughtful. You did a great job.Kelly Jaggers [00:22:55]:So glad you liked it. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.Stephanie [00:22:58]:I did. Thanks, Kelly. I'll seeKelly Jaggers [00:22:59]:you soon. You. Take care. Bye bye. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

"Preppy Kitchen Super Easy" is John Kanell's follow-up to his best-selling cookbook “Preppy Kitchen.” In this episode of “Dishing With Stephanies Dish,” I speak with him about his success, the ease of his recipes, and his favorite tools to use in the kitchen. Stephanie's Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Thanks for reading Stephanie's Dish Newsletter! This post is public so feel free to share it.PODCAST TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS:Stephanie [00:00:15]:Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Dishing with Stephanie's dish podcast. I am here with John Cannell, and he is the author of the Preppy Kitchen cookbook. Now feel like Preppy Kitchen is such a complete statement because it makes me think of all the things about you right off the bat. Congratulations on a great moniker on on a well titled cookbook.John Kanell [00:00:42]:No. Thank you. Preppy Kitchen's super easy.Stephanie [00:00:44]:Yeah. And, like, do you identify with that just in terms of I mean, I'm looking at you. You're pretty cute. You seem like a preppy person.John Kanell [00:00:52]:I suppose I do. But, you know, I used to be a math and science teacher, and I dealt with all these kids. It's kind of a long story, but I dealt with kids who had all this math anxiety and science anxiety too. They thought, like, I am an English person or I'm I love history, but I cannot do it. My brain doesn't work this way. And I was teaching middle schoolers, and they already had the sense of failure ingrained in them, and it was heartbreaking. You know, like, later on in life, when I switched careers and I pivoted over, I saw the same thing for people in the kitchen. They're like, I'm a baker.John Kanell [00:01:24]:I cannot cook. Or I am fine on the grill, can't bake anything. Or I just use my credit card and call it a day.Speaker C [00:01:30]:No. You can send itJohn Kanell [00:01:30]:with my kids. Like, you can do it. Let's just be prepared. Let's have all the steps laid out and everything else. So it's kind of a play on words. It's about being prepared in the kitchen and having, like, a fun, easy time, not anxiety inducing train wreck where you're, like, halfway through a recipe, like, I don't have this ingredient. Why do I die? You know?Stephanie [00:01:51]:Okay. I'm just gonna back up for a second because your aesthetic is really appealing to me in lots of ways. Number 1, just talking to you and the way you have your background set. Awesome. Number 2, the photographs in the book and the photographs on your Instagram and on your sites are also incredibly beautiful. Are you doing all this by yourself? Do you just have this lifestyle persona hidden inside you as a math and science teacher? Come on.John Kanell [00:02:18]:Well, I used to do it all by myself back back in the day. But to answer part of your question, like, in pieces, I was an art major. So I wasn't a science teacher, but UCLA and had, like, a fine arts degree. So I was about color theory and putting things together and conceptual art. So my career path has gone all over the place. And now, you know, I find that as business gets busier and my kids get older, I have 2 7 year old boys, they're twins, that whatever someone else can do, they can free me up to, like, spend more time with my family or do things that only I can do, I'll outsource. So the book, book number 1 and book number 2 were both shot by David Meloche, who's a be like, a wonderful photographer. For styling here, like, I do like to collect antique copper and stuff like that.John Kanell [00:03:09]:But there's there's a community that comes together.Stephanie [00:03:11]:I love antique copper, and I also actually kinda like cooking with it, But cleaning of it and the maintaining of it is, like, a full time job.John Kanell [00:03:20]:If like, you have to just understand, like, most antique copper is tinned on the inside, so you might just have to get it retinned every once in a while. Or if you found a piece for, like, $5 at a flea market and it's falling apart, you're gonna say, okay. This is $5 plus the retinning cost, and then it'll be good as new. Because copper you know, old copper's is so heavy. It's gonna conduct the heat really beautifully. And part of being prepared and having the right tools, like, you know, having the nice a nice pot or pan, a nice heavy one that conducts heat conducts heat evenly because you could be following a recipe perfectly to the t. Everything is right. But you had one of those, like like, a sad pot that has paper thin walls that scorches everything.John Kanell [00:04:02]:And, you know, your food's kind of it's not ruined, but it's not as good as it could be just because of the tool you had.Stephanie [00:04:07]:You're speaking to the choir. I'm at my, summer place, and I'm working on a cookbook. And we got a new stove, like, last year, and we have to buy a our place is super little, so we had to buy this specific size stove. Yeah. And it is just the worst. Like, everything I cook for the cookbook burns. There's so many hot spots in it. It's 75 degrees off.Stephanie [00:04:32]:And I'm just like, okay. I don't know if I can cook a cookbook and all the test all these recipes with this horrible stove. No. So, yeah, it's been challenging. NotJohn Kanell [00:04:44]:cool. Not cool at all.Stephanie [00:04:44]:When you when you besides your fancy French copper cookware, do you have, like, anything that you recommend for just the basics?John Kanell [00:04:54]:You know?Stephanie [00:04:54]:I, like, I always recommend All Clad, but that's a kinda easy one. AllCloud.John Kanell [00:04:58]:Because it kinda just lasts it's, like, indestructible, lasts forever, and is you know, it's expensive, but I will have the All Clad until I don't know what happens to me.Stephanie [00:05:08]:Yeah. Same.Speaker C [00:05:09]:YouJohn Kanell [00:05:09]:know, you just clean it with some steel wool. If it gets really singed, then it's fine. And then, also, you can find some, like, nice cast iron enameled, like Dutch ovens or something. You can get them secondhand. And if they're in good shape, they'll last forever. So those are, like, investment pieces that really make your time in the kitchen a lot easier.Stephanie [00:05:29]:Agreed. Now you're on your second book here. How did you can you give me the transition from math and science teacher to cookbook author? Did you just love cooking?John Kanell [00:05:41]:You know, I grew up in the kitchen with my mom. So I always had my mom taught chef, and my mom came from a very small town in Mexico where, like, everything was made fresh every single day. And she came to this country with a love of fresh flavors and ingredients and learning. She never wanted to stop learning. So she explored the world through her kitchen and cookbooks and recipes she clipped out. And, I got to be there on that journey with her and learn a lot from her. So and she was a teacher and retired as well, so I followed her by I just became a teacher. And, when my husband and I were planning a family, because it takes a lot of planning, we were thinking who's gonna be home? And, you know, my job had specific breaks, but you can't show up to school late.John Kanell [00:06:29]:So, if, like, you know, if your kid is sick or something happens, he really encouraged me to do a pivot. And he's like, you know, you love teaching, but you really are passionate about food. Like, that's what you kind of light up when you talk about. So he's like, you know, you could. I see people, like, having food blogs, and they can make that a career. So why don't we, like, try that out, and you can work from home and be there more often? So I really credit him for helping me do that because it was really taking a chance. Ended up working out pretty well.Stephanie [00:06:59]:And I I mean, congratulations on the books and your story of your mom is pretty inspiring. She sounds like a really neat lady.Speaker C [00:07:08]:She reallyStephanie [00:07:08]:But that is, I think, how a lot of us get started and and the being a cookbook writer is probably more possible now than it was before because of digital creation and social media, to be honest. Yeah. Did you always have a knack for that too? Because many people are great with, like, the food or the recipes, but they're not so great at the digital side. And then there's people that are great at the digital side, but maybe their recipes aren't the best.John Kanell [00:07:35]:Part of you thinks I was horrible at everything when I started except, like, I could make a delicious dish. But and I the funny thing is I went to art school. But, like, my photography classes were conceptual art photography classes. And there was no skill. Like, if you wanted to have any skill earned, you'd speak to a technician. And the teacher was just there for the discourse of arts and, like, different references. And, you know, it's a lovely conversation. I enjoyed it, but it gave me zero preparation for shooting food and making it look attractive because it's very difficult.John Kanell [00:08:07]:It looked tasty even as in the I mean, it's hard. And if you went scrolled all the way back on my Instagram, you would see some very tragic looking things. And I was, you know, so proud of them at the time.Stephanie [00:08:21]:Yeah. And I do think, like, the authenticity of the not so perfect photos too. Certainly not for a book, but we kind of had these whole curated Instagram feeds and lives and I do feel like we're getting away from that a little bit in a way that appeals to me just because it feels more democratic for everyone else.John Kanell [00:08:43]:Yeah. I mean, I am a bit of a klutz. I'm gonna acknowledge this. So for me, that part comes out of my YouTube channel where I'm making things and, like, something falls or, like, the I made eclairs 10,000,000 times. It's my favorite thing, but I'm filming it and they fall down because I added, like, a little bit too much egg that day, or the eggs were a little bit on the larger side than I was used to. And I'm I will show that. I don't edit it out. So I'll say, like Same.John Kanell [00:09:10]:And but now, let's just come back and say, could you use these? Yes. They're still gonna be delicious. They're not gonna make someone French happy, but you will eat them, or we can remake them. And let me show you the correct amount of egg right now. You know? Or IStephanie [00:09:23]:can Oh, I love that.John Kanell [00:09:25]:The fridge.Stephanie [00:09:26]:No. I absolutely love that. I have done 2 horrible videos. 1, I cut my head off, but I really liked what I made, so I kept it in. It's the headless shrub making. And then the second, I had a absolute whipped cream failure where it, like, just went like this all over my whole kitchen. Oh, no. And I just left it because I was like, well, I've done that once with soup where I Vitamix it and it was too hot and it blew out all over and now with whipped cream.Stephanie [00:09:55]:So I think people actually appreciate that because it makes them feel like they can do it too.John Kanell [00:09:59]:Yeah. And also, like, whipped cream is actually quite difficult because in the US, there's all these additives and every every brand is a little bit different. If you go abroad and you make a whipped cream with like a double cream or something else, it takes longer to whip. But when it does, it's a beautiful consistency. And depending on what's been additive or how it's been ultra pasteurized, it could become kind of chunky very easily.Stephanie [00:10:22]:Yeah. Okay. So yes. Also, cooking with well and your mom being from Mexico and probably you traveling all over too. Cooking all over in different places is weird. We travel a lot by boat. So cooking in a small space boat kitchen with, you know, butter from all over different goat butters and just like, oh my gosh. This is unique.Stephanie [00:10:45]:Let's talk about specific recipes in your book and give me, like, your top five that you feel really attached to.John Kanell [00:10:53]:Well okay. So on the back cover, I'm gonna start start sweet. In the book, I have the perfect birthday cake, which is like a beautiful vanilla melt in your mouth cake. But on the back cover is what I actually make for my birthday for myself. And it's a lemony Italian olive oil cake, Two layers with a crunchy sugar topping, and in between and on top, a mountain of mascarpone stabilized whipped cream with lots of fresh berries. It's, like, just perfectly sweet, has that wonderful consistency, and it's a very simple cake to make. So, you know, it's a good example of something delicious, something visually stunning. It doesn't have to be difficult.John Kanell [00:11:35]:It doesn't have to be time consuming. And you can really make it your own. One of the side dishes that I am very attached to to is part of my Sunday dinners growing up, and it's a Greek style, spicy tomato orzo. It goes with everything. Like, we would have it with a roast chicken or a big garlic studded leg of lamb in a salad. But you can have it a 1000000 different ways. It's silky. It's perfectly spicy.John Kanell [00:12:02]:It has a lovely play of flavors. It does take a little bit of time. And whenever you make something saucy and pasta y on the stovetop, you know, it's gonna burn on the bottom and you're constantly, like, stirring and scraping. So my time saving hacks for this were to start off by using Bloody Mary mix for the base because that gives you a perfect spiced tomatoStephanie [00:12:22]:Yes.John Kanell [00:12:24]:And saves a lot of time. And then we do a little work on the stovetop and then pop it into the oven and just bakes perfectly on its own. It's so silky, perfectly saucy, and goes with everything. There's, like on the cover, I have a a lemony chicken pasta bake, and it's a one pan meal. There's a whole chapter of 1 pan meals because, you know, we don't necessarily wanna feel like Cinderella every single day at the sink. And it is just a nice combination of pasta that's been cooked in a flavorful, like, white wine chicken stock sauce. Yum. It's made creamy with a little stir of ricotta, and then you have these beautiful, big, juicy pieces of chicken, lots of sweet cherry tomatoes, lemons, squash, and it's finished off with giant dollops of ricotta.John Kanell [00:13:14]:And it looks so good. It's delicious. It's decadent. And it's something you can just make really easily. And then for breakfast, there are these pear fritters where like, I make recipes for a living, and I enjoy all the recipes that I make because they're these pear fritters were so good. It was like, they're so easy to make. It's basically like if you haven't made fritters, which I'm sure you have, but they're it's like pancake batter holding a lot of fruit, and you deep fry it. So unlike a regular donut where you're you know, the yeast and the rising, it's time consuming.John Kanell [00:13:49]:You can just throw this together in a few minutes. And the combination of these lovely pears with just enough golden batter holding together, drizzled with a lemony glaze, they're like it's you will eat and inhale the entire batch of them.Stephanie [00:14:06]:I feel like you need to have a radio or a TV show too because one thing you're doing that's really working for me is you are making all of the food sound so absolutely delicious with your adjectives and your adverbs and just I mean, I wanna cook everything.John Kanell [00:14:23]:Oh, you're too sweet. Thank you. The book starts out, by the way, like, on the subject of being prepared with the pantry of convenience. Because a lot of us like, I'm a little scattered. I I will admit this. And I will go to the store. Do I have cinnamon? I'll buy cinnamon. I go to my pantry and there's 8 cinnamons there.John Kanell [00:14:44]:I am set. But I wanted to show people how you can set things up. Just talk about the different kinds of flours, the different kinds of sugars, like all the stuff that, you know, we might take for granted. But when you're making a recipe or setting yourself up, you need to know have them at hand, know what they do. And, you know, if we're talking about a chocolate chip cookie, there's a dry mix for chocolate chip cookies. So you guys have that in your pantry hanging out, the recipe is halfway done, and you can make as many cookies as you want. And it's like a time saver. Same thing for, like, like, a chocolate cake mix.John Kanell [00:15:16]:There's a pancake and waffle mix too. So you can have those in your pantry. And then also talk about, like, different ways to, like, treat butter, like, you know, European versus American butter. You know, I love browned butter. It's one of my flavor hacks. It goes in anything. Anything that has butter, you can sub in browned butter, which is butter that's been cooked and caramelized a bit and has lovely nutty flavor. And it gives you so much extra depth and makes everything just a little bit more special.John Kanell [00:15:43]:So, of course, I'm gonna talk about butter, browning it. The different types of butter have different amounts of butterfat in them, just so you know, and what that what that means for your recipes, and the list goes on. And I started you off kind of to set you up for success. And then from there, we have all these easy recipes with tons of variations where you can swap out different proteins, try different sauces. You could use different, like, flavor combinations with spices. Or if it's like a baked good, I'll show you how to make cupcakes verse like, the there's people who make either a batch of cupcakes, the 8 inch, the 9 inch layer cake, or a sheet cake, and it'll give you instructions for any of those. So you canStephanie [00:16:23]:Right that alone is impressive because my number one failing as a cook is pan conversion.John Kanell [00:16:32]:It's a it takes actually, it takes some math. So many timesStephanie [00:16:34]:This is why I'm bad at it.John Kanell [00:16:37]:So many times I wish I could go back in time to my middle school math class and say, Listen to this. This is how we're going to use some math in everyday life. And, you know, the only other time that happened out of the kitchen was when I was calculating, how much flooring material to buy. And I do some geometry. I was like, I used the geometry in real life. It's a miracle.Stephanie [00:17:00]:Spatial spatial relationships. They're they're here. My daughter, we were working on a project that we had to map out where we were gonna put some boost in an event and she looked at me and she said, how did you do on the SAT and your spatial reasoning? And I was like, not good. Not good.John Kanell [00:17:19]:Sassy. She'sStephanie [00:17:21]:pretty funny. Could have inspired you. Like, you kinda give me a little bit of a Ina Garten vibe, and I say that in a very nice way because I feel like she's the the leader of high all high priestess of recipe testing. I mean, her recipes always work. They're always beautiful. They're fairly easy.John Kanell [00:17:40]:Yeah. Well, that's a very kindSpeaker C [00:17:42]:the I grew upJohn Kanell [00:17:43]:in Los Angeles, so I'm not, you know, starstruck when I see people. However, one time in New York, I was with my husband, and I saw Ina and Jeffrey walking hand in hand in the park. And it was like, it's real. They're together. Like, he came down. I love her. For recipe testing, what some people don't realize, it's so important to test your recipes multiple times by multiple hands in multiple places. Because you can be in one, like my famous example for this is in the south, and in the south, and it was falling flat.John Kanell [00:18:31]:Or it was, like, it had a little bit of a concave, and it wasn't something was off on the texture. And I was like, oh. So I kept adjusting the recipe over and over again. I was like, it's working for me. I don't know what's going on. And, eventually, after some research, we found out that in the, like, in the 4 regions of the US, there's, like, 4 big flour companies. Each one of them uses a different amount of baking powder in their self rising flour. So if you just try to make a self rising flour recipe for something as finicky as a cake, where you're really trying to reduce the flour to give a melt in your mouth consistency, It's it's literally impossible unless you have in your notes everything for the different flour companies.John Kanell [00:19:10]:And there's, like, you know, sub brands and private labels, so it's we ended up just using regular flour with to make it work. And you would never have known that unless you recipe test things in different places, especially with different ovens and, you know, like, you have to give proper ranges. And, one of the goals is always to have things just past multiple hands, multiple places, multiple times before they make it into the blog or the cookbook. Because if someone's trusting you with a recipe, what they're really trusting you with is their time, their money, and their moments. You know, it's you're making something for your family to come together. It could be as simple as just dinner for yourself after a long long day, or it's a big celebration and it's like a supposed to be like a show stopping, meal, and that is very, daunting. So we I also wanna make sure it's just right and it'll be full proof.Stephanie [00:20:01]:It is kinda heartbreaking when someone texts you or sends you a message and they're like, I made your blah blah blah, but I'm a terrible cook and it didn't work out. And I always think, oh, no. Like, I don't. I'm sorry it didn't work out, number 1, but I'm more sorry that you think you're a terrible cook because of something you cooked of mine that didn't work out. Like, there are so many variables andSpeaker C [00:20:23]:Yeah.Stephanie [00:20:24]:You know, you're trying to control all those variables, but also sometimes everything's just not controllable. Right?John Kanell [00:20:32]:There is not. The 2 things I will say on this podcast or the variables you can control. 1, just get a kitchen scale. It'll save your life for anything baking related. Or even if you're just making anything where you have to weigh things out, you will use less measuring cups, less little bowls, less everything else, and save all that washing up time if you're using a scale as dumping itSpeaker C [00:20:56]:in, and youJohn Kanell [00:20:57]:will get accurate results. If you scooped up flour from a measuring cup, you are going to add maybe like 60% more flour just by packing it in. Most people don't know that if you're using a measuring cup, you're supposed to fluff the flour in your canister. Use a spoon, sprinkle it in like a gentle rain, and then level it off with a knife without compressing to get accurate results, which will give you that melt in your mouth delicious texture thatStephanie [00:21:23]:you A scoop and sweep.John Kanell [00:21:25]:Yeah. And that's a little bit more work, a little bit more finicky. So if you just dump it in using a scale, you're saving you time. And then the other thing is just do not overmix any batter unless you're doing a bread. So I always use the mixer until I see just a couple streaks of flour and then finish it off by hand with a spatula so I can scrape it down and fold it together. So you have ultimate control and everything will be a nice texture because the texture even changes how you've taste things. You know, if it has a gummy dense texture, thoseStephanie [00:21:57]:Mhmm.John Kanell [00:21:58]:Your tongue just can't accept it and you miss a lot of the flavors.Stephanie [00:22:03]:So I think your advice is really solid, but I'm gonna just confess. And I know, like, my friend Zoey Bakes, she'll say the same thing about the kitchen scale.Speaker C [00:22:14]:Yeah.Stephanie [00:22:14]:She's like, and then you don't have to mess up another bowl and all the little dishes. But there's something about a kitchen scale that feels so mathy.John Kanell [00:22:23]:No. It's not. You just press the 0. Just press the 0 button when you're done, and it starts at 0. There's no adding involved. So just tear it out.Stephanie [00:22:31]:0 zero 1.John Kanell [00:22:32]:No math.Stephanie [00:22:33]:Just I use it for my sourdough baking, and I just always feel like, oh, again, with the math. Like, I gotta figure out how much the bowl weighs, how much the this weighs and everything.John Kanell [00:22:45]:Zero it out. Put the bowl on to zero it out. And I will tell you that you might just be an intuitive cook, and, like, my mother just doesn't use any measuring. She just throws things in, like, like, a handful of this. And I'm like, oh my gosh.Stephanie [00:23:01]:That's howJohn Kanell [00:23:02]:would I full?Stephanie [00:23:04]:Like, I have, like funny.John Kanell [00:23:05]:If I remember trying to get one of her recipes onto the blog or, like, use that as a starting point,Speaker C [00:23:09]:I will it's so frustrating for her because I have to stop her atJohn Kanell [00:23:09]:each point and then take take it, comes out anyway. So maybe you're that person. You're tooSpeaker C [00:23:13]:talented for this. Know. I don't know.Speaker D [00:23:14]:I don't know.John Kanell [00:23:14]:I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I comes out anyway. So maybe you're that person. You're too talented for this.Stephanie [00:23:22]:I don't know. I'll we'll see. Now you've competed on some food competition shows, haven't you?John Kanell [00:23:28]:So I was a judge on Disney's, Magic Bake Off, and part of the fun there was getting to do, like, a judges competeStephanie [00:23:37]:Yeah.John Kanell [00:23:38]:Thing. And it was a I It was really the first time I had done that, like, in a high stakes environment, and it was quite fun. I was working with, another Disney actor who is absolutely not a cook or a baker at all. He's quite young. So I had a couple sessions giving him some, like, coaching moments, and he did his really did his best. And we pulled it together. I was so proud of our our creation. Didn't win, but that was fun.Stephanie [00:24:04]:Teacher too. Just like the way that you say that, which is so nice. Like, always lifting someone up.John Kanell [00:24:11]:Thank you so much. He was it was fun. I mean, I didn't, realize how invested I would get into it when I accepted the challenge, but I was, you know, really going all out. It was a very elaborate cake we ended up making with, like, have, like, marzipan decorations all over it. Wow. It was all had to be very timed out because normally, I have the luxury of time. Yeah. Well, this I can, like, finicky work on something until I am happy with it, and this was you know, the clock was ticking.Stephanie [00:24:42]:Would you do other TV competition shows that passed?John Kanell [00:24:46]:Maybe. I could do it. Like, if it was fun. I'm gonna do, Foodie Con in New York in the summer. And, one of the challenges which I have agreed to do is, like, handcuffed and hangry or I'll be handcuffed somebody else doing something, which is just fun and kind of like, you knowStephanie [00:25:02]:That is fun. Really.John Kanell [00:25:03]:So I would do that. Like yeah.Stephanie [00:25:05]:You're handcuffed too.John Kanell [00:25:07]:I'll be handcuffed to another food person, TBD, and I get one free hand. So I'm hoping my left hand is free.Stephanie [00:25:15]:If you had to pick someone to be handcuffed with, and it can be anybodySpeaker D [00:25:20]:Mhmm. ThatStephanie [00:25:20]:you have to cook something with, who would it be?John Kanell [00:25:22]:I know.Stephanie [00:25:25]:I mean, that's a solid bet. Right? Yes. Because you know whatever you did would be great. We are talking with John Kanell. It is the Preppy Kitchen. Super easy. A 100 simple and versatile recipes. When you think about, like, the legacy that you're gonna leave your kids, 2 7 year old boys, are you gonna teach them to cook?John Kanell [00:25:45]:They already know. I mean, honestly, they are very curious about what happens in the kitchen. And I love using my time in the kitchen as, like, bonding time, like my mom and I did. So, you know, we're all connected to devices as adults. My kids are, like, connected to the Legos. And being in the kitchen is one moment where you're really, really present. It's tactile. You're engaged, and you're making something that's memorable.John Kanell [00:26:16]:So, like, on Sunday, we like pizzas. Started off very simple with, like, them adding the toppings on. And now once they were 6, they were at the point where they could start off with just all I do is warm measure the water out and warm it. And then they, like, you know, bloom the yeast. They add the flour in. And they're using a scale, so they get to talk about numbers a little bit. Like, okay. Let's get close to that.John Kanell [00:26:41]:And it doesn't be perfect, but, like, let's get close. And then they need it, and they work on it, and they shape it. And, you know, it's like a nice afternoon where they can come and do a little bit of work, and then exit, and they love it.Stephanie [00:26:52]:Yeah. I love it. That's a great story, and I hope more people get in the kitchen with their kids because that is how you learn.Speaker C [00:26:59]:And it'sJohn Kanell [00:26:59]:how people connect with food too. Like, it's easy to a picky eater. I understand some people are just naturally, like, super tasters or else, and, like, I won't take that away from them, but, like, my kids. And then I developed an appreciation for it. And just your palate changes over time, and you change. But the exposure is different. And when you're making something, you have a hand in it, and that really gives you more of an investment in trying it out and wanting to like it.Stephanie [00:27:25]:Yeah. And I think people do go back and try foods that you maybe didn't like as a kid and you have a totally different experience with it later.John Kanell [00:27:32]:Yeah. The brussels sprouts.Stephanie [00:27:34]:Yeah. Oh, gosh. We I made brussels sprouts for a dinner party once and one of my friends was aghast. Like, literally could not understand why I would be serving brussels sprouts and I was like, well, have you had them in a while? Go ahead and taste them. They're pretty great and he loved them, but he was just like remember that time when you had a dinner party and you made brussels sprouts? He just thought it was so risky. I was like, not too risky. Yeah.John Kanell [00:28:00]:One little face.Stephanie [00:28:01]:Yes. That's right. Well, I'm gonna put links to the book in the show notes and people will follow you. I'll put all that in the show notes. It was great to talk with you, John, and good luck on the book.John Kanell [00:28:12]:Thanks so much for having me over, and Yeah. Wait to see everybody on my book tour. It starts August 20th.Stephanie [00:28:17]:And will you be coming to Minneapolis by chance?John Kanell [00:28:20]:I will not. I think the closest I'll get is Chicago. But if you're in the neighborhood, come see me. We go to Los Angeles, Dallas, Seattle, Chicago, Atlanta, and New York, and not in that order.Stephanie [00:28:32]:How fun, though. Oh, I just I'm I hope I get to do a book tour sometime. Right now, my books are pretty regional. But someday, I'm gonna go on a book tour, I swear.John Kanell [00:28:41]:It's really fun. I I see that visualized in your future.Stephanie [00:28:45]:Yes. I'm manifesting right now. Thanks for being on the program. I really appreciate you.John Kanell [00:28:49]:Thanks for having me. Have a nice day.Stephanie [00:28:51]:Alright. Okay. Bye bye. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Nava Atlas is an American cookbook author and illustrator known for her work on the groundbreaking and inventive “Vegetariana” and her “Vegan Soups and Stews For All Seasons,” now in its fourth edition.Truly a pioneer in the culinary world, activism, literature, and art, Vegetariana first hit bookshelves in 1984. Now, 37 years later, Nava's premier work encompassing recipes, food lore, and imaginative illustrations has been reborn for a whole new generation of compassionate cooks.Nava's “Vegan Soups and Stews For All Seasons,” features 120 Vegan Soup and Stew recipes that have been tried and true over the last 25 years. Nava's vegan chicken noodle soup is one of her favorite recipes from the book. Here is the recipe from her blog, The Vegan Atlas and make sure to follow her substack newsletter at The Vegan Atlas and Literary Ladies Guide is at Whether you're looking for a colorful global stew or a refreshing cold soup, there's something for every soup lover in these pages. EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:Stephanie [00:00:11]:Hello, everybody, and welcome to Dishing with Stephanie's dish, the podcast where we talk to people obsessed with food, and we do talk to a lot of cookbook authors, and I feel pretty honored today. I'm with, I feel like, a living legend, not only in the vegetarian category, but vegan category, and also a fellow soup lover, which is so exciting. Good morning, Nava. How are you? Welcome to the show, Nava Hatless.Nava Atlas [00:00:35]:Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here, and I'll tell you why in a moment.Stephanie [00:00:41]:Okay. So let us talk because you have Vegetariana was one of your first books, which isNava Atlas [00:00:48]:This is my first.Stephanie [00:00:49]:Okay. And it is a hoot. It has, like, these hand drawn illustrations, little bits of wisdom throughout. It is really a well done book, and it was reissued in the last couple of years and made all completely vegan. Did you go vegan later in life? Or tell me about that transition.Nava Atlas [00:01:08]:It was exactly, I would say, 20. I go by my son's age because he was 10 when he went vegan, and now he's 32. So it's always easy for me to keep track. So, yeah, 22 years vegan. I was vegetarian since high school. So I was kind of an early adopter, not necessarily on the veganism side of it, but, you know, I remember even in being a weirdo as a vegetarian back then. And also I was gonna say that, you know, I've really seen this whole progression from analog to digital and, you know, wanting to familiarize myself with you, your work, your podcast. I went straight to and, of course, I'm going to forget.Nava Atlas [00:01:51]:Oh, John Kung. Yeah. And he was talking about Detroit, and I was so thrilled because I grew up right outside Detroit.Stephanie [00:02:02]:My radio partner grew up outside Detroit too. And I really I love Detroit. I visited and had, like, 4 very memorable days in my life.Nava Atlas [00:02:14]:It is an amazing city, and it's an an amazing transformation. The last time I was there was not that long ago. It was maybe a year ago a year ago, June. Sure. And, my friend was showing me around central downtown, and then I saw an article. I'm not sure if it was in New York Times or elsewhere statistic that statistic that says that downtown Detroit is actually safer than San Francisco.Stephanie [00:02:46]:Oh, I believe that. Yeah. I absolutely believe that. It is a really cool place to visit. The farmer's market alone was just mind blowing to me. So many just sheds upon sheds of makers, and I've always loved maker culture and people that make products, and I have podcasts about that too. And really just enjoy the craft of people making food and how hard they have to work and how delicious it is.Nava Atlas [00:03:15]:And so many vegan restaurants, you know, for me, that's really my interest. And, one that had started when I was in college in Ann Arbor, I am a University of Michigan graduate, was Ceva, and now they have that beautiful place in downtown Detroit that is delicious. It is, you know, expensive on a par with New York, still very much worth it. But I, you know, I'm really glad to see the city thriving because the city has been through so much. Yeah. And I have to admit, I did not get to Eastern Market on my last visit because I also really wanted to save some time to go to Ann Arbor, my alma mater, and see how I haven't been to Ann Arbor for a longer time and how that has transformed. It looks like a little city now. And then Royal Oak looks like Ann Arbor did when I went to something there.Stephanie [00:04:02]:It's funny. Yeah. So veganism, I will say so I do eat meat, and I knew people that were vegans, and I knew it was a thing. And, obviously, being in the food world, you're paying attention to trends. And, obviously, eating plant based is super beneficial health wise. And then I started working on my TV show, and my executive producer is vegan. And I just really felt like I had my eyes opened to what it really means to, like, live a vegan lifestyle. And for her, she's been doing it like you for so long.Stephanie [00:04:42]:It's just like, oh, I just don't eat meat. It's really no big deal at all. And we are so fortunate now in that we have so many choices and so many options in our food world. Writing a cookbook that's vegan specific to soup, I thought was probably not as hard as people think because a lot of soups are vegan if you're using a vegetable broth.Nava Atlas [00:05:03]:Right. They're vegan. So many soups are vegan already, and soup is a very plant forward type of food, maybe second only to salad.Stephanie [00:05:12]:Yeah. Exactly. And that's kinda how I think about soup because I make a lot of soup, but I also make a lot because I cook a lot. So I have all of the vegetable scraps and the broths and the little dribs and drabs of things that I'm always throwing into a soup. When you put your cookbook together, was it hard for you to think about, like, okay, what recipes am I gonna put in? What am I not?Nava Atlas [00:05:34]:So this book, like Vegetariana, has a long history. What you're holding in your hands now is the 5th edition. I've heard. Yeah. So I think I published it. I I had an agent back then, not the same one I have now, and she said, oh, you know, publishers are saying this is just too niche. It's too specific. Couldn't find a publisher.Nava Atlas [00:05:54]:So I thought, you know what? I'll publish it myself. And at the time, it was it was actually so many more people are self publishing now, but it was easier back then like a lot of things. It was a very small, really diminutive hand drawn book, and it did very well. So once I had proved myself, it was picked up by Little Brown. Then it went out of print at Little Brown. I went back to self publishing it. That same editor went to Random House, so she picked it up again, and then it went out of print. It you know, none of the additions before this one had as many photographs and they weren't designed as beautifully as I would have liked.Nava Atlas [00:06:38]:So it was really nice to get the whole process back into my hands.Stephanie [00:06:42]:The book is really beautiful. So did you publish this version yourself?Nava Atlas [00:06:47]:This one I did because, you know, after the 4th edition, it's the likelihood of another publisher publishing something that's been in and out of print so many times is probably close to nil. Even though it has sold lots of copies, you know, people want to move on to the new thing, to the fresh thing, and it's understandable.Stephanie [00:07:06]:I'm pretty impressed by that. Not only that you're in your 5th edition, but as a cookbook writer myself who does publish the more traditional route, you're probably, financially, it's a much better, amount of money per book that you make probably publishing yourself than going through a publishing house.Nava Atlas [00:07:28]:I was going to say maybe per book for the copies that you're lucky to sell, but, you know, really at a disadvantage from the perspective of distribution. That's a big thing. Yep. I have a good distributor, but, you know, I I feel I felt like, you know, I just want a beautiful edition of this book before I leave this mortal coil. But as far as making lots of money, no. I would say to your listeners, that's not the way to get rich.Stephanie [00:07:58]:Yeah. No. I just see, I think about it from the perspective of, like, okay. A traditional book, the author probably makes anywhere from 3 to $7 a copy.Nava Atlas [00:08:09]:Less than that.Stephanie [00:08:10]:Okay. And then a published book that you publish yourself, people say that you can make anywhere from 15 to $22 a copy.Nava Atlas [00:08:19]:Oh, maybe connect me with those people. I'd like to see where they got that information. Because Okay. You know, you're not doing huge printing, so your per unit cost is not great. Right. And also, I didn't wanna print overseas because, you know, that's another thing in itself and the books have to be printed way ahead of time. Yes. And so I did it domestically, which I think they did a beautiful job.Thank you for reading Stephanie's Dish Newsletter. This post is public so feel free to share it.Stephanie [00:08:42]:It is beautiful. But the perNava Atlas [00:08:43]:unit cost is going to be a little bit more. But, you know, this was a, a labor of love, I would say, to get it into print in a fashion that I'm really happy with. Because I do like you, I absolutely love soup. I think that I would say it's my very favorite category of food and eating. It just it's so digestible. And like I said, with the title, soups and stews for all seasons, you make them every time. If your people think of it fall, winter, but I love a cold summer soup. There's nothing more refreshing for dinner than, you know, when it's a warm evening like the summer we've had this past summer to have a a really delicious cold soup.Stephanie [00:09:26]:And like gazpacho can be revelatory. Right?Nava Atlas [00:09:30]:Absolutely. And a lot of these soups also, I would say in my summer chapter, about half of them are no cook. So that's great for those times where you feel like you just don't wanna turn on a single burner. Watermelon gazpacho is one of my newer favorites.Stephanie [00:09:45]:I did not see that in there. I'll have to look back. That sounds really interesting to me. Chilled soup is always a little I don't get there. I get there when it's really hot. I just don't think about it unless it's super hot.Nava Atlas [00:10:00]:I have a few that are good hot or cold. Like, one that I made not long ago, it's called tangy cold potato spinach soup.Stephanie [00:10:08]:And that's literally just open to that.Nava Atlas [00:10:10]:Oh, yeah. That it that's really good hot or cold. That could be, you know, had in the fall, nice and warm or hot. And then the next one also, cold creamy leek and potato soup because you do think leeks is a little bit more of a fall or spring vegetable. And I would say sometimes I just I don't even pay attention to the chapters. If I feel like having a winter soup in the summer, I'll do that or vice versa. You know? Well, I wouldn't have a a summer cold summer soup in the winter. But reverse, yes.Stephanie [00:10:39]:Yeah. Same. I was just at my cabin. It was 80 degrees, and I made, chicken broccoli soup because I just was hungry for it. Yeah. Let's talk about some of the stews. And you it feels like there's some global influences kind of in here, some Thai influences, perhaps some African influences. How do you get your ideas for recipes?Nava Atlas [00:11:05]:Well, if it's a it's globally influenced, I'm influenced by what I have when I go out to eat. And if I go out to eat, I like to have things that I haven't had at home or don't normally make at home, but then it's so much fun to try to recreate it in your own kitchen. And now, you know, supermarkets are a veritable feast of international ingredients, which is great. One of my favorites, my absolute favorite, what I call my favorite food hacks because I'm really lazy when it comes to Indian cuisine Mhmm. Is, simmer sauce. Mhmm. Indian. Have you ever tried any of the those?Stephanie [00:11:42]:Yeah. I have. Yep.Nava Atlas [00:11:44]:They're amazing. They really take anything you put them on tastes like it came from the best Indian restaurant because I am just simply too lazy to do the grinding 20 spicesStephanie [00:11:54]:and For sure.Nava Atlas [00:11:55]:You need to you'd get those complex flavors. It's not just about dumping some curry powder into something. So that has been really wonderful. And then in the last couple years, I would say I've really fallen in love with kimchi. Yes. Me too. Just how good it is for us. So the kimchiStephanie [00:12:14]:to get past the idea like it smells. Right? When you open that first jarNava Atlas [00:12:20]:or first do. Yeah.Stephanie [00:12:22]:Just sort of like, ugh. It's just got that really heavily fermented smell. But then when you use it, it doesn't taste like it smells at all.Nava Atlas [00:12:30]:It definitely mellows. And, you know, there are 2 types of kimchi. There is a kimchi made with fish sauce and I'm not I'm just guessing that might have more of the aroma.Stephanie [00:12:39]:Yeah.Nava Atlas [00:12:39]:And so I get the vegan kimchi. And again, I have a kimchi soup here and the list might look a little longer. I'm not a big fan of huge long ingredient list, by the way. A little bit longer than my usual, but it's still so easy, and it's one of those soups that's on the table in 30 minutes.Stephanie [00:12:58]:And which one is it?Nava Atlas [00:12:59]:The kimchi soup on page 63.Stephanie [00:13:02]:Alright. I'm just gonna take a look at that while we're sitting here too. Alright. And then stews, was that purposeful to include stews or is that just because soups kind of are like sue stews too.Nava Atlas [00:13:15]:You know, I have always called stews soups with a chunkier texture and a little more attitude.Stephanie [00:13:23]:Okay. That's a good way to describe it. I like it.Nava Atlas [00:13:26]:Right. So I have here this Italian mixed vegetable stew with the gnocchi, and the gnocchi tend to absorb a little bit more of the broth, so it becomes more stew like. And then I think in one of the later chapters, I have a a Thai vegetable stew with a peanut base. They're just so adaptable. You can you know, if you don't like stew like textures, you just put a little bit more liquid or water and it becomes you're back to a soup.Stephanie [00:13:54]:When I was looking at this easy laksa soup, the Southeast Asian influence there, I'm gonna be going to Southeast Asia in January.Nava Atlas [00:14:03]:Oh, really? I've neverStephanie [00:14:04]:been, and I wasNava Atlas [00:14:05]:Oh, wow.Stephanie [00:14:06]:There's so many delicious soups in their culture.Nava Atlas [00:14:09]:Absolutely. In fact, my nieces and nephews were just telling me a story that they were in, I believe it was Thailand, and they said by the end of their visit, they didn't wanna see another noodle again. Yep. There are a lotStephanie [00:14:21]:of noodles in the Thailand for sure.Nava Atlas [00:14:24]:I don't think it would I would ever tire of that though.Stephanie [00:14:27]:How did you get started in cookbook writing?Nava Atlas [00:14:30]:That is a very interesting story. In high school, like I said I was kind of the the oddball vegetarian both at school and in my family. Don't really remember what gave me that notion other than you know, I just never liked meat. My mom did this kind of bland Eastern European cooking. And I don't know, I think I was a little bit early for the hippie era, but I was kind of a wannabe. So I decided to go vegetarian. And my mom said, well, I'm not going to cook 2 meals. If you wanna be a vegetarian, you're gonna have to cook for yourself thinking that that would put a an end to it.Nava Atlas [00:15:07]:Yeah. But I really took to it. I really enjoyed it. And back then, we didn't have these beautiful supermarkets or whole foods or where these dusty health food stores.Stephanie [00:15:18]:Oh, I remember.Nava Atlas [00:15:19]:Yeah. Where it was probably 70% vitamins and potions and maybe a little bit, you know, and then brown things that you'd buy by the by the pound.Stephanie [00:15:30]:Yes.Nava Atlas [00:15:30]:But we just loved it. So I bought the the brown lentils and the brown oat groats and what not that we had, and I had so much fun with it. Then, when I got married rather early on in life, my husband really wanted to be a vegetarian, but he was absolutely no cook. Still isn't. You can make a good salad, but that's about it's his limit. So we would go out once in a while. We lived in New York City at the time, and I'd like to recreate things at home or just concoct. And he said, you really need to write this one down.Nava Atlas [00:16:02]:You need to write this one down, and I'll write this one down. And after a while, I found myself with a lot of recipes. I was, oh, I was a trained, never trained as a chef. In fact, sometimes people introduce me as a chef and I say, that's very nice of you, but it's an insult to chefs.Stephanie [00:16:19]:Yeah. I feel similarly. I'm just so well cooked.Nava Atlas [00:16:22]:Right. Exactly. I was a trained graphic designer and illustrator. And in fact, the book you're holding, one of them, Vegetariana, I designed and illustrated. And the design and the illustrations are very similar, identical, really, almost identical to the original edition, But with some additional new illustrations that I did, this was what I called my COVID project When we were inside for 2 years, I did a lot of new illustrations for it. And that's when I veganized it.Stephanie [00:16:55]:It's really it's a super lovely book. It's different than any other cookbook because it has just so much personality, but yet the recipes look super delicious too. It's like every page, I feel like I turn it, and it's a new discovery.Nava Atlas [00:17:08]:Oh, thank you. And I also call it the kind of cookbook that you can read in bed. Because there's a lot of stories and folklore and food lore and food history, which also kind of fascinates me. How I started writing was I did accumulate a lot of recipes. We were a starving artist couple in New York City back then. I remember going to a lecture by some well known graphic designer whose name, of course, I no longer remember, but he said, if you're a freelancer, unless you do something for yourself that's completely your own, you're gonna be just going from job to job to job. And I thought, that really resonated. So I thought why don't I try to put this together as a book.Nava Atlas [00:17:53]:And back then everything was analog. There was just phones. In fact, there was only landlines. And I was so shy. I was it was really a miracle that I was able to be a freelance illustrator and graphic designer because back then, the way to do it was to cold call and make an appointment with the art director and schlep the literal huge portfolio. So I had to make a, you know, what I thought was a proposal and make, you know, make a copy of it and send it off to and I sent it to 1 publisher, And they kept it for 6 months before saying no. And at that point, again, I read about how the publishing process worked. I was completely naive, and it said, you've got to find an agent.Nava Atlas [00:18:41]:I thought, how am I, one of the shyest people on earth, going to find an agent? So my husband actually took my my really rough proposal to a copy shop across from where our studio was, our art studio. And the guy behind the counter said, oh, what is this? It looks really interesting. And my husband told him, he said, oh, my girlfriend is an agent. So he gave me her number. But of course I had to call them on a landline with my hand and my voice shaking. And they said, well, you can, you know, mail it or you can drop it off, but we know we're not looking right now, and it could take several weeks or several months. And I said to my husband, I can't do this. Can you take it up? They were also in New York City.Nava Atlas [00:19:29]:Can you take it up there for me? So he did, and he came back and he said, oh, they weren't very nice, and they had a dog, and he was barking at me. And I said, well, this doesn't sound good. Well, the very next morning, my landline was ringing. And they said, oh, we love this and we wanna represent it. And I think within a few weeks, they'd sold it to one of the top cookbook editors in New York City. But, honestly, I was just too young and too dumb to really appreciate what, you know, synchronicity, luck, maybe some talent, of course. We have to own that about ourselves as women, but I didn't believe it at the time. And, it was, you know, the rest as they say is history.Stephanie [00:20:13]:It really what a great story. I love hearing that because anybody in the publishing world finding an agent is just like finding a needle in a hay stack, and then getting the book bought by the publisher is another needle. And even, you know, if you have good publishers, some people have bad experiences. The publishing industry has changed since COVID. It's just changed so dramatically.Nava Atlas [00:20:34]:Yes. I mean, there has always been, I would say, you know we always think everything back then was better not necessarily. You see in vegetariana the drawings are very delicateStephanie [00:20:45]:Yeah. AndNava Atlas [00:20:46]:white. Well, when I first saw my book in print, I cried, but not from happiness. They had inked the drawing so heavily and that some of the pages were actually sticking together.Stephanie [00:20:58]:Aw.Nava Atlas [00:20:58]:So it was an epic nightmare. But they did they corrected everything for the second printing, and the book was actually very successful. And it led me to my second, and then I thought, well, this is a great way for a starving artist to make money. Yeah. And, you know, you know, I was very dedicated at the time to vegetarianism as much as right now, I'm even more dedicated to veganism for many, many reasons. But, you know, what you say is right. I feel like and I can't give the name on the air, but I've been so blessed with my agent.Stephanie [00:21:29]:Mhmm.Nava Atlas [00:21:30]:And it is, again, sometimes it's a matter of luck or timing and and persistence. Persistence is a very important ingredient.Stephanie [00:21:39]:And I love this story about you putting yourself out there because we're in this kind of weird age. And I I'm am I like the the where we're at, but it's different in that now, so many people that are getting, you know, 6 figure advanced cookbook deals are influencers or have a huge following on social media. And what I find more often than not, many of them are great, but also what you the skill sets that you need to be a good social media influencer are not necessarily the same skill sets that you need to be a good cookbook author. So you can do great hands videos and 5 ingredients or less or they the publishers now just look like how many social media followers do they have. Are they on TikTok? Are they doing these videos? And that's kind of how you get the deal. I hope that we still can have some of the other types of books that are more labor of loves and are single themed or are unique and different in that way. And I'm worried we might lose some of that, and it's all gonna be gonna come about a personality.Nava Atlas [00:22:51]:Yeah. All of what you say is a 100% correct. And in fact, when I was, listening to your podcast with John Kung, and he was saying he has 2,000,000 followers on TikTok. Well, I have 0 followers on TikTok because I'm not on TikTok, and I have nothing against it. In fact, I think it's great. I think when people can kind of build their own platform, it's just wonderful. But aside from doing cookbooks, I'm also a a writer, a nonfiction writer. I run 2 websites, and I feel like there's just so many hours in a day and just so many skill sets and hats that one person can wear.Stephanie [00:23:26]:Yeah. And some of the, I mean, some of the fast quick hand photography or videography or even just, like, doing videos on YouTube. Thank god for me because as a home cook, you know, I don't know. I don't have good knife skills. I am really just like your next door neighbor that's cooking you food and has a reasonably funny personality, but that's about all I got. So it's it's fun to be able to make a career with those skills. Yes. But I also I do understand that, you know, there are people like the Ina Garten's of the world who we need to make room for them too because even though maybe, you know, she does she has a lot of people on TikTok and all that now.Stephanie [00:24:11]:But in the day, she didn't. And her books are really well researched and really well put together. It's kind of an exciting time, but it's also a time where there's a lot for a lot of different types of people. And young people too. Like, what makes I mean, my daughter's 25, and she's really into cooking. But she cooks things I would never cook. Like, she will make her own bagels. I would no more near make my own bagel and boil it.Stephanie [00:24:36]:And I just, you know, that's not really what I do, but I'm so impressed that she does it. She'll do the 4 day project cooking, you know, the making the steamed bao buns and just doing all kinds of fun stuff.Nava Atlas [00:24:49]:That's wonderful, though. My daughter has become a really good seitan maker. Are you familiar with it?Stephanie [00:24:55]:Yeah. Yeah.Nava Atlas [00:24:55]:And and it's my recipe and I've really refined it. But I thought sometimes it just feels like such a project to me. I'm so glad that she likes to do it. Yeah. It's very useful.Stephanie [00:25:07]:So is your whole family vegan and vegetarian?Nava Atlas [00:25:11]:I would say, you know, yes. In fact, we went vegan at the same time. My husband has kind of gone in and out of having eggs. So when he has eggs, he's a vegetarian, but both of my kids, my kids were raised vegetarian. Neither of them, and they are not young anymore. Neither of them have ever tasted meat in their life.Stephanie [00:25:31]:Oh, that's so funny. I can't even imagine that because we just eat so much beef in the Midwest. What I will say, this producer that I was talking to you about that's vegan, she started raising chickens. And she had all these eggs, and eventually, she started eating the eggs. And then she ended up getting rid of the chicken, so she's off the eggs again. But it it it was interesting to hear, like, how she came to even incorporating eggs into her life. She was just like, I have all these eggs. I hate the waste.Nava Atlas [00:26:02]:Right. And, you know, when you have chickens, they're gonna lay eggs.Stephanie [00:26:05]:Yeah. So, you know, INava Atlas [00:26:06]:have a friend who raises backyard chickens and, you know, she's giving them usually to my a lot of times to my husband. And it's nice to know that they're eggs that are raised too mainly, you know, where they came from and everything.Stephanie [00:26:18]:If you had to say a favorite recipe for you in the vegan soups and stews book, you kind of already said, the one. I just before we wrap up, is there a book or is there a recipe that feels really personal to you or something that you feel like is a signature just of yours?Nava Atlas [00:26:39]:I just opened to 1, the mock chicken noodle soup. So chicken noodle soup with c h I c k apostrophe n. Yes. And subtitle is kinda like my mom's but without the bird. So this uses didStephanie [00:26:56]:you get that flavor without the bird?Nava Atlas [00:27:00]:Well, I used vegetable or vegan chicken style bouillon cubes. Mhmm. And then the chicken chicken product also, they usually have their own flavor. And it's really, you know, it's really not that difficult. I feel like this is proof positive that pretty much anything can be veganized. And I'm going back to the beginning of the program saying that I really didn't like my mom's cooking very much, but yet I loved my mom. So this super reminds me not so much of my mom's cooking that I didn't particularly like, but of my mom. Yeah.Nava Atlas [00:27:35]:So even looking at it and the way it looks is just just brings me back to my childhood. And I think that's so much of what eating is about. And so much of what comfort food is about is that nostalgia and that comfort of, you know, our parents or our family and the safety. And I feel like that is just such a universal human need. I always think that we're not necessarily alike as humans, but I think that we all want the same things. We want love, security, our family, and food is just such a way to bring people together.Stephanie [00:28:14]:Yeah. I couldn't agree more. And boy, that's a great way to end it. I love that you shared that, story. And I was just you know, that we're just coming off of the Republican National Convention, and I've been feeling a little bit like trying to be open minded, but also feeling a little tribal in my belief system. And I do think about getting back to what do what are people wanting? You when you really get down to it, we do want a lot of the same things. We come out of different points of view, but it helps me to have empathy and understanding when I'm having a hard time feeling like, who are these people?Nava Atlas [00:28:57]:I'm glad you said it. Not me, but I I get I get it.Stephanie [00:29:02]:And yeah. And on both sides, really. I mean, I'm from Minneapolis, and believe me, we have a lot of left, real left, left, left stuff happening right now. And on the one hand, some of it's really exciting. And on the other hand, I just feel like it's too much, and you feel like you're kinda pulled on all sides and not sure where the real understanding is. And I'm just trying to find my own personal empathetic path as we Absolutely. Get walking up to this election regardless of what SoNava Atlas [00:29:30]:Find a way to meet in the middle and things that we all have as commonalities.Stephanie [00:29:34]:And it is always food and soup, isn't it?Nava Atlas [00:29:37]:Absolutely. I think food really brings us together for sure.Stephanie [00:29:41]:This has been such a delight. Thank you so much for spending a little time with me today. I appreciate it. And we'll get the podcast edited and posted. It is Vegetariana. That is the original book, A Rich Harvest of Whitlore and Recipes. And the new book that's not new, but in its 5th edition, but new with pretty pictures, vegan soups and stews for all seasons, Nava Atlas. Thanks joining me.Stephanie [00:30:03]:I really appreciate it.Nava Atlas [00:30:04]:Oh, thank you. If I could just, one more thing is that people can visit me as at the vegan atlas dotcom.Stephanie [00:30:11]:Okay. I think I went to your website once, so I'll put that in the show notes.Nava Atlas [00:30:15]:Oh, thank you so much.Stephanie [00:30:16]:Okay. Great to meet you.Nava Atlas [00:30:17]:Bye bye. Alright.Stephanie [00:30:18]:Bye bye.Stephanie's Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Behind Mixly Cocktail Co. is a group of friends. Some met in college, others through work, but they all came together with their shared love of craft cocktails and thought they could offer a complex craft cocktail base that you could make at home. Whether you are making Mocktail or Cocktails, any of Mixly's 7 cocktail varieties or their new Spritz line will transport you to a craft cocktail bar experience at home.Stephanie's Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.EPISODE TRANSCRIPT :Stephanie [00:00:16]:Hello, everybody, and welcome to dishing with Stephanie's dish. This is a Minnesota maker edition, which are always extra special to me because it's how I got started in the podcast space. I'm here with Jonna Rosbach, and she is the founder of Mixley, which is a we'll call it a cocktail concentrate. Is that what you would call it, Johnna? I think Johnna?Johnna [00:00:36]:I think you could. I mean, we still refer to it as a mixer, but it certainly is more concentrated than typically what you find on shelf.Stephanie [00:00:44]:And what it is is this delicious fruit forward mixer that you can mix with mocktails. You can have it in a cocktail. You can have it with sparkling wine. You can just have it with, you know, soda pop, really. If you wanted to have it with 7 Up, it would be equally delicious. What made you think that, like, this was a place in the market that there was a hole that you could fill with this product?Johnna [00:01:12]:So there was a couple things. I think the the first area was, well, we all we started the journey, when we set out to you know, wanting to do our own business, and we love the idea of cocktails. Me and my business partners, we love cocktails, and just kind of the faucet making great cocktail. And then we went to the shelf to see you know, curious what our mixers like these days. Yeah. And we were shocked to see, oh, oh my gosh.Stephanie [00:01:40]:There's bad.Johnna [00:01:41]:Bad. Really bad. Bad ingredients, bad branding, bad flavors, same old flavors. And so we were just really excited. 1, I think just let's clean up the ingredient deck. Like, we all know in every other beverage category, we've evolved. So let's 1, step 1. 2, let's bring exciting flavors, like what you would want to see at a craft, you know, at a great bar, at a you know, getting a craft cocktail.Johnna [00:02:06]:And then I think 3rd, this was I was pregnant at the time. The kind of sober, curious, any movement was just coming. So, like, let's make this versatile. Let's make this for everyone. So whether you're drinking or you're not, you can really make it your way and, you're not no one's having to feel left out, you know, if they're not drinking alcohol.Stephanie [00:02:27]:I think a lot of products too thought that they were gonna deliver on that message, but then kind of few did. Because if you weren't having them with alcohol, some of them didn't have the flavor punch. Others, if you were drinking them strictly as a mocktail, they were a little too much. Like, you guys really seem to hit the right balance. So go through your flavor profile because you've been pretty consistent too.Johnna [00:02:54]:Yeah. It's really about a balanced cocktail. So you're gonna have you know, you want the balance of the sweetness. So obviously, or tartness. Right? So the fruit, whether like the strawberry, pomegranate, you're gonna have some of that tartness. We wanna balance that then with a honey. So we used a honey in our simple syrup base, and that is really just gonna create a more balanced sweetness versus cane sugar can be really intense. And then the benefit to a lot of people do, you know, prefer honey as a sweetener these days over cane sugar and then acid.Johnna [00:03:28]:So, obviously, it's lemon or lime in all of our flavors, and that acidity is, not only part of a great cocktail or can be part of a great cocktail, but also for us, that is what acts as our kinda natural, stabilizer. Right? So we are shelf stable, but because we, you know, lean into some of those, you know, to the using fresh lime and lemon, it allows us to be shelf stable longer without having to add preservatives. So I think right. It's like the sweetness or tartness and then a really good acid. And then we do have a lot of, bring in a lot of, earthy flavors as well. So we have, like, the pineapple basil lime. So we're adding in, you know, the freshness of the babel basil or the mint, cucumbermint lime has that, you know, really, refreshing element. And same thing too, like, one of my favorites we just launched, as part of our spritz line is the elderflower mint.Johnna [00:04:26]:And that again, it's floral. It's refreshing with the mint. It's, yeah. So it's really all about, yeah, that combo to create a nice balanced cocktail.Stephanie [00:04:36]:So I'm talking with cofounder at Mixley, Jonna Rosbach, and you mentioned that you have this spritz line. It is a new we'll call it an extension. Is that fair? And why did you rebrand it and make it somewhat different looking than the traditional mixed line? I was curious what the thought process was there.Johnna [00:04:57]:We were really great summer, you know, sipper. And we felt too that this was not only do we want to, you know, jump into the spritz, scene with our Mixley take, And it was a fun truly, like, Megan, our my business partner who's our designer is just so creative, wanted to have fun and and see, you know, how a kind of different branding would do. But I think it's also just, you know, it's an interesting test for us of how does a a mixer that's for a single a single type of cocktail do versus the versatility message we've had with Mixley where you can make it with rum or tequila or vodka. Like, how does that resonate with consumers when it's, like, really easy? It's a spritz. You mix it with sparkling wine, and there you go. So we wanted to distinguish it a bit, have fun with it, and then also it's just interesting to see, yeah, how it performs.Stephanie [00:05:54]:Can you talk a little bit about that? Because, clearly to me, that seems like people that have a marketing background that are doing sorta AB testing that are really as interested in the brand packaging and the messaging as the actual love of the cocktail itself. So what was your background and your business partner's background getting here? Because it seems sort of packaged goods focused.Johnna [00:06:20]:You are correct. Very much. Yes. So my background is all CPG marketing. Came up through the agency world and then spent, years in in corporate marketing at, you know, 2 different big food, CPG firms. And Megan, my business partner, the same. So, yes, we have that background. Her background's design.Johnna [00:06:41]:My background is more the marketing communication. So some ways, that's very helpful. In some ways, you have to take everything that you learned in your big CPG world and forget that you learned it because it doesn't apply.Stephanie [00:06:53]:Yeah. To yeah. That's really interesting too because I think that's one of the if I'm talking with people that are manufacturing products or talking about products and that's their background, I usually do tell them that. And you also don't have the depth of, staff or even the depth of resources or time. So you have to kinda move a lot faster than people are comfortable with.Johnna [00:07:19]:Yeah. Move faster. And I think even as you think about, like, the marketing tactics, things that we would do, it's like, it's so different when you already have brand awareness and distribution. Yeah. We made a lot of mistakes early on. I was like, oh, that lesson, that thing I thought I did really well. Like, that does not apply to Mixley to what we're doing. SoStephanie [00:07:40]:What's an example of that?Johnna [00:07:44]:I would say, for example okay. Spending on influencers. Right? Everyone wants to spend on influencers. And I'm not to say that's wrong. However, it is a very different game when you don't have, on shelf presence. Also, if you're just gonna do and true if you're truly going to invest in d two c, you have to do it right. So if you're having influencers drive to your website, you really have to be focused. And I think when we launched, we were trying to do too much.Johnna [00:08:12]:We were doing retail and a little d two c. So you're just your spend in a in a tactic like influencer marketing is really not gonna go far in the stage we were at, and that's where we learned to focus and prioritize early on. We launched we went heavy into retail, and that's what we did. So influencers at our stage of the game don't make sense. What makes sense is in store tastings. So that's where if I'm gonna spend a $100, I'm better spending in it on a brand ambassador doing an in store tasting versusStephanie [00:08:41]:an insJohnna [00:08:41]:you know, a a Instagram post.Stephanie [00:08:43]:Yeah. And I think too, maybe you can speak to this. I feel like the influencer world is changing, we're discovering that real influence is hard to come by and isn't always with the person with the 100,000 followers in a marketplace. Like, that maybe those micro influencers and doing an event or something that's different might have actual more influence than the gal that has, you know, 50,000 followers and hold something up, and her pretty smile just for lack of a better way of saying that. But do you know what I'm saying?Johnna [00:09:25]:Yeah. We're all become very savvy. I think we're very now we look at anyone who posts on and, again, it's not it's not putting anyone down, but we do look at that. I think we're all skeptical, or we know now. They're getting paid to say that. That's not you know, it doesn't feel authentic anymore. And I think too I think you're right in where the real influences, and I will say influence in as it relates to purchase for us has been in store tastings, has been, local media. So partners like you and whenever, you know, we get the opportunity to be on local media or do an interview, we see a direct correlation between that and sales.Johnna [00:10:05]:Events are also critical for us, not only in, obviously, you're in front of the consumer, but people word-of-mouth. Like, oh, I saw someone. They just told me to come down here. Like, these are really powerful tools that, you know, maybe to a sophisticated digital marketer, like, they may seem outdated, but they're tried and true. And for us right now, they work.Stephanie [00:10:25]:Well and you and I kind of I mean, originally, I think we met just through the cocktails and packaged goods in Minnesota Makers. But then, you come to the Stone Arch Festival. You come to a lot of these festivals that I program. And I try to explain to these packaged good culinary folks, and a lot of them are local and many Minnesota or Midwest made. You look at those events as an opportunity to sample, to trial, and create brand awareness. So, yes, selling your product there is awesome. And if you can get a return on your investment, that's great. That's what everybody strives for.Stephanie [00:11:03]:But that it's also a big marketing opportunity to get in front of so many people. And we see a lot of people that come to these events with their packages or their items and they don't sample, I'm like, oh, wow. You know, that is, like, you need to sample. Well, we just don't wanna give product away to the looky loos. It's like, well, those looky loos are also purchasers. You have to see them as the consumer that they are even though they're standing there with holding their kid's hand, who's eating a sweaty popsicle, and holding a beer. They still shop too.Johanna [00:11:36]:Mhmm. That's that's that's exactly it. And a lot of these events, you know, one, I I will tell you, like because we have, you know, 7, 8 different flavors. I love when people are like, can I try one of each one? I'm like, please. Yeah. Because then, like, I'm gonna upsell you on my bundle package. No. But I I do think too, like, some of these events, you know, we'll hear, well, you know, I don't wanna carry around glass right now.Johnna [00:11:56]:Do you have a card I can take with you? Like, where can I find you? And I really do believe that these people, they're taking a picture of our booth, that they're taking our card. It was a great interaction. They may not buy us now, but I think we're top of mind. And when they see us, you know, on shelf at France 44, like, hopefully, that's when they purchase. SoStephanie [00:12:14]:I was thinking about you guys recently because it seems natural with the launch of the spritz line that you might consider canned cocktails down the road. Is that something you're thinking about? Or I was even thinking about we're seeing now, like, Tattersall just launched a bunch of cocktails in a I call it a slap bag for lack of a better term. It just says the party girl in me. But the sort of canned, you miss the can, you miss the bottle, and it's just in this plastic thing that has a handle that you can carry around. You can put it on the boat. Are any of those packaging options something you guys might look at down the road or getting into the full canned cocktail?Johnna [00:12:55]:I think so. I think packaging, for sure. You look at other brands, mixer brands like Filthy, and right there in that bag. And it's really great for if you think about expansion into on premise and airlines. So I think for sure, packaging we would look at. In terms of ready to drink cocktails in a can, you know, the market's so saturated right now that I could see it maybe one day we've scaled and we're in thousands of doors, you know, retailers nationwide, and people want to see that from Mixley. But at this point, I think it it would just be too expensive to try to stand out in the noise. But I think that's really smart.Stephanie [00:13:36]:Yeah. I think that's really smart, actually. And, also, there is so many cool packaging options. Like, if you think of the Capri sun size or even if you think of the small canned, not cans, box. Small box like wine. I could just see that being a cool packaging idea for you. And, also, one of the things I love is you do have this rainbow sort of branding. And when you put all of the line together in a packaging item, it really feels like you're getting a lot.Stephanie [00:14:05]:I think you have the is it $45 for your do you call it your pride package?Johnna [00:14:10]:Rainbow package. Yeah. Okay. This month, we'll call it pride.Stephanie [00:14:14]:Yeah. And I always think of it as pride because I haveJohnna [00:14:16]:to beStephanie [00:14:16]:a daughter. So when I hear rainbow, like, I think, oh, okay. Right away. Yep. I thought that was a really clever way to market that because it gave you an opportunity to try all of them. Yeah. So the the jury is probably still out because the, spritz line is new. But so far, are you having fun with it? Does it feel like it was a good risk to take?Johnna [00:14:38]:Yeah. We are. We're having fun with it. We already flew through our 1st batch, like, what we produce, so that's great. Yep. So we're on track to, like, what we projected it to do for us, which is awesome. And, we launched it primarily as, you know, an event in kind of online product. We are in some boot in some shelves here in the Twin Cities, but we just wanted to kinda see again, like, how can we do this as a test and and do a smaller kind of more, you know, smaller launch, and then we'll see from there if it sticks with us for the long term.Stephanie [00:15:11]:I do love the idea of being able to have that on an airline as you're going on a trip. Like, I know Sun Country has had a good relationship with Crooked Water Spirits and our friend Heather Manley. But, like, I could see a spritzy kind of version of that and really covering all those warm weather destinations. And, well, that would be so fun, wouldn't it?Johnna [00:15:34]:Yes. From your lips to God's ears. Right? So, no. I agree. And that certainly I think, we know we can produce in 4 ounce bottles. We have that capability. And so, obviously, glass isn't ideal for our airlines. So back to your, you know, the packaging conversation, that's something that we're looking at and and how do we how do we break into that market? Because I agree.Johnna [00:15:56]:I think we've all been, you know, on a plane and wanting a good cocktail, and your mixers are pretty limited. It's, you know, a Coke, a Sprite, whatever they got, or a bloody, you know, a Bloody Mary. But, yeah.Stephanie [00:16:08]:Alright. So if anybody's listening, because we have a lot of fans, the Sun Country route, that would be great. And you could mix it with, they like to support local female driven companies, so that's exciting. So talk about you mentioned one of the spritzes is sort of an elderflower profile. What's the other one? It's orange. Right?Johnna [00:16:26]:Bitter orange cherry. So that's really, you know, reminiscent of, Aperol spritz. So, yeah. It's, it's, again, it's other it's another well balanced, mixer. And it really is just like this delightful summer sipper. And you can mix it. You don't need to add sparkling wine. You can just add, you know, soda water.Johnna [00:16:47]:Yep. And it still works. So, yeah.Stephanie [00:16:49]:Okay. So let me ask you. Are there any products or, like, packaged goods that you're using or seeing lately that you're just like and doesn't necessarily have to be food. That you're like, oh, I just love this product. It's so clever.Johnna [00:17:09]:Oh, the olive oil. The the, The green bottle? Yes. What is that?Stephanie [00:17:16]:Grossi, is it called?Johnna [00:17:18]:Yes. I mean, the branding, the packaging, the storytelling of the Spanish olive oil, it actually tastes good. Like, it is I'm obsessed, and that's another one too where I thought once I saw it, I go, yes. Another category that has really yet to evolve. And we're in packaging. Right? Like, I'm sure all you know, the olive oil is not all pretty equal equal. But just in terms of the design, I was like, this is so exciting.Stephanie [00:17:46]:And it feels super fresh and, like, you have to try it.Johnna [00:17:51]:Yeah.Stephanie [00:17:51]:Because everybody buys olive oil, but there is something about that product. And I actually haven't purchased it yet because I'm, like, the person who would be like, oh, that's just a marketing gimmick. You can because I'm just like because I'm cooking all the time. Yeah. But I do think it's super clever. And, also, when we look at, you know, who's coming back into the kitchen and learning to cook, It's a lot of millennials and date nights and kind of there's a more fun factor. And I think that olive oil has hit that right on the head. So that's a really good one.Stephanie [00:18:20]:I hadn't thought about that before. In town, are you, like, are you doing anything fun, or do you have any restaurants that you love? Or what do you do for fun?Johnna [00:18:30]:Oh my well, we you know, I will say this. For fun, I've got kiddos. So we're up Minnetonka. Minnetonka. Maynard's is, like, our standard. So if anyone from Maynard's is listening, I've been trying to get, like, Mixley on the menu. I'm like, I would love to enjoy my own mixer while I'm out here. But Sure.Johnna [00:18:47]:I feel like it just feels like that's the summer place out my way. But I did just eatStephanie [00:18:52]:at Starling. Oh, did youJohnna [00:18:53]:love it? I loved it. I mean, the food was great and the cocktails were fabulous. What was so interesting is they had, some, like, cranberry Red Bull based cocktails, which I have not had. Tell about party days, vodka Red Bulls. Yeah. It's been it's been a minute since I've had that. But anyway, it was on their cocktail list and surprisingly, it was really, really quite delicious.Stephanie [00:19:17]:Okay. I might have to check that out because it sounds a little weird. I'm like, okay. I feel alright.Johanna [00:19:24]:Alright. I know. On this beautiful elevated space, we have Red Bull on the menu. I have to try it. So yeah.Stephanie [00:19:30]:I still feel like whenever we get something on the, like, west of Saint Louis Park I live in Golden Valley. So, you know, we're still building out kind of the scene on the west side. And there's always been a good kinda late culture party scene, but and and maybe, like, we don't maybe it's not even fine dining, but just getting something that's a step above the chains feels so welcome and so right on right now.Johanna [00:19:58]:Absolutely. Yeah. Like, I I mean so even like an Excelsior ley line, that's just been such a really nice addition to the Excelsior food scene. You know, I guessStephanie [00:20:09]:Ivy and Hopkins is another one.Johanna [00:20:11]:Pink Ivy and Hopkins. Fabulous. Yeah. Amazing cocktails. And I would say to excellent food, and the value for what you get there is incredible. I love that space. Yeah.Stephanie [00:20:21]:Yeah. I do too. It's fun to see. And I'm excited for, the new, Grocers Table sister restaurant next door. I think that'll be fun.Johanna [00:20:31]:And Yeah. No. Same. That's it. And I just can't believe like, I'm so excited. You know, Lindsay has done so well with Grocer's Table. I'm excited for her to expand. Every time I go in that place, it is just buzzing.Johanna [00:20:43]:So I'm sure she's gonna do a great job, yeah, with the dinner concept.Stephanie [00:20:47]:Yeah. I think so too. Well, it's been super fun to catch up with you. I just I saw the spritz, and I thought, oh, I can't wait to talk to her about about them and why she did it the way she did it and what her thinking is. And I knew you'd have some really insightful thoughts about it. And I'm excited to try it too. I haven't tried it yet, but I promise I will.Johanna [00:21:05]:Okay. Well, I think I can hook you up if you need it. If you need a permit.Stephanie [00:21:09]:Guys soon. So Yes. Alright.Johanna [00:21:10]:Well, thank you, Stephanie. I appreciate it.Stephanie [00:21:12]:It's always fun to have you on. Thanks so much.Johanna [00:21:14]:Yeah. Likewise. Thanks. Bye bye. Bye. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Lisa Steele is a fifth-generation chicken keeper who shares her profound knowledge of poultry tips, egg facts, recipes, and more from her farm in Maine. Along the way Lisa has expanded her brand from taking care and raising chickens to mastering ways to use their lovely eggs. Lisa is the author of the "Fresh Eggs Daily" Cookbook, Blogger at "Coop to Kitchen" and host of the show "Welcome To My Farm."Lisa talked about when she perfected omelets and souffles and how satisfied she felt! Having never gotten to that level of mastery, I can only say I am jealous! She has provided her recipe (see below) so you, too, can make your best omelet and savory souffles and get a taste of her delightful book. She also sent me this link from her new recipe website for another delicious version of said perfect omelet. Gruyere and Tarragon Omelethttps://www.cooptokitchen.com/2024/06/gruyere-and-tarragon-omelet.htmlSpinach Goat Cheese OmeletThis half fold omelet is bursting with flavor and one of my favorites to whip up. It seems like a lot of spinach, but the heat from the omelet will wilt it down pretty quickly.2 eggs, room temperaturePinch of Kosher saltFreshly ground black pepper1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil1 tablespoon butter2 cups fresh baby spinach1/2 cup crumbled goat cheese, plus more for garnishHeat a 9- or 10-inch skillet with sloped sides over high heat while you whisk the eggs with a pinch of salt in a small bowl until frothy. Add the oil to the pan and tilt the pan to coat the bottom with the oil. Then add the butter, continuing to tilt and swirl the butter. Once the butter is melted and has stopped sizzling, pour in the eggs, and use a rubber spatula to gently move the eggs around in the pan, while continuing to tilt the pan with your other hand.When the eggs are almost set, pile the cheese and spinach on one side of the pan, then tip the skillet and pull the egg away from the edge of the pan. Tilt the pan with the spinach and cheese closer to you and use a spatula to fold the opposite half of the egg over towards the middle, covering the filling. Slide your omelet out of the pan onto a plate.Season with additional salt and pepper, if desired, crumble some additional cheese on top and drizzle with additional oil.Makes one omelet.Savory Cheese SoufflesWhile the thought of making a souffle might be intimidating, they're rarely found on restaurant menus, so you're going to have to learn to make your own at some point! I find these individual souffles easier to make than a large one - and just look at it this way, what's the worst that can happen? Your souffle will fall?It will still taste divine. And once you've mastered the technique and made the perfect souffle, there's such a sense of satisfaction. This is my standby recipe for a basic savory souffle with Parmesan cheese. It should come out light and fluffy and practically melt in your mouth if you've made it correctly. Butter and cornmeal for dusting ramekins6 fresh eggs, room temperature1 Cup milk1/4 Cup heavy creamSprig of fresh thyme2 Tablespoons butter1/4 cup flour3 Tablespoons sherry1/4 Cup fresh grated Parmesan cheese1/2 teaspoon sea saltFresh ground nutmeg1/2 teaspoon cream of tartarPreheat oven to 375 degrees with the rack in the bottom third. Butter six eight-ounce ramekins, brushing the butter in an upward motion and dust with cornmeal. Separate the six eggs so you have three of the yolks and the six whites separated in two bowls. Save the remaining three yolks for another recipe.Bring the milk, cream and thyme sprig to a simmer in a small saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally until the milk foams and begins to bubble. Remove from the heat. Melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat, then sprinkle in the flour, whisking constantly for about a minute until the mixture thickens.Slowly whisk in the warm milk mixture and continue to whisk for another minute or two, until the sauce is bubbling, smooth and begins to thicken. Remove the thyme sprig, pour the liquid into a large mixing bowl and whisk in the sherry, Parmesan cheese, salt and nutmeg, then whisk in the three egg yolks. Let cool.When the egg yolk mixture has cooled, in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, beat the egg whites and cream of tartar on low speed until foamy, then beat on high speed 1-2 minutes  just until soft peaks form.  The whites should still be glossy, not dry.  Gently fold one-third of the egg whites into the flour/milk mixture with a rubber spatula, then carefully fold in the remaining egg whites until just combined. Ladle the mixture into the prepared ramekins, filling each to within ¼” of the top rim, then gently smooth the top, run your thumb around the inside rim of each ramekin, place them on a rimmed baking sheet and bake for 16-18 minutes, or until puffed and golden on top. Don't peek! Don't open the oven until the souffles have been baking for at least 15 minutes. Serve immediately.Note: for a higher rising souffle, you can make a collar to fit around the inside top rim of the ramekin out of parchment paper and slide it in between the egg and ramekin just before putting the souffles in the oven.Makes 6 single-serving souffles.Stephanie's Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

We chat with Emmy Award-winning talk show host, journalist Tamron Hall and her good friend, award-winning chef Lish Steiling about their new book, "A Confident Cook."When Tamron Hall and Lish Steiling first met while working at the Today show, they never imagined their friendship would lead to kitchen adventures filled with laughs. In the book, “A Confident Cook” they share that same empowerment and excitement with those just beginning to cook. This book guides beginning cooks and seasoned home cooks through delicious recipes.Pre-order the book, “A Confident Cook” now for the September 3rd release and enjoy the Baked French Toast recipe from the book.Thank you for reading Stephanie's Dish Newsletter. This post is public, so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

When I first saw Jeremy Intille on the Jason Show, I knew we had to connect. He reminds me of the rock and roll pastry chef you want to see and hear what he is going to do next. He is sassy, funny, talented, and oh so sweet. Watch his segment here:Jeremy won the first competition of the season in Episode 1 of the Food Networks, “Next Baking Master Paris,” Continuing to do very well on the show – watch episodes every Monday at 8 ct on Food Network. Stephanie's Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Jeremy's specialty is visually stunning (and to-die-for) desserts. He is witty and full of personality – Jeremy's led quite a fascinating and inspiring life, as you can read about here in a piece the Star Tribune published by my friend Sharyn Jackson.  Take a listen to the podcast and enjoy getting to know my new favorite reality TV food star.Thank you for reading Stephanie's Dish Newsletter. This post is public so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

I first discovered these fantastic chocolate bonbons from my friend Laurie at the Golden Fig. They are so beautiful and equally delicious. They are the creations of local chocolatier Denny Rain from Cocoa Flake Mn.I was delighted to gift them to in our Mother's Day edition of “Taste Buds With Stephanie.” Listen to the podcast to learn more about this talented Minnesota Maker, and watch for her chocolate shop to open this Fall in Robbinsdale.Stephanie's Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

We had a blast catching up with Bentley Gillman and talking about his new foraging cocktail book, "Cocktails in Bloom," which is available for pre-order. You can find ingredients to forage when heading into the woods or even your backyard. Bentley combines his love of the wilderness with his passion for distilling at Tattersall and making beautiful spirits, cocktails, and mocktails.He shared a recipe with me for “Vermouth” that I tried with “Ground Ivy” or “Creeping Charlie.”* Gather 1 cup of “Creeping Charlie” * Add 1/4 cup sugar and macerate* Refrigerate overnight* Add a bottle of any variety of white wine and refrigerate for two more days* Taste for sweetness and strain* Use the “Vermouth” mixture for a martini or* Makeva Spritz with 1.5 oz “Vermouth” to 3-4 oz sparkling waterAnother recipe he mentioned in the podcast is his “Dandelion and Spruce Tonic” Recipe from the book. Pre-order now and get a custom bandanna for your own foraging adventures! Thank you for reading Stephanie's Dish Newsletter. This post is public so feel free to share itIngredients:* 1/2 cup Spruce Tips* 5g dried (or 25g fresh) dandelion root* 1 cup water* 2 cups sugar* 1 stalk chopped lemongrass* 2 limes, zested and juicedInstructions: Simmer water, sugar, dandelion root, and lemongrass until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat, stir in lime zest, and allow to cool. Strain into a jar, add lime juice, and stir.For a cocktail: Mix 1 ounce of tonic syrup with 1 1/2 ounces of gin. Pour over ice and add 4 ounces of soda water. Garnish with spruce tips and a squeeze of lime.For a Mocktail: Mix 1 ounce of syrup with 3 ounces of cold brew. Pour over ice and add 2 ounces of soda water. Garnish with an orange.Stephanie's Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

It was really fun to catch up with Dana Thompson, formerly co-creator of Minneapolis's Owamni. and now founder of a new hemp-derived, low-dose THC/CBD cannabis seltzer featuring the Indigenous botanicals of North America called Heti.“I am thrilled to announce the launch of Heti, a line of new botanical beverages that celebrate the plants around us,” said Thompson. Heti is launching four flavors—River Path, Woodland Edge, Meadow Cat Nap, and Marshland Harvest—which can also be purchased in a starter pack. Highlighted flavors include cranberry, sumac, dandelion, cedar, rosehip, wild mint, and black currant. The beverages are sweetened naturally with honey, maple, and agave.Heti beverages are now available for preorder at hetiproducts.com.Stephanie's Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Stephanie's Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

It was really fun to catch up with Dana Thompson, formerly co-creator of Minneapolis's Owamni. and now founder of a new hemp-derived, low-dose THC/CBD cannabis seltzer featuring the Indigenous botanicals of North America called Heti.“I am thrilled to announce the launch of Heti, a line of new botanical beverages that celebrate the plants around us,” said Thompson. Heti is launching four flavors—River Path, Woodland Edge, Meadow Cat Nap, and Marshland Harvest—which can also be purchased in a starter pack. Highlighted flavors include cranberry, sumac, dandelion, cedar, rosehip, wild mint, and black currant. The beverages are sweetened naturally with honey, maple, and agave. Heti beverages are available for preorder now at hetiproducts.com.Last week, my friend Joy Summers wrote about Heti in the Star Tribune. I gifted this link so you can read their conversation here:Stephanie's Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Jon Kung grew up as a “third-culture” kid: born in Los Angeles, raised in Hong Kong and Toronto, and now living in Detroit. When the pandemic shut down his immensely popular pop-up, he turned to social media as a creative way to teach and inspire. With over 1.7 million followers on TikTok and over 550,000 on YouTube, his logical next step was a cookbook, and Jon Kung's “Kung Food” is here.Stephanie's Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Dan Pashman has accomplished many things. Podcast host of the food podcast “The Sporkful,” pasta shape creator of Cascatelli that Time magazine named the best invention of the year. Now, he is going on the road with the Cascatelli story and his new cookbook, “Anything's Pastable.” Thank you for reading Stephanie's Dish Newsletter. This post is public so feel free to share it.As a companion to the cookbook, he is hosting a live podcast he has deemed Mission: ImPASTAble, which tells the inside story of the cookbook's making. From the highs and lows of recipe testing to a research trip across Italy to the agonizing decisions over the design of the cover, by the end, you'll never look at a cookbook the same way again. Join Dan Pashman in conversation with local James Beard Award winner and restauranteur Ann Kim at The Amsterdam Bar on 3/24 at 6:30 pm. Stephanie's Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Tim started a podcast called Niver Niver Land, where he talks with other restaurant owners and compares notes on the state of the state, amongst rising food and labor costs.We caught up with Tim Niver to get his thoughts on the state of the state after reading a New York Times article in which 30 top chefs shared their opinions on the current restaurant scene (the article is unlocked here).Thank you for reading Stephanie's Dish Newsletter. This post is public, so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Did you see this video from Billy's Sushi pop up on your Instagram feed around Valentines Day? I did. And I knew it was the work of my “Dishing With Stephanies Dish” latest podcast guest, Hector Cortes, CEO of Snack Media Group.It was really fun connecting with Hector a few weeks back to talk about social media trends and how video content creators are changing the media landscape for small businesses in the age of TikTok and Reels. Stephanie's Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Did you see this employment video from Deans Home Services that featured some of the most recognizable Twin Cities small business founders? It's unlike any recruitment video you have seen before.Here is his Hector's latest video that explains one of the strategies his content creators are utilizing to help Twin Cities businesses get a leg up in the world of social media.Listen to the Podcast and hear more about how social media is changing the way we consume marketing messages and what curious content creators are doing to stand out in a crowded field. I loved hearing Hector's point of view and think their team is doing some really fun social media marketing for some of my favorite local businesses. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode of "Makers of Minnesota," host Stephanie interviews guest Rachel Ingber, founder of heirloomcollab.com. Rachel specializes in helping individuals preserve their family recipes and heirlooms by creating personalized cookbooks. She discusses her journey of creating a cookbook for her husband's grandmother and how the positive reception from family and friends inspired her to turn this into a business. Rachel explains the process of collecting recipes from clients, collaborating on book design and content, and the option of including photographs. The episode delves into the emotional aspect of preserving family traditions and the practicalities of pricing and logistics in creating these heirloom cookbooks. Additionally, Rachel shares insights into her own passion for food, photography, and family, making the episode a heartwarming exploration of the importance of culinary traditions.EPISODE TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS:Stephanie [00:00:16]:Hello, everybody, and welcome to Dishing with Stephanie's dish, the podcast where we talk to people about food, that work in food, that love food. And I'm here today with Rachel Ingber, and she is the founder of a company called heirloomcollab.com. And I'm super excited to talk to her because what she helps you do is she helps you put your family Peas, your heirlooms, your treasured grandma Jane's pie recipe into a format that You can use it either for just having this like a word document situation or she'll help you actually put it into a book. Rachel, this is so needed and so excited to talk to you because I feel like this is such a lovely thing that you can offer people. How did you get started?Rachel [00:01:06]:Yeah. I'm excited to talk to you as well. I actually started, By creating a cookbook for our family, I created, in 2019, a cookbook honoring, my husband's grandmother's recipes. She had, was about to turn 100. I gave it to her for her 1 100th birthday, and she was super renowned in the family for her cooking and baking. And, originally, I just wanted the recipes for myself, and so I started collecting them over the years and, had this idea of, like, taking pictures of each item and making it look like a real cookbook. And so after I had finished that book for her, The whole family wanted a copy, and I think we ended up having over a 100 family and friends, request to get a copy of the book. And she ended up passing away later, that following year, but it became this Really amazing tribute to her and so nice and lovely that we were able to cook her food whenever we missed her and have her cookbook sitting out with her picture on it.Rachel [00:02:12]:So Yes. The idea of starting to do it for other people and their families as well kind of spurred as this COVID, side hustle project, just to kind of to pass it forward.Stephanie [00:02:28]:What was one of the recipes in your grandma's cookbook that stands out to you that you love?Rachel [00:02:34]:Yeah. My favorite recipe, oh, it's Probably a tie. Her apple crisp, I make for, probably almost all of our family holiday gatherings, And my father-in-law even request it for his birthday these days. And then her chocolate chip cookies. Like, it's just Such a classic amazing cookie, and those are probably the go to. When we're missing her, we make her cookies, and they're just the greatest.Stephanie [00:03:03]:So people did how do they give you these recipes? Like, do they put them in a word document and then send them your way? Or, Like, what this is such a I write cookbooks, so it's such a challenging process. I'm I'm curious how you take, Like these heirlooms, and you condense them and get them into a form where these people can use them in a book.Rachel [00:03:24]:Yeah. So when I meet with a client. We have a consultation, and, it's actually quite simple. They can create a Google Drive for them to share their recipes with me, And it could be anything from something already typed up in Word if they keep track of that, or sometimes it's them just photographing their handwritten index cards. Especially a lot of my older clients aren't, like, savvy to retype them. So they'll drop those over me, and then I will type them all up for them and, collaborate with them on, you know, what sections they want, how many of the recipes they wanna include, Which ones they would like to be photographed? I do all the photography as well. And together, we collaborate to make that cookbook.Stephanie [00:04:08]:So last year, how many books do you think you made?Rachel [00:04:12]:I think last year, I made probably around 10 throughout the year. And I previously, we've been work doing this part time. As I said, it started with a side hustle, and then In late fall, just decided to sorta do this a little bit more full time. So hoping to ramp up even more business this year.Stephanie [00:04:32]:How have you figured out how many books you think you can do in a year? Because just the I I'm working on a book right now, and just the idea of writing 10 cookbooks, I'm like, oh, that's so much work.Rachel [00:04:44]:You know, I haven't had to put a number on it. So far, I haven't needed to turn anybody away. I've been really fortunate to be able to squeeze things in and make time, but, I think I'm fortunate in that A lot of the hard part is done because the clients are the ones that are supplying the recipe and supplying the the stories and the introduction that goes along. I know in New York, Cookbook is so beautifully written that must have, been such a labor of love to write out those stories and be really thoughtful. And, so I'm lucky that that that part of the work is on the client for me.Stephanie [00:05:20]:So when you It it seems like I just looked at your kinda pricing on your website, and I'm sure this varies depending on the complexity of the project. But, You know, like, you can get it looks like a pretty good sized book with some good family recipes, like, for under $5,000 all in with Pictures and everything. I mean, when you think about that to have it in your family and an heirloom like that, it's that's a that feels really reasonable to me.Rachel [00:05:49]:Yeah. I mean, it is a lot of work. Like I said, I go through and I edit every recipe. I try to translate it so that it's, so that future generations will be able to easily make it. Things won't need to be memorized. And then for all the items that are photographed, For folks that are local, they have the option. They can either make or cook the dish, and I'll come over and photograph them in a few different sessions, or I can do it all. And I that is what I do for, clients of mine that aren't local.Rachel [00:06:19]:So, The actual cooking of the dishes and the styling and taking shots of it, that can end up taking a lot of work. So, that's kind of what makes the price, the way it is. It is it's certainly not a cheap, inexpensive gift, but it's something that I have a lot of clients that Go in with, like, their siblings and give it together as as a, gift for their parents' birthday or anniversary.Stephanie [00:06:45]:Yeah.Rachel [00:06:46]:And it typically works out well that way. But, yeah, as you mentioned, it's, something that their whole family will be able to pass down and be able to share those with future generations, and order more cookbooks whenever they want. You can have unlimited number of copies of it.Stephanie [00:07:03]:Do you find that People more often than not make the recipe and have you photograph it, or do they want you to make it?Rachel [00:07:11]:Honestly, it's about 5050, of folks that want that control and wanna be able to make it the way that they make it, And that works out just fine. It's sometimes it's nice that I can even if I'm coming to their house or kitchen to photograph, it's in their dishes. So it's Set up the way that they always would serve it. Whereas when I'm the one doing it, I get to take a little bit more creative license, and make it You know, style it beautifully, and, it it turns out beautiful either way. But, it's about 5050 in what a client wants. And then we're separate toStephanie [00:07:46]:Do you have to warehouse, like, dishes and different things for styling purposes?Rachel [00:07:52]:I do. Yes. I have, like a little mini prop studio in my house, and then I also have, like, backboards, and stuff that I travel with. So when I go to a client's home, it's not necessarily even taken in their kitchen. I find the place with the best light in their house, And I set up, you know, a fake wooden table or, different countertops, and take photos that way.Stephanie [00:08:18]:Yeah. It's people don't think about, like, all of the weird styling that has to happen for these books. When you are doing, like, a lot of our grandma's recipes have ingredients that people don't really have anymore, like one of the ones that comes to mind is olio. I don't know if you've ever come across any recipes with Olio, which is basically just like a Crisco or a lard. But do you just make substitutions on those then or try to modernize Sam?Rachel [00:08:46]:So I always ask. That's part of the collaboration, process, but I will ask the client, do you want me to say margarine or butter or Crisco, or do you want me to use the initial, original terminology? Same with, like I see a lot of, like, number 10 cans or whatever that of canned vegetables. So we always discuss that up front, and if they want it to be true to how it was originally written or modernize so that anyone can follow it in the future.Stephanie [00:09:15]:Has this set a fire in you to write your own book?Rachel [00:09:20]:I haven't really thought about doing that, yet. I I love cooking. I love cookbooks. I've been experimenting a lot with gluten free lately. My son, about a year and a half ago, was diagnosed with celiac disease. So That's been something I've been doing personally a lot is converting all of my favorite recipes to be gluten free for him. And so that's kind of been fun, but I haven't had the I haven't thought of yet making a cookbook of them.Stephanie [00:09:50]:It is. So, I mean, you're lucky in that, You know, somebody being gluten free so long ago, they didn't even know, number 1. Number 2, there weren't substitutions of flour and and different things like there are now. So that's so nice. And so many of the recipes, we know all the tricks to, like, translate things beautifully.Rachel [00:10:11]:Yes. I feel incredibly fortunate that, we're living in the age where it's so common, and, grocery stores have a lot of ingredients. So, and I'm lucky that I like to cook. So Yeah. It actually makes the the the eating at home is Quite easy. It's eating out at restaurants, so it is more challenging for us. But, but, yeah, he's he's lucky to have me are venting in the kitchen a lot.Stephanie [00:10:36]:Do you have some favorite restaurants that you go to that offer gluten free things?Rachel [00:10:41]:Well, because he's only 8 and has very kids like palate. His favorite right now is actually Redstone. Sure. He likes he's a big French fry lover, so we look for restaurants that have, like, a dedicated gluten free fryer. That's one of his main, prerequisites. But in terms of, like, more mature taste, I really love Colita. That Menu is a 100% gluten free, so is HiHi. So there's lots of really awesome options out there.Stephanie [00:11:14]:Yeah. You mentioned 2 of my favorites. My friend Jolene is working at HiHi and revamping and creating some new menu items that just look fantastic. It's incredible.Rachel [00:11:26]:I'm going there this week. Yeah.Stephanie [00:11:28]:It's super delicious. So when we talk about cookbooks, are there some favorites that stand out to you that you find yourself going to, Like or that you just love or think are so beautiful?Rachel [00:11:39]:Absolutely. I I'm a sucker for, like, color and herbs and stuff, so, I think that those Often will make photos really pop, just some added fresh herbs on top of dishes. But, yeah, I have a lot of favorites that I have kind of adopted over the years of doing this. Kind of one of the perks of doing it is I get to borrow people's recipes. But, yeah, we eat, a lot of chicken, a lot of salmon. I do meatballs at least once a week from scratch for my family. So we've had Lots of favorites.Stephanie [00:12:19]:I'm looking behind you, and I see my cookbook on your shelf.Rachel [00:12:23]:Yeah. It's up there.Stephanie [00:12:25]:I see it. It's so cute. But it's also next to, like, salad freak. Like, if you think about a book that is just so beautiful visually, like that book. And and I don't cook out of it as much as I would like to because I liked the recipes in there. I'm just like it's just such a beautiful book. And I'm a sucker too for, like There's a lot of Mexican and Indian cookbooks out right now that they're just so vibrant on the the front covers. Do you shoot the covers for your books too?Rachel [00:12:54]:Yes. So, typically, it is one of the dishes that I photograph that goes on the cover. Or, if the person that we're is still alive. I'll take their portrait. So I have, yeah, a couple a few words. The person that we're showing Picture on the front of the cover.Stephanie [00:13:14]:Oh, I just love this. I think it is so great. And, You know, there are services that do this where you can upload files and but the idea of you giving, like, a real personal experience and walking them through it and then also making the dishes, like and making it like a professional book. I just think it's So cool. So people can start out and get information about you at heirloomcollab.com, And you've got some, like, beginning price points there. I'm sure depending on the level of complexity, you'll figure out whatever needs to happen. Do you, like I would imagine that's kinda hard to figure out all the pricing. Like, were you upside down at first when you started just in time? I would imagine you would be.Rachel [00:14:01]:Yeah. So I actually give every single client a custom quote based on the things that they actually wanna include in their book. And the way that I price it is really just on number of total recipes and how many are gonna be photographed. That is the bulk of what indicate dictates my time. So all of the things other things I include, like taking photographs of those handwritten original note cards or incorporating family photos and stories, I do that. I just incorporate that into the project and know that's gonna coming. But that way, I don't have to a la carte every little thing, and you it can be a little bit more of a full service model. So I had just have, like, a equation that I use to kind of price those out, but the website is really meant to give people an idea, a starting point of the types of, like, packages, if you will, that we can provide.Stephanie [00:14:56]:And I love that because it allows you as a family to make a decision because it's an investment. But, Like, okay. How are we gonna work this out, and do we wanna do it? And I just yeah. I'm a big fan of what you do. You showed me one of your books. That's just so sweet. And if people are looking for this service, it sounds like Rachel can take on some more work. So go ahead and, I'll put your links in the show notes, and people can follow-up with you.Stephanie [00:15:22]:And let her know that Stephanie's dish sent you just because it's always good. I I'm just crazy about your service. Honestly, I found you online. I saw on Instagram, and I was like, wait. There's a lady that does this for people. This is amazing because it's an undertaking.Rachel [00:15:38]:Yeah. Thank you. I love it so much. Honestly, my Passions have always been around, like, food, photography, and families. So the being able to tie all 3 of those together in this thing called work is incredible.Stephanie [00:15:51]:Yeah. Oh, you're so great. It's nice to meet you too. Thanks for coming on the program. I really appreciate it.Rachel [00:15:56]:Nice to meet you too.Stephanie [00:15:57]:Alright. We'll talk soon. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to another episode of "Dishing with Stephanie's Dish." On February 6, at The Lexington in St Paul, we are hosting a Makers of Minnesota 4-course paired cocktail dinner featuring Crooked Water Spirits founded by Heather Manley. This woman-owned, Minnesota-made spirits company is bringing luxury spirits to our bars and tables and, in the case of the “Manleys Old Fashioned”, our Sun Country flights!Episode Transcript Follows:Stephanie [00:00:15]:Hello, everybody, and welcome to the podcast. I'm excited to have you here with me today. I am talking with I call her my friend Heather. I call her my friend Heather on all the things. My friend Heather Manley, who is originally crossed my path as a spicemaker and has Heather dirty goodness spices, which I'm still crazy about. And then, she took her progression into her professional life with on demand group. And from there, decided, hey. I'm not busy enough.2 companies, why not have a third? And started Crooked Water Spirits. And Crooked Water Spirits is women owned and is currently being produced in, Minnesota. So it's Minnesota maker. Minnesota. And You just have really let me Heather, welcome to the program. I I feel, like, so proud of you.Heather Manley [00:01:11]:Aw. Thank you.Stephanie [00:01:12]:Yeah. You just you, like, from the time I met you, have this maker spirit, this entrepreneurial spirit, And you let no grass grow. Like, when you wanna do something, you just do it, and I admire that so much. Where did you get that energy from?Heather Manley [00:01:31]:You know, I don't know. I think it's like a it's a work ethic, and, I'll tell you in college, I didn't know it was Funny to have 10 w twos a year. I didn't know that was funny. I didn't have a work ethic in college. I I I wanted to go party, work to party, Go party. Work again.Stephanie [00:01:48]:Yeah.Heather Manley [00:01:49]:And then the second I graduated, I think my parents my my my mom and my dad, they own their own business. An entrepreneurial grandfather, and, I saw how hard they work. I know I wanted their life for better. And the like, literally, the month I graduated, it was like a switch. And and then I just I wanted to work. I love to work. And, and all of a sudden, I didn't wanna sit still, and I just wanted to build. And and people build a lot faster and a lot better than I do, but I do it at my capacity and how I can do it and the pace I can do it, and, and I love it.Stephanie [00:02:26]:When you started in food and the food world, liquor world, what was it about that industry in particular that appealed to you?Heather Manley [00:02:36]:Well, my passions are family food and booze. I've said that since I was in college. So the the tech company is family. The Heather's Dirty Goodness is food and Crooked Waters is booze. And at some point, I'll love to make a wine because I wanna drink really nice wine at cost. But, like, I'm driven by all that. So and it's a very, sometimes, shallow life because I'm very easily pleased with, like, stunning food And amazing cocktails and, always the conversation has to be better than all of that, and it's like the perfect It's the perfect day for me. It literally fills my bucket.Heather Manley [00:03:11]:So from travel to how I spend my time to the businesses I started, they all surround that, and they're all definitely in varying levels of success, but all passion, which makes it all fun.Stephanie [00:03:24]:I love that you're unapologetic about saying that Because when you talk about, you know, like, someone said called it my hobby life. And I was like, yeah. I guess it is my hobby life, but it's also like my work life, my life life, like my everything life. It's what makes me get out of bed every morning is thinking about What I'm gonna eat that day or some cool new cheese that I know that someone's preparing or, The wine that I get to have later on because I'm going to a multi course dinner, like, it's not shallow. It's fun. It's not.Heather Manley [00:04:00]:It is. It's and it you know what? And we're curious. We're just curious in different areas than other people. Like, I love going to a grocery store. Literally, I will not go with my SO with Rhett because he will be like, we're on a time line. You said you needed 10 things. Why are you looking at this? This is not on the list. So I'm like, This is something new, and I'm very excited about it, and it's like affordable splurges.Heather Manley [00:04:22]:But I I was chatting with somebody again, And he really shared that, like, his work was a means to an end, and priority was family and, and some hobbies. And I'm like, I to me, it's like, Jesus. That's really hard when, like, 10 hours of your day and no doubt the weekends And your whole of what you're building and doing, if if it's not based on something you love or it's not a means to end, it is a job. That sucks. So I feel very lucky that I get to choose what I wanted. We all get the choice. I'm I feel very lucky that I've made that choice, and that I know what I love.Stephanie [00:05:02]:So let us because I can see, like, looking and thinking, oh, spices. Yeah. I've got these blends. Like, I can do that. I can buy bulk spices and but you, like, took that a lot further with Crooked Water and creating your own spirit company. And, I mean, how did you figure out what you were even supposed to do to get that started?Heather Manley [00:05:25]:Let's be clear, there's no money in spices. So we all know that. No one's ever I mean, it's just it's more expensive the higher quality, Less salt, the high the more expensive. People aren't used to spending that, and it's okay. You just gotta call it. I know I know what it is, And that was kind of my 1st POC, b to c, business to consumer, proof of concept. I learned a lot in that whole journey. So it wasn't even that failure in a lot of air areas brought a lot of wealth of knowledge on how to do it better.Heather Manley [00:05:56]:With booze, I mean, I still don't know what I'm doing. I just got off my the call with Johnson Brothers with Emery. And I'm like, what? I go, this doesn't exist, but what do you think of this? And he's like, I have no idea. And I'm like, yeah. I don't even know if I can legally do this, but let's maybe explore. Right? And it's and it's the curiosity That I think is a differentiator. Our ability to have the pallet in house. We don't outsource anything.Heather Manley [00:06:21]:Also makes it really Feasible to do something like this and the creative in house. So, you know, Rhett and I, knowing each other since art school, we Can make these beautiful labels. I I know how to, get corks made out of Germany that are fire branded and our investment back into the brand because we don't take any profits out of the brand. We still, in year, oh my god, 8? I mean, or 10? 10. We still reinvest every effing sent back into the company because I'm more excited to see how that money can make it grow than I am about putting it in my pocket. But it's also like I I know how to cook. And when you know how to cook, you know how to put flavors together. You work with people who are willing to also be curious or take chances or Give you the time to, create and innovate.Heather Manley [00:07:11]:And I started with just cold calling 10 distilleries and ended up with, At the end of the day now, 2 in Minnesota, but people that were willing to give me an opportunity to leverage their talent, leverage their infrastructure, Use my recipes, and it's just kind of evolved from there. But you don't need to know what you're doing. I mean, what's the worst? That you have a shitty liqueur that you give to all your friends for a year? I mean, it's True. Still alcohol at the end of the day. It doesn't suck.Stephanie [00:07:39]:True. But nobody else would think about it like that except for you, which makes me laugh. Because you're like, yeah. Like, everybody thinks like this. I'm like, no. No. They don't. Okay.Stephanie [00:07:49]:Take us through the 1st Crooked Water flavor all the way to where you're at today. So,Heather Manley [00:07:59]:when ODG when I came into it, it was broke. It well, not broke, but it Ten people. Right? Like, I think even after 4 months in the tech business, we were in the red, and that's where Sean and I said, okay. Let's strategize. What what are we doing? Where are we going? And in saying that, we needed to rebrand, knowing Rhett. We we weren't even dating that. Well, no. We weren't dating then.Heather Manley [00:08:20]:And I asked them to rebrand, but we had really no money for marketing or design services and all the iterations that need to happen in rebranding. So I paid them in a very high end scotch, And I had a really beautiful collection overdoing 2 to 3 bottles a month for a year. I realized, After, hearing about Gamel Ode and their beautiful De La Aquavit, it helped me understand the beaut like, the beauty of craft of micro versus macro. And when I sat and thought, what could I bring to market that nobody's doing? I looked up, and all of my favorite scotches and I drink I drank a lot of scotch in college, which is hilarious, hence the, you know, 10 w twos a year. And I realized that all my favorite scotches were Task finished, and nobody was doing that that I could find, in the country for Sherry and only 1 company for Port. So that's how I decided to come up with Kings Point In Lost Lake, I found a broker out of Colorado to find me a stunning $700 casks. I interviewed a dozen people, ended up at Yahara. We executed that.Heather Manley [00:09:23]:Sold out in, like, 3 days or or like and it was very small amount of bourbon. But it's sold out. We're I think we're the 1st to formally launch in the States, and from there, it was like, oh, s**t. This could be Business. I didn't really think about it. I was just having fun, and how stupid. Like, I didn't realize how liquor stores would be pissed off that I didn't have any more product for them because they made room to put my you on there. I mean, just very naive.Heather Manley [00:09:48]:I think there's beauty in being naive because you don't know what you can't do. Right? But definitely lessons learned. So Once I sold out of everything, I I was like, oh, okay. This could be a business. Now what do I need to do? I don't have any investors. I don't have any debt, But I slowly built my barrel program, so we're still small. We're like a couple 100 barrels. And while I was building that, I launched the aged vodka, which we don't even sell anymore, because it was just different fun.Heather Manley [00:10:15]:Nobody was doing it, and it it was more of an educational tool. And then I launched Sundog, which is our number one selling gin, citrus, forward. If you hate gin, you won't hate this because it's really like a citrusy vodka. Then we made Abyss, And then, you know, now we have QuadCast finished up with brandy, and espresso ready to pour. We're the 1st ready to pour to launch in Minnesota, which is insane to think about now. We make a boulevard EA that nobody knows about, apparently, from my sales records nor my Negroni. Very boutique y. Like, a 100 cases of each of those a year.Heather Manley [00:10:48]:I know about it. Yeah. Well, thank you. I haven't really pushed them because we we're we moved distilleries, but this year will be a big year of just evangelizing those because They're beautiful. I'm super proud of them, but I think we have really 12 or 11 SKUs, including the 50 mils that are on the plains and some 200 mils. And now it's really more about it's really noisy with the THC and, Bigger brands coming in with a lot more money, and a lot of SKUs can be very confusing. So now we're just focusing on maybe a subset of, like, 5 5 really core products, And then that's what we'll be really pushing in 2024 and 2025.Stephanie [00:11:27]:I like that strategy. It always tickles me when I'm on a Sun Country flight, And they asked me what I want, and I always say that I would like the manly old fashioned.Heather Manley [00:11:37]:Thank you.Stephanie [00:11:38]:And then I tell everybody around me, this is my friend Heather's cocktail. And they get really jazzed about it, and then they order it too. And then they, like, take their 1st sip, and they'll look over, and they'll be like, oh, this is really good.Heather Manley [00:11:52]:Oh, that just melts my heart. Thank you for that. I appreciate it. And, like, like, I mean, for that old fashioned I mean, I made it like Parler, like Marvel, like Constantine. I partner with Angostura. I partner with Bitter Q for their bitters. I use a 3 year, at least, Bourbon in there. A lot of times, foyer.Heather Manley [00:12:11]:I use demerara. I mean, there's all these things that there's no corner skirted. Even though Everyone's tried to persuade me to do that to save money. I will not because I wanna drink it, and I don't make s**t. And so I wanna make things that I'm proud about. If I wanted to build a company and sell it with a skinny girl b s product, I could have done that already, but I would not be able to look you in the face and say support me.Stephanie [00:12:35]:Yeah. And support you, I'm very proud to do. We are having a dinner, and we're coming out of the Dry January, which a lot of people I read that, like them. 33%, though, This year versus, like, 22% last year, and many people are doing, like, damp or moist January, which is fine.Heather Manley [00:12:59]:Moist. Yeah.Stephanie [00:13:00]:Moist. Yes. Very moist January. But we're gonna be coming out of dry January, rolling heavy and hard right into February 6th At the Lexington, we're having a 4 course dinner. You will be able to get, have we determined I don't even know if we Finally determine what the cocktail is that the Lex will be featuring all of February.Heather Manley [00:13:22]:Yes. Oh, no. I don't know. I'm I'm hoping it's The Sundog product because that's, like, one of my favorite patio pounding cocktails. He added mint to it as well, which I think would be beautiful and kind of we're all a little desperate for spring, so I'm hoping that's up the menu. But that will be the, I think, the first drink that we have on the tasting menu.Stephanie [00:13:41]:And do you know the other 3? I hate to put you on the spot.Heather Manley [00:13:45]:1 will be, coffee old fashioned, And 1 will have, 1 I have no idea, but I also know it has our rye in it. 1 will be a bourbon cocktail, And then, I think we said screw vodka because right? You meanStephanie [00:14:04]:Yeah. You can do vlogging at home.Heather Manley [00:14:07]:I think it's 2 gins. Oh, it's a gin. It's a bourbon. It's our quad cast gavel brandy, and it's an old fashioned.Stephanie [00:14:13]:Perfect. Yeah. And we will be pairing each of those with courses that chef has designed for us. This is a $120 ticket, but you'll walk away with Four cocktails and a beautiful course meal. And what I think is so special about these dinners is People will get to hear you tell your story. They'll get to ask you questions. You're right there. The the attendance is capped at 50.Stephanie [00:14:38]:So it's a small intimate group in the Lexington. We're in kind of their, Williamsburg room, which is where they have the jazz normally. And it's just it's really pretty, and it's a nice opportunity to get in front of some of your favorite makers. When I've gone to dinners in the past and, you know, you have multiple courses, I love having one point of view from a spirit perspective because We kinda get to take, you get to take us on this journey all the way through all of your recorded water influences, How, you started with 1 and how you ended up with another, it's really a a fun thing to do. Is it more challenging in the environment with some of the taste changing with THC? Or is it just always kinda the same game and there's always something new and different?Heather Manley [00:15:31]:I think it's always something new and different. I think we're 25% down in off prem just because I think of THC and people not drinking as much, But then we're up 30% on prem. Right? And and the year before, we're up a 100% on prem and Up 30 you know, it's just it's always all over the board pending on what the trends are. You know, I think THC will probably get more regulated. I hope it you know, I don't I don't do it, so I don't really pay attention to it, but for sure, I know reps are saying that they're just seeing it kind of just fly off the shelves. I like to manage my buzz, and I think with THC, it's like you're in it, and you're in it for, like, 2 or 3 hours. Whereas AndStephanie [00:16:15]:that's how I feel too.Heather Manley [00:16:17]:Yeah. If I feel a buzz with alcohol, I can have a glass of water, and it's right back down within 15 minutes. So maybe that's the control freak in me. A little bit, type a, but, you know, I just I think it's I think it's exciting. I think the more that we can have freedom to do business in Minnesota, the better everybody will be. SoStephanie [00:16:37]:Yeah. Because whatever that ends up being, if we stop being what they call the nanny state, You know, where the state is governing all of your choices, that is better for business.Heather Manley [00:16:49]:Yeah. We're a fun sponge state.Stephanie [00:16:51]:Yes. Yeah.Heather Manley [00:16:54]:Yeah.Stephanie [00:16:55]:Can I ask you kind of a weirdly unrelated but related question? One of the things that I'm obsessed with in both your personal and your professional life is your tablescapes. You have the most beautiful tablescapes. You've also designed a house That just speaks to my heart so much because it's designed for entertaining. Like Yeah.Heather Manley [00:17:20]:Yeah. You walk in, and it's a the 10 foot table in your face. I realized, like, probably how odd that is, but I absolutely love it.Stephanie [00:17:28]:It it works for me so much, and it's part of why I love to come to your house. And You just every space in your home feels warm and entertainment worthy. You know what I mean? Like, Even your bathroom feels like you could hang out in there with a cocktail if you wanted to.Heather Manley [00:17:45]:Because there's a speaker in there. Everyone's just gonna move with a speaker in their bathroom just for privacy.Stephanie [00:17:51]:And there's just, like, beautiful smells in there. And, I mean, I say this with a 100% sincerity. You are one of my favorite, like, entertainers. And when I get invited to be in your entertaining presence, I'm so excited. And your tables. And What do you think like, people are kinda hesitant to entertain at home, I think. They just don't feel like they know how to put a menu together or that it's so much work. What makes entertaining feel effortless to you? Because it sure looks effortless when you do it.Heather Manley [00:18:23]:Oh, I love you for saying that. And second, I'll add you to even other weird events if I know you're willing to come out into the middle of nowhere.Stephanie [00:18:30]:Jeez. I'm closer than I used to be.Heather Manley [00:18:33]:I know who you are. You know, like, I we did a charity event on I think it's my my creative background, we did a charity event, with Smack Shack for Great River Greening, and I had nothing on the table and, like, even Dawn, the sous chef, she was like, so do you want help with this? I'm like, no. No. No. I'm just gonna go outside. And I went outside with scissors, and I cut all my hydrangeas, and it's, like, probably one of my favorite tables keeping I've ever done, though I did warn everybody it could go up at any moment. So, like, have your drinks ready. But, like, I just I love finding the weirdest things and making them beautiful, and it is stressful.Heather Manley [00:19:10]:Like, I mean, I I plan. I like perfection. Perfection doesn't exist, So that's my own problem. What I I think my my thing is that I'm trying to find joy in just the experience. Right? The joy of having friends that wanna come here. The joy of, Even having a table for 12 that I can you know? Like like, there's there's and and my expectations are my own. People don't come in with them, and they they just wanna be here. And I I will say, I think I even told you.Heather Manley [00:19:38]:Remember the party, like, 4 years ago? Or It might even been pre COVID or in COVID. I'm, like, I can't host, like, every every party. Everyone needs to have parties. Yes. Yeah. The like, for me, the biggest joy is to go somewhere else and not have to clean and not have to think about it. And I'm horrible, because sometimes I even forget the hostess gift, because I'm so ready to let everything go. And then I am so embarrassed when I show up that I have nothing.Heather Manley [00:20:05]:But I love it when other people host, and I think what people need to get into their head is it's never a competition. Get that get your inspiration from from Instagram, but Comparison is the thief of happiness. Right? So do it to what makes you happy, but don't compare yourself to anybody else.Stephanie [00:20:22]:Right. And, like, your friends just wanna be in your presence. You know? Like, you can even make hot dogs and beans. No one cares.Heather Manley [00:20:30]:And they they would effing love that if you made hot dogs and beans. Right? And and, like, and do it in the cutest way and all. I mean, they just really wanna hang out.Stephanie [00:20:39]:Yeah. I think for me, one of the goals I had for this year was to entertain more. I've gotten a little complacent since COVID. You know, we came out of the sorta Just we came out of COVID, and it was like, every everything's on again. But I was trying to find a good balance Of Yeah. I enjoyed some of the COVID things. So I wanted to come back and be more intentional about how I was spending my time. But Yeah.Stephanie [00:21:05]:I'm not entertaining as much in my own home as I wanted to.Heather Manley [00:21:09]:I'm not Stephanie, I'm not either. I actually, like, Turned into this, unexpected introvert in, quote, in COVID, which I loved because I was so out of balance Of being so social that I now kinda covet that or or need a little bit of that that private time that I I didn't really, I didn't need before, which is really interesting.Stephanie [00:21:34]:Yeah. And I always I felt very similarly, and I thought, like, woah. Is this age? But for me, I think, You know, the more that life gets lived out loud through social and through our work and, you know, the the radio show and now the TV stuff, and All of that is so energy, producing, but also draining that I need, like, a lot more time by myself.Heather Manley [00:22:00]:Yeah. It's kinda comforting to hear that because, like, even this year and last year, I made my holiday party at the American Legion, which is Insane because, like, my house is meant to have a party, but it's like it's almost like I don't I I wanna outsource the bartender to the bar. You know, spill your drink. I don't give an f. Right? Like, everyone get wild, have fun, and it's, like, it's so so interesting to have that mindset. Like, at some point, I'll have to have party here maybe this summer where we can kind of leverage all the spaces, but it like, it's even weird to be outsourcing my parties when IStephanie [00:22:33]:I thought about that. I thought about that with you, but I think what I came to was, you know, you're probably doing like, at holidays, we might be entertaining multiple days in a row.Heather Manley [00:22:44]:Yeah. I last year, I did 4 Thanksgivings in 1 week, and I cried at the third one.Stephanie [00:22:52]:Yeah.Heather Manley [00:22:52]:Like, with all my YPO guys, all dudes, and I just lost it. And they're like, what's going on? And I'm like, like, I don't know. But I'm like, I'm f*****g exhausted.Stephanie [00:23:03]:And overwhelmed. Yes.Heather Manley [00:23:04]:And I had another Thanksgiving to do in 2 days, and they're so kind. But they're like, So maybe we don't do this next year in Thanksgiving week. And I'm like, yeah. I I think post COVID, I just have different Boundaries of, like or stress levels I'm willing to take on.Stephanie [00:23:21]:Well, I'm glad that you're willing to take on the event at the Lexington with me because we're gonna have fun.Heather Manley [00:23:27]:I'm I'm not gonna cry, and I'm super excited.Stephanie [00:23:30]:No. You're not gonna cry. We're just gonna be able to revel in your flavors, Your profile of your botanicals that you bring to the party, and I think you'll be really just impressed by the people that come and how fun they are and how excited they are to learn about your product. SoHeather Manley [00:23:46]:We do a lot of these events, but I haven't done, like, a great tasting dinner in a while, so I'm really excited just to hang out and do something really fun, have amazing food, and and, have my spirits associated with them, so I'm really excited.Stephanie [00:24:04]:Well, thank you for joining me today, Heather. I'm gonna get this podcast posted right away so that people can hear the story And join us at your great event that we're gonna be having at the Lexington's Crooked Water Spirits, Heather Manley. We'll see you soon. Couple weeks.Heather Manley [00:24:17]:Love it. Love you. Thank you. Heather. Alright. Bye. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Hello Subscribers to the Makers of Minnesota Podcast. In 2024, I have decided to sunset the Makers of Minnesota Podcast in this format. After 6 years and 378 podcasts - this podcast will be bookmarked. The “Makers of Minnesota” will become a brand extension folded into my other work. I'll still be podcasting at “Dishing with StephaniesDish” and covering all your favorite food and drink makers. It just does not make sense for me to have multiple podcasts going with so many platform options and the new TV show “Taste Buds With Stephanie.” When I started Makers of Minnesota, I wanted a place to share Makers' stories in a longer format than the 10-minute segment on my radio show. I feel like I can do that now with television, “Dishing With Stephanie's Dish,” and the newsletter in a fresh new way. I look forward to continuing to Podcast at “Dishing With Stephanie's Dish,” where I will continue to chat with folks in the food space, as well as my radio show “Weekly Dish” on My Talk 107.1 and the Podcast “Weekly Dish.”Please subscribe to “Dishing With Stephanies Dish” on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you find your podcasts to listen to what's new and what's next.I'll drop a podcast with Heather Manley of Crooked Water Spirits tomorrow, and Don't miss our two Makers Dinners happening at The Lexington. They will be epic with Peder Schweigert, Megan Dayton, and Heather Manley in attendance, sharing their brand stories.Makers of Minnesota Dinners are back! Join me at the Lexington on January 31 and February 6 for two exciting events:* January 31 at 6 p.m., enjoy a four-course meal with non-alcoholic wines for Dry January featuring Dry Wit.* February 6 at 6 p.m., enjoy a four-course meal featuring drinks from Crooked Water Spirits.. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to another episode of "Dishing with Stephanie's Dish." On January 31, 2023, at The Lexington in St Paul, we are hosting a Makers of Minnesota Dry Dinner featuring Dry Wit, a Non-alcoholic wine alternative founded by Megan Dayton and Peder Schweigert. Today, we're diving into the world of innovative nonalcoholic beverages with our guests Megan Dayton and Peder Scheigert. We'll explore the rising trend of nonalcoholic options, especially DryWit, a nonalcoholic wine, and its impact on the food and beverage scene. We'll hear Megan's journey from her personal need to quit drinking to creating this beverage and Peder's insights on embracing nonalcoholic options first at Marvel Bar. We'll also discuss the challenges and successes of introducing nonalcoholic beverages in a market where NA alcohol consumption is evolving. Get ready to uncover the unique flavors, trends, and potential for expansion in the nonalcoholic beverage space with Dry Wit. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

FULL SHOW TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS:Stephanie [00:00:15]:Hello, everybody, and welcome to the podcast. We are talking with 2 powerful women today in the cheese world. We're talking with Jessica Sennett from Cheese Grotto and our friend Alise Sjostrom from Redhead Creamery. Alise fromRed Head Creamery has been on the program before. Jessica, this is your first time. Welcome.Jessica [00:00:35]:AliseYes. Thank you. Thank you for having us.Stephanie [00:00:38]:Okay. You guys are in collaboration. And tell us a little bit about your meeting and how this collaboration started.Jessica [00:00:46]:Oh, yeah. So so, yeah, it's probably the the fastest, collaboration known to man in terms of, us both Being on the same page, which which was awesome. I yeah. So cheese grotto a Little bit about what we do. You know, we we do have our cheese grotto, which is the namesake of the company. It's a humidor for storing and serving Cheese and we make them in the Catskills in New York as well as in, Ohio. There's, the bricks That humidify. These cheese grottoes are made in Ohio.Jessica [00:01:24]:And, essentially, they act as a humidor for prolonging the shelf's life of cheese. And we started, selling and partnering up with American Artisan Cheesemakers about 5 years ago. And once the pandemic hit, it really helped, you know, Bloom Art subscription programStephanie [00:01:47]:Sure.Jessica [00:01:48]:As well as virtual tastings and gift boxes. And we focus on American artisans Because, you know, we really love to, to support what's going on regionally because there's, like, so many amazing cheeses now that are being made. And, you know, Redhead Creamery and Elise has, just all have been wonderful, partner in our Different cheese programs for a few years now and believed in us when we were first getting started on the cheese side as well. And so, you know, this year, we have been collaborating more, with different makers to create some unique, limited, edition products. And her her little Lucy Brie is is incredible. It's this Taller format breeze style that has a very unique way that it ripens. And so you get really nice varied texture both, like, A little bit of a denser center when it's a little bit younger and then, like, a beautiful cream line right underneath, the rind. And so I reached out to her about Potentially doing a holiday version of, the little Lucy Brie.Jessica [00:03:00]:And Yeah. Immediately, we were like, how about herbs? Because herbs are, like, such a huge part of, you know, the, holiday time and just Bringing a brightness and herbaceous quality to a lot of our foods, and also baked brie is a huge thing, this time of the year. And a lot of times, there's a lot of toppings of, of, of herbs that go into different baked Brie recipes. So, so, yeah, we we just went back and forth, very quickly via email and, decided that, Herbes de Provence, that would be a great thing to to feature. A nice varied eclectic mix that really represents the holiday season. And, and Elise did some testing with it. And, yeah, I'd love to hear more about like, so on Elise's side, I know that she, Tried a couple different test batches of the cheese, but first, we put the herbs on the rind, and then eventually it ended up being Infused into the pace, which is, like, beautifully balanced, though. I'd love to hear about how she got to that too.Stephanie [00:04:09]:Yeah. I would too because it was so, like, Natural. Like, when I had it, I was like, oh, yeah. Of course. I can't believe this hasn't that she hasn't done this before Because, Elise, you're so, like, revolutionary, I think, just in making cheese and the way that you view your Marketing of cheese, and little Lucy has been such a fan favorite for so long. So, yeah, I am curious how, like, All of a sudden, like, why hadn't we thought of this before?Alise [00:04:40]:Yeah. So I think the day that we were, collaborate collaborating back and forth. I was actually on a fall vacation with my husband up in Door County, And he was also working, and I had to I just sat at my desk for a little bit, and that's what we did all day is decide what we were doing with this herb brie, but I we've played with our little Lucy brie a little bit and didn't really go farther with it. We've tried a, Chipotle line in the middle or played with ash because it's just the cool thing to do. Yep. And I knew that herb would taste good. And so When we kind of brainstorm back and forth, I knew I had some on hand in our shop that I could play with immediately. And so That was a big reason why I recommended it right away so that we could act quickly.Alise [00:05:31]:And, yeah, it was really fun. So we Did 3 or 4 different varieties, to see what tasted best, and if they got heated up, which melted best. Some of them, We tried to do the the line in the middle of the wheel with herbs, and we smothered the mold after the cheese had ripened. We smothered that with herbs, and then the infused version, actually is the easiest for making it also. And I'm always trying to go for that because I hate when I create something and then everyone hates that we have to keep making it because it goes well. So we actually, put the herb dry herbs in with the curds and whey and then, mold you You know, pour the curd in the mold that way, and it all just evenly distributes within. We let it soak for a little bit just to Infuse that flavor a little bit, but, it's awesomely pretty simple on our end, and we are really excited about the results of it, and I'm always excited to do something fun and collaborate with other people, especially Jessica because we have, like, a fun relationship, and it's been cool to see where this goes.Stephanie [00:06:48]:So, Jessica, in addition to the storing of the cheese in your very, Scientifically beautiful wood grotto for the countertop. When you think about, like, a cheese subscription, Who do you think is the ideal candidate for it?Jessica [00:07:06]:No. It's a it's a great question. We we have a couple Subscriptions that we do on our website. So we have one that is more curated, monthly pairings. So you can opt to choose with pairings or without, and we we have a theme each month that we decide on, That helps us kind of curate and highlight specific styles of cheese from different makers. And then, you know, we find some really great pairing to kinda bring that to life. So, actually, the the herbs that we see is part of our December, holiday themed box, Which makes sense because we're also including a baked Brie recipe with that, so that you can, you know, Create a very, one of a kind, I would say, type of baked brie, than maybe what you have experienced before. It's a very It it looks like a popover almost.Jessica [00:08:02]:It's very, beautiful, but because it's a little bit on the taller side. So, You know, for the monthly, I would say, you know and really, like, with both of our subscriptions, we have a quarterly one as well. It's really about, My my my main thought about the best person, for signing up for a subscription is someone who is interested in in learning more and pursuing more, in the world of artisan cheese and exposing themselves to different styles of cheese that they might not have, necessarily opted for, on their own or maybe couldn't find in their local grocery store. And that's really what we're looking for is To curate, you know, unique, you know, palatable, but also diverse styles of cheeses from different makers so that you can get a really full spectrum of what, yeah, American and artisan cheese has to offer. I mean, we're we're in the thousands of different Cheeses, it's time now that you can explore, so there's definitely not, like, a cap in terms of how many cheeses you could try. So that's really, you know, somebody who's who's curious, who's, enthusiastic, but wants to get a little bit deeper into it. That's that's what what I'd recommend.Alise [00:09:19]:I love it.Jessica [00:09:21]:Yeah. And we the other one we have is a quarterly subscription, which we actually have done with Elise in the past as well. It's, meet the maker. So we did a session. We do 4 4 shipments per year where we actually Sit down live with the cheese maker, and they get to do a deep dive into 4 cheeses from 1 maker. So that's got a really cool immersive element on that as well. So even with the quarterly, I would say the, really just to kind of elevate and and and enhance your own understanding of cheese, it really is a great opportunity to do that and, pursue it a little bit more like a hobby.Stephanie [00:09:58]:Elise, I have a confession, and it's gonna make you laugh. So I do like to make a brie. Yeah. I like to make it on croute. Right? I like to wrap it in puff pastry, but I always would buy Cheap Brie because I felt so bad using, like, your delicious product in something Kinda so pedestrian, but I feel like this is giving me, like, a new opportunity to explore it. Because do you heat up your own Brie? I felt like that was almost like a sacrilege.Alise [00:10:34]:Well, here's what now you'll laugh at me because Sometimes in the rare occasion that I'm home alone, I'll be like, well, not making dinner for anybody, but I'll have random cheese in my fridge. And so I microwaved a brie and put jam all over it, and I was like, why didn't I think of this a long time ago? I could just microwave it. But so I like, more often than not, I eat it plain like, I don't cook it, but, Yeah. It's you know what? You do you.Stephanie [00:11:05]:Yeah. And there's, like, something about holiday time. You know, I do a ton of entertaining, and Just a brie warmed up with either preserves on it or uncrut and wrapped up is Really elegant, lovely, a nice way to serve cheese that's a little bit different that maybe people wouldn't do themselves that feels fancier.Alise [00:11:28]:Yes. Absolutely.Stephanie [00:11:30]:So alright. I feel like this has opened new doors for me. And I always do I am a person that has a holiday cheese vibe. So I will seek out, special holiday cheeses from local makers that only come out this time of year, And I'll, you know, pay a lot more to put them on my table because I know that they're special and they're custom. So this feels like this could be something that could really take off for you, and then you're gonna have that problem like you do with all your cheeses where you're gonna have to make so much of it.Alise [00:12:04]:I'm okay with that.Stephanie [00:12:07]:Elise, how's the store going? And get our listeners up to speed. You guys have expanded.Alise [00:12:12]:Yes. We're in the middle of expansion. I don't know if you can hear the rumbling at all in my background, but, Everything's going great. We're our expansion project's a little bit slower than we anticipated, but it always is. And so we're hoping that we will be, making spirits by February. Fingers crossed. But we'll have more so of a full restaurant and our distilled spirits with whey. So we're really excited to get everything up and rolling,Stephanie [00:12:44]:maybe when theAlise [00:12:45]:snow is gone.Stephanie [00:12:46]:Yeah. And you've got the store too.Alise [00:12:48]:Yes. We have a cheese shop, and we do dairy farm tours. And, we serve our pan fried curds that are extremely popular, especially when it's cold out. And we now have, robotic milkers for the last month, so that's a fun new thing to come check out if you go on our farm tours.Stephanie [00:13:08]:Does that Free up you guys because they always talk about how labor intensive dairy cows are. AndAlise [00:13:16]:Yeah. It will eventually. The the onboarding process is tiring and difficult for both the cows and the humans getting them trained. But, yes, that is the end goal is that it will free up some of that time and allow us to be a little more flexible with how we spend our time.Stephanie [00:13:35]:And for those of you that maybe are new to the program or not familiar with Redhead Creamery, Elise is the daughter of dairy farmers, and She decided she wanted to take the cheese angle versus just the dairy angle and really has Created a whole more elaborate successful business for your family. How many people do you employ now?Alise [00:14:00]:We have about 12 employees.Stephanie [00:14:03]:And if you add, like, the restaurant and the distillery, that's gotta add, like, I'm thinking at least 40 more.Alise [00:14:09]:Oh, well, I don't think it'll add that many more. The distillery itself will add my husband will be our distiller, And we'll all kind of team up when it's bottling day. And then but we'll need the help for the restaurant side of things, serving, and all of that.Stephanie [00:14:27]:When is anyone else making, spirits out of whey?Alise [00:14:32]:There's about 9 to 10 other makers in the world that are making It's out of way. We will be one of the only that do everything on-site, having the cows, the cheese, And the spirit's all right here.Stephanie [00:14:46]:Oh, I'm so excited. Like, it's just that whole closed loop system that I feel like it's just the jazziest of jazzy food lore. Right? I mean, just what an awesome story. I cannot wait for it. You guys have been super fun to talk to. Are there any things that are happening in the food world that you're like, Oh, you gotta know about this, or I'm so excited about this right now. No. Nothing like putting you on the spot.Stephanie [00:15:18]:I mean, you're both just, like, staring Likely, like, I don't know. We're in holiday season. What are you thinking, lady? Surviving.Jessica [00:15:27]:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, I don't know. I mean, you know, I I think it's just you have to keep encouraging you to keep exploring locally what's going on food wise. Jessica.Stephanie [00:15:39]:I'm gonna help you out. Okay. So tell me the last delicious thing you ate or drank that was not your own product. And you weren't gonna eat a cheese grotto, so there's that. Yeah. Yeah.Jessica [00:15:56]:Let's see. What would you know, I'm really into, Pastis. Tell me about them. Yeah. We went to I mean, we went to France Back in September, and, basically, every single region of France has its multiple versions of pasties. But a lot of times, you know, there's, yeah, there's one, like, From the. There's one from all these different regions, and it is really just an amazing, amazing spirit that I, like, never really got into before. But, you know, I think actually a pastiche and cheese pairing would be Pretty fun too.Jessica [00:16:38]:You know, speaking of, you know, more of these more herbaceous, like, flavor profiles, like The the anise that you're getting from from the pasties is really amazing and, just, you know, the variety. But I'm also very curious, I have to say, about the flavor profile of the distilled whey. Like, what what is that like?Stephanie [00:16:59]:Yeah. And it has me thinking about, like, aqua vie too. Like, these seasonal, herbaceous, botanically spirits.Jessica [00:17:08]:Yes. Yeah.Alise [00:17:09]:So it's it is a a neutral spirit for the most part, but it it does have a creamy mouthfeel to it. I'm still not sure how to really fully explain the actual flavor of it. We have about, oh, what is it, maybe 10 gallons of spirit that a distiller has done for us out of our fermented way so that we have something when we actually open. But, Along the lines of, you know, Aquavit is something that we hope to eventually make and a gin and then a barrel aged version of it as well just because you can. But, but, yeah, it'll it'll be fun, and we're excited for our our restaurant cocktail room because every drink will come with A wedge of cheese with it, so we'll get to figure out how everything tastes with cocktail.Stephanie [00:18:00]:Have you ever had the sugar beet vodka?Alise [00:18:05]:I don't know. Well, Molly, I think I have. What's the name of theStephanie [00:18:09]:b e t is the one that I know of that's made in Minnesota. And I would I would encourage you to check that out. Mhmm. The only reason I think of it is when you talk about, like, a creamier mouthfeel, There's a richness to that vodka.Alise [00:18:25]:Should I That nothing that IStephanie [00:18:28]:is just something that feels, I don't know. It feels like a very different mouthfeel, and it is when you talk about, like, a creamy richness, it just sticks in my brain. And I'd like you to try that because I think maybe it would give you something similar just to think about.Alise [00:18:48]:Cool. Yeah. I'm gonna look it. My husband has probably tried it.Stephanie [00:18:51]:Yeah. It's just cool and it's made with sugar beets, which is a little bit different. You know, potato butts are a little bit different. So Mhmm. Well, you guys, have been great. Are you gonna have so how can people order the cheese? And if they wanna come down, will they find it at Redhead Creamery too, or can is it just in the subscription?Jessica [00:19:11]:Yeah. Right now, we just have it we have it, 2 different ways on the Sites on cheese grotto's website. So we have it, both in the subscription, the December box. We also have a set of 2 that you can just independently or really just add on to any cheese order. You know, my recommendation when you purchase Cheese online is just buy more because the shipping is a little is always a little bit more expensive. Right. Just because it has to go express, it has to be insulated. It's perishable.Jessica [00:19:46]:It has ice packs. And we do nationwide shipping. So, So that's my that is my main recommendation. Just try just try a little bit more, when you when you go to shop online.Stephanie [00:20:00]:So I love that recommendation. Nothing wrong with that. I actually ended up with a 100 pounds of cheese in my freezer right now Wow. That I had to, like, break down. A friend ended up getting a £1,000 of Gruyere and Jarlsberg instead of the 100 that she ordered, and it came from overseas. So they couldn't take it back. So she is like giving cheese to everyone she knows and I have like a literal half a freezer full of cheese right now. Not a bad problem to have.Stephanie [00:20:32]:Yeah. Yeah.Jessica [00:20:33]:Full of it. You're stocked. You gotta get your preserves back there. You got your cheese.Stephanie [00:20:38]:I'm all set. Or anything. Elise, are you doing anything for holidays that you want people to know about before we wrap up?Alise [00:20:45]:But, yeah, we have, along with what we're doing with Jessica, we also have our 12 days of Cheez Miss calendar That is our 2nd annual year of doing, and it's really exciting. It's partnering with Milkmaid Catering in Fargo. Megan is a friend of mine, and we collaborate on utilizing our cheeses for the 12 days and then pairing each Cheese with a fun side. So, there's Minnesota made beets and, honey butter and Other fun things that go really good with cheese.Stephanie [00:21:18]:Sweet. I love it. I'll put links to all of these things in the show notes. You guys, thanks for being my guest today. I appreciate it.Jessica [00:21:25]:Oh, yes. Thank you for having us.Stephanie [00:21:27]:Alright. We'll catch up soon. Happy holidays.Alise [00:21:30]:You too. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to another episode of the “Dishing With Stephanie's Dish Podcast” Podcast! In this episode, we dive into the culinary scene of Duluth with special guests Greg Conley, Ned Netzel, and Nick Peloquin, authors of the cookbook "Smoke on the Waterfront" from Northern Waters Smokehaus. The hosts discuss the ins and outs of creating the cookbook, the significance of preserving food in the northern climate, and the upcoming expansion of the Northern Waters Smokehaus Along the way, they share their favorite restaurants and products in Duluth, celebrating the vibrant food and beverage culture of the city. Tune in to learn more about the art of smoking, preserving, and creating delectable dishes in the northern waters of Minnesota.Stephanie's Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.EPISODE TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS:Stephanie Hansen [00:00:15]:Hello, everybody, and welcome to with Stephanie's dish, the podcast where we talk to cookbook authors and people in the food space that we just wanna spend more time with and get their stories. There is a restaurant in Duluth that is a sandwich counter, I guess, would be the best way to call it. And When you go to Duluth, people that I know actually will, like, beeline through the city, Navigate 35 just to get sandwiches at this place. I have been a fan for a long time, it is the Northern Waters Smokehaus, and they finally came out with a cookbook, Smoke on the Waterfront. And it's funny because I got this book In the summertime, I got an early advanced reader's copy, and I was so glad to get it in the summertime Because it's kind of seasonal, and it goes, like, by the seasons, and I happen to catch it right at the end of the summertime When it was pickling season, and you guys had some great recipes for canning and pickling things. So we have a group of folks with us today. We have Greg Connelly. We have Ned Netsell, and we have Nick Pellequin.Stephanie Hansen [00:01:33]:We are delighted to have you guys. I've never had 3 Authors, chefs, all in the same space talking about 1 cookbook. So imagine the talent that's in here.Greg Conley [00:01:45]:It's probably not a good idea, but we're doing it anyway.Stephanie Hansen [00:01:49]:Okay. And you didn't the funny part about this, and I don't mean to minimize it, it is, And you didn't start the restaurant?Nick Peloquin [00:01:55]:No. Correct.Greg Conley [00:01:56]:No. None of us started the restaurant. The guy that started the restaurant's name is Eric Gert. And he and his wife luckily handed off the project to us with his blessing and said, you know, I'm here as a resource for you. But, ultimately, our other collaborator, Mary Tennis. And these guys are great writers. And so, I think we all felt pretty honored that He just let us kinda take the reins and, go for it. So that's what we did.Stephanie Hansen [00:02:24]:What's cool about this cookbook to me Is it has a real sense of place. So you're located in Duluth and you're cooking from ingredients of the north, which appeal to me. But, also, it it doesn't feel like it's multivoiced even though I know it is. Like, it feels like you guys all have the Same intellect and the same voice and the same passion with which you're doing things. So it would be hard for me to tell, like, oh, this So and so's recipe or this is so and so's style, that's kinda cool. Like, you guys are all really aligned in this book.Ned Netzel [00:03:02]:Yeah. I think that came from us really writing it together. You know, like, maybe, initial parts of the process of compiling the recipes and, you know, reducing the size To the flow of it. You know? We we all, like, respected what everybody brought to the table and also, like, what they lacked. You know, kind of filling in the gaps. So, you know, an intro to a book or to a recipe might have been. Somebody wrote down what they thought made sense, and then we refined it together and talked about, What is really the story of this? Then we ask questions like, how how does it relate to, you know, the active food preservation? Or how does it relate to the city of Duluth or the region or in order to regionally sourcing things. It was all all very collaborative throughout.Ned Netzel [00:03:42]:So that that probably blends a little bit to it. And, moments where somebody really is Writing from their voice are actually directly called outGreg Conley [00:03:48]:in the book too. Greg's got some some moments in there.Stephanie Hansen [00:03:51]:Looking on another cookbook, and I've written one, and it's not easy. Did you, like, okay. You're gonna do the intro. You're gonna do the chapters. You're gonna pick the recipes. You're gonna write the intro to your recipes. Did you have all that work delineated, or did you have, like, meetings? How did this all flow?Nick Peloquin [00:04:09]:So we would meet weekly, just Us together, and and we we definitely parsed out some of the writing tasks, but it was really kinda all over the place as to, like, He's doing a recipe. He's doing an intro. And then we would come together and test together. And then sitting down and finalizing it was all together. So it was like a weekly meeting that we would all get together and and and review everything we had all written individually.Stephanie Hansen [00:04:34]:Other there's a lot of recipes in here. I keep thinking about, like, Thanksgiving time. Giving time. And you've got kind of a lot of things that would be on a Thanksgiving table, like the green bean casserole and the mashed potatoes, But you've also got, like, the the riettes. And then at the very end is sort of where you get into the sandwich sitch, Which is sort of what you guys are known for. So I was curious that it was very at the end, some of your, like, greatest hits.Greg Conley [00:05:04]:Yeah. You know, in our mind, sandwiches are not something you usually have a recipe for. Although, you know, we're pretty precise. Like, we're not like Some other places where you can come in and say, here's what I want on my sandwich. And, you know, they they do it. We don't do that. I mean, we'll put whatever you want on there Within reason, but we carefully craft those sandwiches. And so but I think that, you know, overall, it's like, we're kind of telling you how to do the recipes that lead to that Sandwich.Greg Conley [00:05:33]:You know? We're not trying to tell you, yeah, make this exact sandwich out of your smoked salmon. You know? You can do that if you wanna Do what we well, exactly what we're doing. But also it's like, use your own flourish. Use this for whatever you and here's a suggestion on how to use it, but use it however you want to. Yeah.Nick Peloquin [00:05:50]:And we kinda we kinda debated where to put that section to for a while. Yeah. It was kinda like, should it go in the middle and kinda be like this fold out highlight piece? Or, like, it make sense at the end or beginning or so it we went back and forth to where where that should live because it it is, like, a major part of what we do.Stephanie Hansen [00:06:09]:I feel like I should personally thank you specifically for the pork rillette recipe.Nick Peloquin [00:06:15]:Which one?Stephanie Hansen [00:06:16]:The well, the one that's your basic, and then I know you use it in the, the ricotta ravioli. The not so spicy is probably the one I'll start with. And you add more than 1. Riette is something that, like, you see it on a charcuterie board. And just speaking for, like, Maybe nonchefy people, like, you're kinda like, oh, I don't know. There's a little fat there, but then it looks like there's this Potted meat, which could be good, but I don't know. But once you, like, get turned on to that, it's like crack. Right? You just love it so much.Stephanie Hansen [00:06:55]:And I never felt like I could ever cook it, and I totally feel like I can do this recipe, and I'm gonna do it for Christmastime.Nick Peloquin [00:07:04]:Nice. Yeah. It's perfect. Like, gifting.Stephanie Hansen [00:07:07]:Yeah. And it, like, stays forever.Nick Peloquin [00:07:09]:I'm I wouldn't say forever. But yeah. We lead legally, we can't. It seems a lot more intimidating than it actually is. You know? It's it's almost more similar to a braise. You know? It's it's like a comb keying technique. Right? So it's just Meat, salt, and fat for a long time. You know? And and so it seems like it there's a big skill gap there, but it's it's It's very approachable.Nick Peloquin [00:07:33]:You know?Stephanie Hansen [00:07:33]:I loved it. One other recipe that made it in the book that's, like, a 6 pager that I had In my book, and then I took it out because I felt like I was posing and I wasn't the right person to put that in my book, And you guys were, was this whole, like, sourdough concept. Oh. Tell me about yeah. So tell me about why you felt like You wanted to devote time in your cookbook to sourdough when so many people have, like, written bread books and all of that.Greg Conley [00:08:05]:Yeah. Absolutely. And there are I think I even say in the Recipe that there are so many more comprehensive, probably better versions, than than my version of bread. But I think the whole idea of Putting that in there was initially, when we started writing the book, we had the idea of Calling it preservation because so many of the things that we're doing are not only, preserving food, well, you know, so it doesn't spoil or so it will last longer, or preserving yourself through the long winter months. So a breadwinner recipe seemed like kind of, Something that would round out the recipes that we already had, you know, because we do make sandwiches too.Stephanie Hansen [00:08:47]:Yep.Greg Conley [00:08:47]:It's like, oh, I guess we should tell people if we really wanna be holistic, Let's tell them how to make bread too.Nick Peloquin [00:08:53]:So I'm gonna eat it on. Right.Greg Conley [00:08:54]:So I think that was really the the impetus for that. But then sourdoughs are are really, Obviously, it's had a it's had a moment, for the last few years. But it really is a cool thing. It's it feels like you're making something out of nothing. It's basically you're just starting with flour and water, and you're attracting wild yeast to it, and you're feeding that, and you're making it into something. Then, really, the only ingredients are flour, water, and salt. You know? So it is really a cool and then one of the ultimate forms of preservation when, you know, people learned how to cultivate grains, and then they realized, oh, we can make this really stable food source for ourselves. So we felt like that just made a lot of sense in in the midst of everything else.Stephanie Hansen [00:09:37]:One other recipe that's in here that I was so glad that you included, but I'm a little intimidated by. And the first line of the recipe is the bane of our prep department's existence. It's Northern Water So why did you guys feel like you should include that other than the fact that it's super delicious? Because it is a little more requires a little more patience.Nick Peloquin [00:09:58]:I think it's just one of our mainstay, like, spreads in house, so it's it's something that go it pairs really well with a lot of the things we do. Like, the smoked fish, for example, it's it's perfect for.Stephanie Hansen [00:10:08]:Yep.Nick Peloquin [00:10:08]:It's difficult in how tedious it is just by picking just picking fresh herbs is really like the the thing that people get hung up on a lot because it takes time to do, but it's It's pretty straightforward. Once you get through that initial mise en place, that initial stage of the preparation, then it's you're just throwing stuff in a mixer and and whipping it together until it's a nice consistency. But it's yeah. It's really that just like tedious work upfront that really Throws people off, and it makes it less of a favorite project to start because you you know you're gonna be picking time for a good half an hour.Stephanie Hansen [00:10:42]:Yeah. Exactly. So are you all Duluthians?Greg Conley [00:10:46]:No. I'm from Northwest Wisconsin. So so he's close. So close. No cigar. It'sStephanie Hansen [00:10:53]:Yep. Much fun.Nick Peloquin [00:10:54]:Ned and I are both, Duluthians. So yeah.Stephanie Hansen [00:10:56]:What does it feel like to Be and I don't wanna, like, embarrass you or make it, like, this weird thing, but you really have Become, in my estimation as a TwinCidian, part of the home team For Duluth, like, people think of the restaurant, and people think of you and think of the sandwiches. And a while back, you guys had a more full Service situation and now are kinda more back to the deli side and it must be a source of pride.Greg Conley [00:11:29]:Yeah. Absolutely. And I think, you know, we, the 3 of us have worked for the business for a little while. And, But, you know, there's so many people that came before us. And, of course, Eric, who founded the business. And so we're basically just kinda building off of, a lot of what they've done and, I'm trying to preserve that too. You know? Trying to just do things the best that we can and really have that be our North Star of, like, really trying to Wow, people. So it's an it's an honor that people think of us when they think of Duluth.Greg Conley [00:11:59]:It's really powerful, I think. Certainly something we wanna cultivate and actively wantedNed Netzel [00:12:03]:to cultivate with this book. Wanted to make this book, very much not about only, you know, Eric and his story and his recipes and the business that came from it, but also, the place where, You know, we reside in, what has made us who we are. SoStephanie Hansen [00:12:18]:Well, I would say the goal is accomplished. Also, like, I feel like we're Of the, people in Minnesota in particular, we're uniquely positioned about the preserving and the canning and because we have to get through these winter months. Right? And so we're preparing our vegetables and creating kimcheese and canning things and pickling things in order to get us through to the other side of the winter season. There's a lot of that in this book that I really loved. Is that, like, Something that is in all of the recipes at the restaurant. It sure seems like most of it has some components of that.Nick Peloquin [00:12:57]:Yeah. It's kind of almost, by necessity because of how we're set up as a restaurant. Because, you know, we don't have a full kitchen here, and we don't really have the that utility that comes with All those things. So we do have to kind of focus on things that we can prepare ahead of time and then something that's easy to and quick to serve that's not necessarily Gonna go on a saute pan or, you know, a a bunch of gas appliances because we're really restricted just in the old building that we're in. And so that aspect of the business. But then, yeah, also the just the the area we're in And and the the food that is kind of like the style of a deli is is gonna be geared towards kind of like Making things last longer than than they would otherwise crash.Stephanie Hansen [00:13:44]:You guys are undertaking a move, it sounds like, in the building. Do you wanna talk about that?Greg Conley [00:13:50]:Sure. Yeah. We're actually in the midst be in there by this Saturday. So we just or Friday even. So we just we're Really steaming steamrolling towards that. Yeah. We, you know, have existed in this building. At least our our deli proper has stood in a really a sliver of a space here.Greg Conley [00:14:08]:And, even when the pandemic happened and we had to close our doors, We ended up turning our entire space into a kitchen because it was the only way we could keep up with the increased business. Because we were on one of the only places open during COVID. We were open the entire time, and so we were we got a lot busier, and so we necessarily had to just turn that all into sandwich making. Once the pandemic kinda started to wane, then we have really no place to host anyone. So you could sit out on our deck, and you could sit in the hallway with in on some seats and, you know, 10 seats or whatever we have up there. So this move is really the culmination of a lot of dreams over the years of just having more space, being able to host people more effectively, and then also being able to just try, not only more food things, but also new ways of service and and beverages and all that stuff. SoStephanie Hansen [00:15:01]:How do you see it coming together? Do you see it, like, as maybe a, like, fast casual kinda thing?Greg Conley [00:15:07]:Yeah. That's exactly Yeah. Exactly what it is. Yep. It will just have, a little bit more space to do it with, A little bit more space to host people. The sticking point, for some customers in the past when they would wanna just get 1 piece of fish, but they'd have to get in a Half an hour line of all these other people ordering sandwiches. So it's really nice to separate out those those services.Stephanie Hansen [00:15:31]:As a customer, I love that.Greg Conley [00:15:33]:Yeah. You get way better service on both ends, so it's just a lot lot more convenient for people to do it that way. So it's really exciting.Ned Netzel [00:15:40]:Thing for Eric is to make it a a destination again. And when we were doing, you know, window service and you weren't able to, as a customer, walk in and see your piece of fish, That kinda, I think, soured that a little bit for some people. I mean, our loyal customers have been with us because they just you know, they know it's good food, but, now that we have A place to be in, like, a a location that you can kinda, you know, experience rather than just waiting in a line, you know, maybe during the winter. Hopefully, we'll we'll cultivate that again.Stephanie Hansen [00:16:10]:Well and I think a smoked fish purchase is kinda more straightforward maybe Then, like, you know, talking about sandwiches and people are sandwich nerds too. Like, they wanna talk about your sandwich.Greg Conley [00:16:26]:Yep. Well, I think the the the deli side of things too, that's really one of the funnest things for us is that people on that side really wanna Talk about the food too. Even if they just are getting a piece of smoked fish, they a lot of times, people really, really geeked about food. We love talking people about food. So when a customer comes in and wants me to tell them all about the white fish that we have, I'm really happy to do that. I love talking about food. So That part is so fun for us. And I think even more so than talking about sandwiches, just talking about the components of those sandwiches that we Make olives in house, so it's really fun.Stephanie Hansen [00:17:05]:There is 2 things to tell you. 1 is you inspired a recipe in my book, Which is a white fish trout spread.Greg Conley [00:17:13]:Nice. Sweet.Stephanie Hansen [00:17:14]:It the story that I attached to it was Actually, being with my niece who went to UMD for college, and she wasn't very adventurous of an eater. And she got the love of the smoked fish in Duluth as a college student, and we went to Fitger's and we were sitting there eating. And she said, does anybody wanna Let the smoked salmon dip, and I was like, what? Who are you? And then she was like, have you she wanted to, like, really talk about, like, have you had smoke trout at Northern Waters. I'm like, yes. I have. I've used it to make dip, and it's like a holiday staple. So you have inspired a lot of people with your smoked fish.Greg Conley [00:17:56]:Yeah. But, you know, that's kind of another thing too is that We really want people to come to us, you know? And that's part of being, like, Duluth, you know, is like Duluth is not a suburb of the Twin Cities. Duluth is The major metro in the northern part of the state, and we probably have kind of a chip on our shoulder about that, because we're not, like, You know, lane or something like that. Like, we are a a small city of our own, and we have our own thing going on that isn't Saint Paul or it isn't, Rochester or whatever. So we want people to come here and experience what we have to offer. We're not, You know? Like, you can get a lot of great food in the Twin Cities. We can get some great food up here, and we're part of that. So we want people to experience that as well.Stephanie Hansen [00:18:43]:Yeah. I'm glad you said that because I produce the Art in Bayfront Park Culinary Market that we do there. Yeah. And I really have, like, gotten front and center with a lot of cool Duluth makers both from the art side, but also the food side. And, you know, we hear a lot about Duluth and the cool, like, outdoor scene and the mountain biking and all the stuff that they're working on, but, damn, I mean, the beer scene alone and the distilleries and the craft that's happening in Food and ice cream and hot sauces and I mean, there's a lot of cool stuff happening, and I feel just It's so cool to be a part of that, and I'm glad that my work on that festival can bring people, like, Front and center with businesses that maybe they don't know about in Duluth because there's a lot of cool things happening.Greg Conley [00:19:31]:Yeah. Agreed. And and For us as a business that's pretty well established and pretty well respected, we also wanna foster other food businesses and help them as much as we can. Because all of that, strengthening of our food scene here just strengthens all of us. So we really want people to be Successful and to bring really cool new things to food and the world.Stephanie Hansen [00:19:53]:Okay. So we're gonna play a game. It's not gonna be hard, But it's kinda gonna be maybe, like, picking your favorite child or pet. So each of you, I've got an opportunity to have 3 of you in front of me. The game is, I would like you to tell me a favorite restaurant in Duluth, and it can be whatever, And also a product that's made in Duluth that you're obsessed with.Nick Peloquin [00:20:19]:Is it specifically a food product?Stephanie Hansen [00:20:21]:Not necessarily. No. K.Nick Peloquin [00:20:24]:Well, I think my favorite restaurant at the moment is Fuholic On central entrance.Ned Netzel [00:20:29]:Damn it.Greg Conley [00:20:30]:That's what I was gonna say.Nick Peloquin [00:20:31]:Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty it's pretty banging spot right right these days.Stephanie Hansen [00:20:35]:And serving pho, I'm assuming.Nick Peloquin [00:20:37]:Yeah. So they do pho and other Vietnamese stuff. It's it's so good. As far as the product made in Duluth, man, that's that's tough. I would say, honestly, the beer. It like, it's it's hard to choose 1 of the the breweries, but, like, we we're kinda spoiled for choice up here. I mean, Bed paddle is like a standby. You know? And it's funny to go down to the Twin Cities or even major metropolitans and, like, See Duluth beer on tap, but places that's a big source of pride.Nick Peloquin [00:21:06]:And I think because what people think of Duluth too, you know, is We're a big craft beer town. SoStephanie Hansen [00:21:11]:Yeah. I think that Ursa Minor too is starting to make inroads into the Twin Cities. Their beer, I had a lot of different versions this summer. It was really great, they have a great taproom too.Nick Peloquin [00:21:21]:Yeah. Totally.Stephanie Hansen [00:21:22]:Okay, Ned. That leads us to you.Greg Conley [00:21:25]:Oh my gosh. We might have to come back to me. Okay. INed Netzel [00:21:29]:think I probably eat out the least of anybody here. Yeah. I don't know. Greg, yes. Greg. Minutes.Greg Conley [00:21:35]:Sure. I probably would've said Faholic, but I'm gonna I'm gonna do a tut tut two way tie. There's a place called Oasis Del Norte. Love it. It's the only place that makes street tacos in Duluth. And so that's really a great thing to have. And then, In my neighborhood of Lakeside, there's a place called Lake Superior Brewing, oldest microbrewery in Minnesota at one point, the first established one. But they changed hands after a number of years, and then they moved to the Lakeside neighborhood.Greg Conley [00:22:06]:And they do pizza, smash burgers are kind of their main entrees, which they just do really good versions of those. They do, like, a brick oven style New York pizza that nobody in town does. So that's kinda cool. But they also do a lot of really nice thoughtful, appetizers and great wines to go with some of their Food along with the really, good beer that they're brewing. It's really great to have that nice option in my neighborhood. So I really I really appreciate that.Stephanie Hansen [00:22:34]:I love it. Alright. Ned, are you ready? That leads us to you.Greg Conley [00:22:38]:I think I think so.Ned Netzel [00:22:39]:It's it's really hard for me to pick a restaurant, because I do most of my eating cooked at home or, with my my free daily meal, when I'm working.Stephanie Hansen [00:22:52]:Sure.Ned Netzel [00:22:52]:But but one thing that kept coming up in my mind was Johnson's Bakery, which is a bakery down in, what would you call it? Lincoln Park area. It's like just behind really awesome bread. A lot of our specials back when we were open to the public, in the old space Used Johnson's Bakery Bread. So, yeah, Johnson's Bakery love their donuts. They're like, such a great deal. Please don't raise your prices, guys. So, yeah, Johnson's Bakery and then, something made in Duluth. The the coffee made in Duluth is really great.Ned Netzel [00:23:23]:In addition to, like, the The brewing scene, there's also a great, like, roastery scene. We love a lot of them. There's like Duluth Coffee Company. There's, Underwood Coffee who Most of what we, give to our staff to to see us through the day, is either Underwood or DreamCloud Roasters.Stephanie Hansen [00:23:44]:Wanna thank Ned Netzel. I wanna thank Nick Peloquin, Greg Conley for joining me. The book is Smoke on the Waterfront. It's the Northern Water Smokehouse Cookbook. What I loved is you guys just recommended all places that I have never even heard of, and I have spent quite a bit of time in Duluth. So way to go. I appreciate you being here. I'm excited about the book.Stephanie Hansen [00:24:05]:It is Smoke on the Waterfront. Make sure that when you head to Duluth, And you should head to Duluth this winter, there's so many cool activities that happen there. And of course in the summertime you can come and visit me at Arden Bayfront Park in August, And there's just a lot of cool music festivals that happen down in Canal Park and at the Bayfront area, and Lincoln Park is a whole new area to discover for a lot of people. So it's the Northern Water Smokehouse Cookbook. If you are into smoking or canning or preserving or you just love a damn good sandwich, make sure you pick up the cookbook. Thanks, you guys. I appreciate it. Thanks so much. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to another episode of the Makers of Minnesota podcast, where we introduce you to cool people doing cool things. Today, we have a special guest, Josie Boyle, from Mousse Sparkling Wine Company based in Jordan, Minnesota. Josie shares her journey of working in the wine industry for over 15 years, including her experience at a Michigan winery specializing in sparkling wines. Discover how her passion for sparkling wine and her desire to work with Minnesota-grown grapes led her to establish Mousse Sparkling Wine Company. Josie also talks about the unique concept of their tasting room, which offers sparkling wine and cider. She explains the importance of the acidity in Minnesota grapes and how it complements the bubbles in sparkling wine. Lastly, Josie introduces their delightful advent calendar, aptly called the "12 Days of Bubbly," which allows customers to enjoy a variety of sparkling wines and ciders throughout the holiday season. Prepare to be inspired and uplifted by Josie's story and the beautiful wines and ciders she makes at Mousse Sparkling Wine Company.FULL TEXT OF THE PODCAST FOLLOWS:Stephanie [00:00:12]:Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Makers of Minnesota podcast. I'm Stephanie Hanson. I'm your host today. And on this podcast, we talk to cool people doing cool things, and something popped up in my feed this week. And it was a company I had never heard of, And it makes something that is one of my favorite things. So I was like, hey. I need to talk to these people. I am here today with Josie Boyle, and she is with Moose Sparkling Wine Company.Stephanie [00:00:38]:And, Josie, you are in Jordan, Minnesota. And how did I just find out about you today?Josie Boyle [00:00:47]:You know, we're a a pretty small winery. We've been open for about 3 years, little over 3 years. And, I don't know. I guess, we just need to get on more people's radars.Stephanie [00:00:59]:Yeah. Because you are doing 2 of my favorite things. You're doing cider. That's my 3 of my favorite things. Hard cider, sparkling wine, and using all Minnesota grown grapes.Josie Boyle [00:01:11]:Yes. Yep. Exactly. So, well, where should I begin?Stephanie [00:01:17]:All of it. Tell me.Josie Boyle [00:01:21]:Yeah. The the sparkling wine really came about, because I well, I've been working in the industry for about 15 years. And, I got my start, early on. I worked in Michigan at Mabee Vineyards, which only makes sparkling wines. So I worked there a few years, and, you know, that's where I learned the Process of making sparkling wines and, you know, all of that, because it is very technical. It uses different equipment. You know, when you add bubbles to a liquid and try to package it, A lot of things can go wrong, and there's a lot a lot of factors to consider. So, so that's why, you know, most wineries Don't also do sparkling wine.Josie Boyle [00:02:16]:It's it's a very specialized, type of winemaking. So, so I I worked at Mobby for a few years, and then I got homesick and moved back to Minnesota where I grew up. And this this was my dream to open Moose one day. SoStephanie [00:02:33]:So tell me about your, do we call it a a tasting room? Because we don't because you're doing cider too. So it's not are you a citery? Are you a tasting room?Josie Boyle [00:02:45]:Are you all the above? Kind of all the above. Yeah. I we're a tasting room. Yeah. But one one thing that's different about us also than other wineries is that we're actually right downtown Jordan. We don't grow any of the grapes ourselves. We we buy from local growers around Minnesota. But you're not gonna come to us and and frolic among the vineyards, because we're we're just right in downtown.Josie Boyle [00:03:15]:And that's kind of the feel that I wanted, to well, to convey sort of, we're more like a wine bar, kind of feeling. And we have a nice patio outside too, so it's beautiful, you know, on the nice nice summer days.Stephanie [00:03:32]:When you look at a state like Michigan, the terroir is somewhat similar to a Minnesota climate and Topography. So do your tastes run more towards those types of grapes? And Those types of grapes, I think, tend I don't know a ton, but I know a tiny bit, tend to be sweeter and maybe lend themselves more to a sparkling situation.Josie Boyle [00:04:00]:Well, it's really it's really more of In Michigan, we were using, mostly European varieties. The Traverse City area is right on Lake Michigan, so, you get the lake effect. They don't get quite as cold in the winter. So they can grow varieties like Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, And even, like, some Merlot. But So I was really using the European varieties. What drew me to Minnesota varieties and, like, coming back to Minnesota to to make wine was really because our grape varieties here, have higher acid. And the higher acid is can be really hard to deal with. And, you know, you you can struggle to make, like, a nice Dry wine when the acid is really high.Josie Boyle [00:05:02]:But in sparkling wines, You actually want a little bit higher acid because that acid will balance the bubbles really nicely. Like, bubbles and acid go go well together, in a wine. So so when I moved back to Minnesota, that's why, you know, another aspect of, like, making wine in Minnesota, I really really wanted to make sparkling wines because of just the the chemistry of our our grapes here.Stephanie [00:05:32]:So one thing that attracted me to you was this press release I got. I'm somewhat obsessed with advent calendars. I don't know why, but I just feel like they're so fun. And you have an advent calendar that really incorporates all of your products. Can you tell us about it? Because it's so cute.Josie Boyle [00:05:52]:Yes. So, so this this is a lot of fun. Like I said, we've been open for A little over 3 years, and we've actually done an advent calendar every year since the beginning. And I have I you You know, if you're watching the Zoom, we have an example from last year. This is last year's, box, but it comes in a little, like, fun gift box. But the idea is what we call it 12 days of bubbly. And it's it's a case of half bottles. And, basically, it's kind of it's a range of all of our sparkling wines and ciders that we make throughout the year.Josie Boyle [00:06:30]:So, you know, since last, basically, December or January, I've been putting bottling and putting away Half bottles for our 12 days of bubbly advent calendar, that we're gonna be releasing here, in November. But yeah. It's just it's a lot of fun. It's just a way to try a bunch of different types of sparkling wines that we make. Because since since we specialize in sparkling wines, we do, you know, Everything from maitre d' champenoise or the champagne method where it's bottled, fermented, and aged. We do Prosecco style wines. So those are tank fermented to create the bubbles. And then we also do some forced carbonated wines as well.Josie Boyle [00:07:19]:So and then we have a a hard cider in there. So yeah. It's, you know, people love it. It's it's fun to, like, open each line every day or every other day and, Get it get something new to try.Stephanie [00:07:35]:It's so smart too because, like, I don't know. Gimmicks work. Right? Like, I've never heard of you guys, and I was like, b, This headline color is real cute. B, it's a local company that I've never heard of, and they're making my favorite product. How did this happen? So when you look at your how did you get the marketing idea? JustJosie Boyle [00:07:56]:Well, just, You know, since I love advent calendars too, like you know? And and you have the Costco wine advent calendar that's super popular. And, you know, all kinds of things. You can get one for perfume and chocolate and and everything. And, you know, even as a kid, when you're You're opening the little door to get a little toy or whatever. I mean, everybody loves advent calendars. So it was just, Something that I I, yeah, thought of that 1st year and and, you know, I just I I love making them, and I it's it's fun to to release them every every holiday season.Stephanie [00:08:35]:Yeah. I think that's why I like it too because it As an adult, the holidays become sort of joyless sometimes. Like, it's more about, like, you gotta buy all these gifts, and you're trying to pack all the family stuff in and spend time with everybody. And I feel like the Advent Calendar is just like A small moment of your day that just gives you that little joy of surprise and delight that is really what the holidays are about. And when you're adult, you miss that a lot.Josie Boyle [00:09:05]:Right. Exactly. Yeah. It it the holidays, like, as an adult, they they can fly by so fast. And it's it is a time of joy. And like, it can be a time of just having having fun in it and enjoying the snow and enjoying the cold and cozying up inside. So it's, yeah, it's nice to have something to look forward to. You know? At the end of the day, you can open your your bottle of wine.Josie Boyle [00:09:29]:And and it's not a full bottle, so, you know, it I feel like the half bottles are a manageable size. So even if you're, like, by yourself Or, you know, you have a your husband and a wife or partner or friend or whoever you can, like, share it with, and, it's not overwhelming. It it's not an overwhelming amount of wine. Right.Stephanie [00:09:50]:Okay. So let's pretend that you are working for the Travel Bureau of Jordan, Minnesota. And you're gonna try to, like, create a fun day or outing for us to come to Jordan. If it was you and you were with a gal pal or your spouse or whatever, what would be, like, a fun, full day of things to do in Jordan, Including yours, of course.Josie Boyle [00:10:15]:Yeah. Yeah. Of course. So stop at Moose, of course. But we actually have a lot of of good stuff, and this is a great time to come to Jordan because we have, a couple of pumpkin patches. Down here, we have Minnesota harvest, which is a really great, apple orchard that, just, the Ferguson family just took it over a couple years ago, and so they kinda made, You know, made it all brand new. So the apple orchards, a lot of fun. We have Minnesota's largest candy store There you go.Josie Boyle [00:10:50]:Right down the road. So that's that's a big draw. And that's like even if you don't like candy, it's like it's just a sight to see. And then, of course, in downtown Jordan, we have some really nice boutiques. So if you are coming in with your, girlfriends, Bluff Creek Boutique, Sassy Cat, and Neon Orchid, and even the Vinery Floral. There's a nice florist that that has a little gift shop. So, there is some fun shopping to do for sure. And, and I should mention that we're For the deer opener on November 4th, we are, the the downtown businesses are having a little event.Josie Boyle [00:11:33]:So if you wear your blaze orange, You can, get some deals, for yourself. So you can make a day out of it, really. And, yeah, we have a lot going on.Stephanie [00:11:44]:Well, thanks. It was a pleasure to meet you, Josie. You sound like you know your way around to Sparkling, so I'm excited about that. And the Advent Calendar, this Podcast is gonna post on November 3rd so people can how do you want them to order it from you, and what are your socials so they can follow you and learn more?Josie Boyle [00:12:03]:Yeah. So our website is moose winery.com. That's spelled m o u s s e winery.com. And we have a special webpage on our site just for the advent calendars. So if you want, the best way to do it is just preorder. So you can either order for a pickup in our tasting room or you can ship it. Yep. And then, we are on Facebook at Moose Winery And Instagram at Moose Winery.Josie Boyle [00:12:31]:So Alright. We'llStephanie [00:12:33]:put all of the links in the show notes here. And I just wanna say happy fall, happy harvest, and what a great idea. It's nice to see you. I hope to come to your taproom soon.Josie Boyle [00:12:44]:Yes. Please visit.Stephanie [00:12:45]:Okay. Thank you. Bye bye.Thank you for reading Stephanie's Dish Newsletter. This post is public so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to another episode of Makers of Minnesota! In today's episode, our host, Stephanie, sits down with the talented Tim Mulligan, author of the book "A Perfect Ten Party Edition." Tim's book is filled with 70 recipes that are perfect for hosting parties and making them a breeze. From delicious drinks and great recipes to fun games, Tim's cookbook is a must-have for anyone who loves entertaining. Join us as Stephanie and Tim discuss his inspiration for writing the book, his love for Palm Springs parties, and some of the most requested recipes from his collection. Prepare for a fun and informative episode that will inspire you to throw unforgettable parties. Let's dive in!FULL TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS:Stephanie [00:00:15]:Hello, everybody, and welcome to dishing with Stephanie's dish, the podcast where we talk to people in the food space many times Cookbook authors, and today, we have Tim Mulligan with us, and he is the author of a book called A Perfect ten Party edition. There's 70 recipes for making hosting parties a breeze. Tim, you look really fun.Tim Mulligan [00:00:38]:Well, thank you. I try try. Thanks.Stephanie [00:00:42]:Absolutely. No. You have, like, this whole book full of Fun party ideas, drinks, great recipes, suggestions. You even got some games. I just really thought this cookbook was a gas.Tim Mulligan [00:00:56]:Good. I'm glad.Stephanie [00:00:58]:Where are you from?Tim Mulligan [00:01:00]:I I live in Palm Springs, California. I I I work during the day in LA, so I'm kinda I'm pretty all over much all over Southern California, new bit. My home base is Palm Springs.Stephanie [00:01:09]:Okay. That's pretty awesome because Palm Springs has a lot of great parties.Tim Mulligan [00:01:13]:I I hope so. I I like to throw I like to throw a lot of them. So yeah.Stephanie [00:01:17]:Do you live in one of those cool Palm Spring houses in the movie district?Tim Mulligan [00:01:21]:It's close. It's, you know, I I love you know, we all have pools and, you know, live live live the life here. So, yes, definitely.Stephanie [00:01:29]:Yeah. All the beautiful houses and in case you don't know, I think my favorite story about Palm Springs and maybe you can confirm or deny is that The reason that so many celebrities lived there was because they were exactly, like, a 120 miles or whatever the distance was outside of Los Angeles, And the newspapers that paid their stipends for their entertaining didn't go as far as Palm Springs. So all the movie stars figured that out, and they could live a life without the pap paparazzi in Palm Springs.Tim Mulligan [00:02:04]:Yeah. I heard that. And they I mean, because you mentioned the radius in the distance, it wasn't too far that it was still within their contract. And so it just became like a a a a refuge and hideaway for the for the Hollywood set.Stephanie [00:02:15]:Yes.Tim Mulligan [00:02:15]:And it's you know, it still feels like it's timeless. It still still feels like the fifties, sixties here. You know? So it's it's it's understandable why it was so appealing. You know?Stephanie [00:02:24]:What was your history in terms of why you wanted to write a book, not only with just recipes, but kinda organized by themes and parties?Tim Mulligan [00:02:34]:Yeah. I mean, I've been, I've been cooking for years, not professionally trained. I did start my To my my working world career in hospitality, managing restaurants, bars, waiting tables, and and, And taking many courses and certifications over the years, I've never been a trained chef. I really am a a home cook. But, you know, during I I would say and and I worked during the day. I'm a I'm a lawyer. I'm a human resources officer, and I have been doing that for decades. But during it was COVID, you know, unfortunately, it was such a such a bad I am bit but, you know, if anything good came out of it, for me, it was the the the quarantining process and being, you know, Stuck in this house, I tried to use this as a positive way and say, what have I always wanted to do? You know? And cross off my bucket list.Tim Mulligan [00:03:19]:And for me, there's 2 things really. 1 was to write a Play. I love plays. So I spent the 1st year 2020 knocking out a play. I did it. That play got published. It's going to New York in April. That was an amazing thing.Stephanie [00:03:31]:That's so excellent.Tim Mulligan [00:03:32]:Yeah. Yeah. And then the second thing was I wanted to write a cookbook. You know, I, I really, I I've been I've been cooking forever like I said. I wanted to share with the world My favorite recipes that I've curated over the years. I'm a collector. I'm a curator. Some of these are recipes I've had since I was a kid.Tim Mulligan [00:03:48]:Others I've, you know, collected along the way. And these are recipes that I have made, countless numbers of times over the years, over the decades. I've tweaked the recipes. I've made them work for me, And I I really thought it'd be great to share that with the world and also write write a cookbook that was for, people like me who are busy, you know, who are who work maybe work all day or raise a family. I I had 2 kids. And, and and so that was the idea behind the cookbook. So I've I've that was my 1st cookbook. So that came out in 2020, 2 last year, and it was called a perfect ten.Tim Mulligan [00:04:20]:And to answer your question, I I'm an organized person. I like top 10 lists. So I decided that, you know, a good way to share my recipes was just to list them. And and so I wanted to write a book that so if you get if you are told You're going to a dinner at someone's house or enter they say you say, what can you bring? And they tell you, bring a, salad or bring a side dish or bring a dessert, a big entree, and then you kinda freak out to get, oh my god. What am I gonna make? I wanted to just provide a a a playbook. You can pull it out, and And so there's 7 meal periods. Everything from breakfast to salads to vegetable sides to entrees to dinners, Desserts that and it's my 10 kind of favorite easy go to recipes that I have, you know, are trying and tested and true in in my world. And that was the idea behind the 1st cookbook.Tim Mulligan [00:05:07]:And so that came out last year, and it just the response was really great. And I started a blog. I started blogging every week recipes and cooking, and And next thing you knew, I someone who had never even touched Instagram, now I have 18,000 followers, you know, so I I thought, well, I better write another one, you know, while I Well, I can. So as a follow-up, I I wanted to share another passion of mine, which is organizing, hosting, and throwing amazing parties. I've been doing that as long as I can remember. So I kept I kept the the perfect 10 idea going, and it's and I did instead of 7 milk periods, I did 7 types of parties. So I spent this year throwing these parties and and taking pictures and documenting and creating playbooks for what games could I throw at each party. And then I did a top ten list of everything from drinks to food to desserts, a couple of each for each type of party that you so if you're throwing any sort of party, you can pull this book out.Tim Mulligan [00:06:01]:You can make the whole recipe, the whole menu, all 10 of them. You can pick and choose. It's kind of a choose your own adventure for throwing a a party of any size.Stephanie [00:06:09]:I really liked the way that you organized it. It felt very, natural. And When you looked at each party, you know, there was kind of drinks for that party, apps for that party, mains for that party, sides for that party, and All of your recipes I think why this book probably did appeal to me right away is it felt like I'm a home cook too, and I also wrote a cookbook. And it felt kinda like the same philosophy of why I did it and why I wanted to do it. I'm a cabin entertainer, so I wrote a book about being at the cabin.Tim Mulligan [00:06:42]:Fun. Yeah.Stephanie [00:06:43]:And, you know, always being at the cabin's a party, and so it's somewhat similar. I really, appreciated too that your parties were kind of different. So a pool party is something that is probably something that they do a lot in Palm Springs. We don't see as much of that here. I like that you had an award show party because I think those are super fun. What are some of your, like, most requested recipes in this book that people are just loving?Tim Mulligan [00:07:11]:Well, a great question. I'd say for me, you know, I I do live in Palm Springs, so I'm pretty lucky with the weather. And so, I really chose and when it came down to what kind of parties to highlight, you know, there's there's, you know, unlimited types of parties. I thought about the parties I like to go to and that I throw. So living in Palm Springs, I think I've, I really kinda perfected the the outdoor brunch, you know, the, the pool party, happy hour. So things where I can kinda grab people outside of the weather, and we would in if we have to. But so I think that, For the recipes that people that people have been responding to, I think, you know, the thing about a party, you you'd appreciate this, I think, of writing a party Cookbook, a party menu is a lot different than a dinner, you know, a sit down meal because you have to have things that you can Eat while standing Yes. Better, you know, grab and go, their handhelds.Tim Mulligan [00:08:05]:And so it was pretty kinda challenging to say, okay, what are things that I could, yeah, there's 1 sit down. I did a holiday Traditional sit down dinner as well. The restaurant. Things you can, you know, grab and go from a table and talk and eat. And And so I did a lot of self serve stations. Those are really popular, I think, and those are people really like those. My mac and cheese station.Stephanie [00:08:23]:Oh, yeah.Tim Mulligan [00:08:24]:I've been doing that for years. I mean, I've been doing that for my staff. I've been doing it for families. I mean, you could throw a mac and make us make your own mac and cheese station, and you're gonna be it's the most Popular, you know, item of of of the night is that mac and cheese station. You know?Stephanie [00:08:37]:Yeah. My radio partner talks about having mac and cheese parties for graduation ceremonies. And, You know, there's different kinds of mac and cheeses that you can make from, like, the bechamel in a Dutch oven that's cooked to slow cooker. So you really can have, like, a variety of different toppings, and I thought that was a really fun one. Also, you have the walking taco that I'm familiar with in the Frito bag, but you did it in a bag with pita chips and did, like, the Greek pita fixings, which I thought was really smart.Tim Mulligan [00:09:07]:That was different. I like I love Greek food, so I and I and I like, like a Greek, kinda meat mixture. And so this it's a really great walkie talker with to take a bag of Pita chips, make a kinda oregano Greek spice infused turkey or you could just beef. You could you could do plant based, whatever. Throw it in a pita chip bag with some, you know, cucumbers and tzatziki and maybe a hummus sauce or something in it. It's awesome. People loveStephanie [00:09:31]:it. Yeah. Looked super great. I also, you did a recipe for a mole inspired tostada.Tim Mulligan [00:09:43]:Well, I think, you said so of the of the self serve stations that that I cover in this in this book, I think there's 4 self serve stations. And you can do, you know, little bowls, little jars. You I have mac and cheese. I have build your own tostada. So I think, you know, I I love a crock pot.Stephanie [00:10:00]:Yeah. Me too.Tim Mulligan [00:10:01]:So you can make a you can easily make a so I think in this cookbook cookbook, I did a mole inspired, you know, shredded Chicken dish. You just put out the little, you know, the smallest tortilla shells you can find and and then a whole bunch of sides and condiments, and that's a really fun party Activity also is making your own tostada. You know, it's really easy, and people always love it.Stephanie [00:10:23]:You also have, something that's very Midwestern in here with the, pretzel Jell O cups.Tim Mulligan [00:10:29]:I love those so much. I just did them the other day. I mean, you know what's great about the pretzel jello the pretzel salad cups is that, since the since the cookbook came out, I've been asked to do all sorts of kinda wacky things. Like, how would you do a football party? Or how would you do a Halloween bar? This or that party. And the thing about the Pretzel salad Jell O cup is you can do any colors you want. So you could do teams of the football, you know, football match. I mean, I did them in the in the book. I used it for the pool party, So I love we love Aperol Spritz here inStephanie [00:10:58]:Oh, yeah.Tim Mulligan [00:10:59]:And so if you use, so I decided to use a peach flavored jello and make it really beautiful and vibrant orange, and it looks it looks awesome on a on an outdoor party table where you're also serving pitchers of, say, Aperol Spritz or something. So the, yeah, the jello the pretzel salad cups are very popular.Stephanie [00:11:14]:That's a big that's a big thing at in families' houses at Thanksgiving and Christmas around here. They do a pretzel salad, and we also are known for our snicker salad. We're green apple snickersTim Mulligan [00:11:30]:then, like, what I love I love those kind of Midwest desserts. We don't have those over here. So I kind of was a, you know, a unicorn with my pretzel salad cups here in in California.Stephanie [00:11:38]:I love it.Tim Mulligan [00:11:39]:The one other thing that we have the one other I mean, I should have answered. The the the the one item that people are loving and And for a self a maker a a self a self serve station, it's my picadillo cups. They're really, really good. And you can also you just make a big, pot of that picadillo, which is and you can use any meat mixture you want in there. I use turkey, but you can also do plant based or you can do beef, But you really spice it up with the golden raisins and the olives and the and all the, tomato sauce and spices, and it's amazing. And you can make it in enchiladas. You can put it in dips. But it's really fun to just make it with the big pot of like a jasmine.Tim Mulligan [00:12:16]:I make a coconut rice, you know, cilantro infused, jasmine, and you give little little mason jars or bowls next to it. People to get a scoop of the rice. You can even make your own kind of beautiful trifle with it with rice rice picadillo. It's a handheld. It's delicious. It it it's people are really responding well to that that recipe.Stephanie [00:12:35]:Okay. So right now, on your shelf, we saw your Stanley Tucci cookbook. Are there, like, other cookbooks that you find yourself cooking from all the time or people that you just, like, really are inspired by?Tim Mulligan [00:12:47]:Yeah. I love Mollie. I love her do cookbook. I'm doing an ad for her, I guess, right now because I love Home is Where the Eggs Are. I have so many cookbooks here. I'm a real I'm a real Foodie, I surround myself with people that love food. We're always sharing cookbooks. That whole bookcase over here is full of cookbooks.Stephanie [00:13:02]:Oh, yeah.Tim Mulligan [00:13:03]:And these are ones that I've you know, like I said, I I'm a collector. I'm a gatherer. I know exactly what recipe I want out of each book. And I tried to and I I really kept that in mind to write these cookbooks. I think, wouldn't it be great if there was you know, that's why I like the top 10 list because sometimes it does get overwhelming when there's so many great recipes and all these cookbooks. You forget where you found them or where they were.Stephanie [00:13:22]:Yeah.Tim Mulligan [00:13:22]:I thought I would just do something really simple that you could just go to, and there's 10 salads, 10 desserts, 10 entrees. And then and then, know? And and, hopefully, it'll be that would be your go to for for when you're in a bind and you need something quick and good, let me help you. You know?Stephanie [00:13:37]:Yeah. No. I love that. Now when does your next come out. I can't believe you wrote 2 cookbooks already.Tim Mulligan [00:13:44]:I know. So I don't know. It's a great question. Right now, I'm, You know, I work by day. I'm a full time, you know, work worker during the day. And then at night, I've just been, you know, again, since, know, if you if you go to 20 early 2020 before, you know, before COVID and the pandemic, I had I had no cookbooks. I had no plays, no creative writing. I ran a leadership book years ago, but, you know, this has really just inspired me.Tim Mulligan [00:14:07]:So now since I think since, the pandemic started, I've now published the 2 cookbooks. I have if you go to my website, a perfect ten cook, you can see my blog, and there's tons of recipes there. There every every week, I do new recipes. I mentioned I've written this a few plays now. I have a graphic novel coming out. It's it's just really, kinda lit a fire of creativity that I knew was there, but I just hadn't had time. And I thought I'd kinda pass That stage in life, and and now I hear I am at 56, and it's finally coming out, you know, which is great.Stephanie [00:14:37]:It makes me so happy for you. I am also a late bloomer in the food space. You know, had a radio show and have talked about food for forever, but finally decided to put pen to paper and contribute my own items, and it's Let him do a TV show and all these other things that ITim Mulligan [00:14:52]:need I need to get your cookbook. I I just made a note of that.Stephanie [00:14:56]:Yeah. I'm actually I'll send you an email get your address and I'll send you a copy. Thank you, Max. And I do travel to Palm Springs on occasion, so I can see looking you up and Maybe having a drink or coming to one of your parties at some point.Tim Mulligan [00:15:09]:Yeah. Please.Stephanie [00:15:10]:Super fun. Well, it's been great to talk to you. It's a perfect Ten, the party edition, and the other edition, you can keep your eyes peeled for. How do we find your blog? Could you throw out your, website at one more time?Tim Mulligan [00:15:22]:Yeah. It's a perfect ten, the number 10 cook.Stephanie [00:15:25]:Okay.Tim Mulligan [00:15:25]:And you can and you can find both cookbooks. So the 2 cookbooks, there's one that's just called a perfect ten, And then there's that that's the that's 7 different meal periods, 10 recipes each. The new one is called a perfect 10 party edition, 7 different parties, Ten recipes each, everything from cocktail to dessert and all the food in between. And you can get them both on Amazon, but they're both everything's on my website.Stephanie [00:15:46]:I love it. And I like that, Malier is from our part of the country, so we're big fans of hers too. She's been great. Are you watching any good food TV?Tim Mulligan [00:15:58]:Yeah. Every day. Like, I I'm a, you know, I love TV. I love pop culture, but for TV I mean, food wise, I mean, I watch all the Food Network shows, obviously. I'm super excited. The Great British Bake Off is back.Stephanie [00:16:11]:I look Me too. I I heard they started with a beaver cake. I don't know why, and I haven't watched it yet, but I heard it's hilarious.Tim Mulligan [00:16:19]:It's really funny. Yeah. So, yeah, I watch all those shows. I've I've been watching Chopped forever. You know? I I throw Chopped parties, which is really fun where Even if you get a couple of couples or even, you know, couples you partner people pair people up, you bring the weird ingredient items to make the basket, you peer pair let everybody else at the judges sit there and drink while they cook, and they get I mean, I I've done I've had some really fun shop nights doing that.Stephanie [00:16:40]:Oh, that sounds really fun. I love that idea.Tim Mulligan [00:16:42]:Yeah. It's great.Stephanie [00:16:43]:Well, thanks for spending time with us. It was really great, and I love the book. And I wish you tons of success, and I'll drop a copy of mine in the mail for you.Tim Mulligan [00:16:51]:Thank you so much. Okay.Stephanie [00:16:52]:Thanks, Tim. We'll talk soon. Bye bye. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to another episode of Makers of Minnesota! In today's episode, we have a special guest, Mathew Batt, the author of "The Last Supper Club, A Waiters Requiem." We dive into his book, which showcases his experience working at a renowned restaurant that unfortunately closed its doors. Stephanie, our host, chats with Mathew about his background, his time in the restaurant industry, and the memorable characters he encountered along the way.Stephanie's Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, we have the pleasure of sitting down with Chris Montana, the founder of Du Nord Social Spirits. You may remember Chris from our previous interview when his distillery was starting a few years ago. But since then, his journey has been nothing short of remarkable. From surviving the devastating events surrounding the murder of George Floyd to expanding, rebranding, and retooling his business, Chris has experienced a renaissance. Join us as we hear from Chris himself about the evolution of Du Nord Social Spirits and the creation of the Du Nord Foundation. Discover how authenticity and a commitment to social impact have shaped the brand, and get inspired by Chris's candid approach to entrepreneurship. So grab your favorite drink, sit back, and get ready to be inspired by Chris Montana and his incredible journey with Du Nord Social Spirits. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome back to another exciting episode of "Makers of Minnesota"! In today's episode, the incredible Amy Theilen joins us to discuss her latest book, "Company: The Radically Casual Art of Cooking for Others." Amy takes us on a journey through her writing process, sharing how the book evolved during the pandemic and the mixed emotions she experienced. Amy reveals her secrets to creating a relaxed and enjoyable gathering with delicious recipes and menu ideas. Plus, we'll explore the unexpected twists and turns of Amy's career, from fine dining line cook to making a name for herself in the culinary world on TV and becoming the author we know today. Get ready to be inspired, entertained, and hungry as we delve into the fascinating world of Amy Theilen on this "Makers of Minnesota" episode!Preview the book here and join her on October 7 at the Minneapolis Farmers Market and October 9 at Cooks of Crocus Hill. Thank you for reading Stephanie's Dish Newsletter. This post is public so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe