Podcasts about Hamburger Helper

In this episode of The Liquidity Event, AJ and Shane cover everything from IPOs making a comeback to Hamburger Helper as a recession indicator. They dive into venture-backed companies finally going public, debate whether Hamburger Helper sales say more about wallets or Ozempic, and unpack why America's biggest companies can't quite explain the upside of AI. The duo close out with a lively discussion on the Chase Sapphire Reserve's new $800 fee, what makes rewards cards worth it, and why being a “deadbeat” might actually be a compliment in the credit card world. Timestamps:  (01:20) Hot dogs, nutritionists, and the dangers of Hamburger Helper.  (03:16) Fall in Brooklyn, waffles in Shane's background, and Mikey's Pies.  (05:00) Conference recap – XYPN in Austin  (07:05) Looking ahead to the AICPA Personal Financial Planning Symposium in San Diego.  (08:15) IPOs are back – Figma, Klarna, StubHub, and more.  (14:04) Hamburger Helper as a recession indicator – joy vs. budgets.  (16:53) Grocery inflation, rice and beans, and sardines as a distressed shopper's delight.  (18:32) AI hype vs. reality – what America's top companies aren't saying.  (22:35) Nuclear power, Chernobyl obsessions, and AI's potential to cut through noise.  (25:47) Chase Sapphire Reserve hikes to $800 – perks, pitfalls, and who it's really for.  (29:44) Why business owners get a “cheat code” with rewards cards.

Le coût de la vie et du panier d'épicerie continue de faire mal et certains produits à bas prix redeviennent très populaires. C'est notamment le cas du fameux Hamburger Helper. Ce repas rapide, lancé en 1971, faisait fureur à l'époque en raison du contexte économique. Plus de 50 ans plus tard, le même scénario se produit. Le fabricant Eagle Foods a annoncé que les ventes du Hamburger Helper ont bondi de presque 15% en un an. «Au Canada, il y a une personne sur quatre qui souffre d'insécurité alimentaire. Ça, ça veut dire sauter des repas, ne pas manger à notre faim, ne pas avoir tous les nutriments nécessaires pour être en santé. Une personne sur quatre, c'est énorme dans un pays riche comme le Canada.» La chroniqueuse économique soulève également des données encourageantes alors que le mois de septembre, qui est habituellement le pire mois de l'année en Bourse, a fait exception en 2025.Voir https://www.cogecomedia.com/vie-privee pour notre politique de vie privée

Right now, there's a lot of discussion about the economy. People are arguing about how we're doing. Is there a recession or just a lull? Several indicators suggest when people are starting to tighten their belts. One indicator that may surprise you is the sales of Hamburger Helper. If you're of a certain age, you remember the 1970s pantry staple that makes a great meal. It always sells well when times are tight and people are struggling. This year, sales are up by over 14%. Like many, I enjoyed it in my younger days when times were tight. And if you examine the sales data, it appears that sales are likely to continue rising... Click Here To Subscribe Apple PodcastsSpotifyAmazon MusicGoogle PodcastsTuneIniHeartRadioPandoraDeezerBlubrryBullhornCastBoxCastrofyyd.deGaanaiVooxListen NotesmyTuner RadioOvercastOwlTailPlayer.fmPocketCastsPodbayPodbeanPodcast AddictPodcast IndexPodcast RepublicPodchaserPodfanPodtailRadio PublicRadio.comReason.fmRSSRadioVurblWe.foYandex jQuery(document).ready(function($) { 'use strict'; $('#podcast-subscribe-button-13292 .podcast-subscribe-button.modal-68d96c98476ce').on("click", function() { $("#secondline-psb-subs-modal.modal-68d96c98476ce.modal.secondline-modal-68d96c98476ce").modal({ fadeDuration: 250, closeText: '', }); return false; }); });

Sales of Hamburger Helper are on the rise and it's very nostalgic for us!

On today's show, Alaska Public Media reporter Ava White joins Kimberly to make us smarter about Fat Bear Week and the issues that are top of mind for Alaskans right now. Alaska residents receive an annual check funded by the state's oil royalties. But its purchasing power is lower than ever. We'll get into it. Plus, we'll weigh in on AI live translations and a rise in Hamburger Helper sales during a round of Half Full/Half Empty!Here's everything we talked about today:"Meet the superfans going wild for Alaska's fattest bears" from Alaska Public Media"Alaska ignored warning signs of a budget crisis. Now it doesn't have money to fix crumbling schools" from KYUK”The 2025 Alaska Permanent Fund dividend will be $1,000” from Alaska Public Media"North Slope leaders applaud tax breaks for whalers in the GOP megabill” from KNBA"Why are restaurant chains opening beverage-focused spinoffs?" from Marketplace"AI is taking on live translations. But jobs and meaning are getting lost." from The Washington Post"Touchscreens in cars are finally on their way out. Good riddance" from Fast Company"Hamburger Helper Sales Rise as Americans Try to Stretch Their Food Dollars" from The New York TimesIt's Half-Priced Hoodie Weekend! Give $10 a month to support our journalism today, and we'll thank you with a cozy Marketplace zip-up hoodie: https://support.marketplace.org/smart-sn

On today's show, Alaska Public Media reporter Ava White joins Kimberly to make us smarter about Fat Bear Week and the issues that are top of mind for Alaskans right now. Alaska residents receive an annual check funded by the state's oil royalties. But its purchasing power is lower than ever. We'll get into it. Plus, we'll weigh in on AI live translations and a rise in Hamburger Helper sales during a round of Half Full/Half Empty!Here's everything we talked about today:"Meet the superfans going wild for Alaska's fattest bears" from Alaska Public Media"Alaska ignored warning signs of a budget crisis. Now it doesn't have money to fix crumbling schools" from KYUK”The 2025 Alaska Permanent Fund dividend will be $1,000” from Alaska Public Media"North Slope leaders applaud tax breaks for whalers in the GOP megabill” from KNBA"Why are restaurant chains opening beverage-focused spinoffs?" from Marketplace"AI is taking on live translations. But jobs and meaning are getting lost." from The Washington Post"Touchscreens in cars are finally on their way out. Good riddance" from Fast Company"Hamburger Helper Sales Rise as Americans Try to Stretch Their Food Dollars" from The New York TimesIt's Half-Priced Hoodie Weekend! Give $10 a month to support our journalism today, and we'll thank you with a cozy Marketplace zip-up hoodie: https://support.marketplace.org/smart-sn

In this episode, Donny discusses various brands making headlines, including Jimmy Kimmel's return to television, the controversy surrounding Tylenol and its health implications, rising coffee prices, and the success of horror movies at the box office. He also highlights Stanley Tucci's new ventures, the increasing costs of being a sports fan, celebrity involvement in the alcohol industry, trends in cocaine consumption, and the economic indicators reflected in Hamburger Helper sales. The episode concludes with a discussion on Instagram's user growth and teens adapting to no-phone policies in schools by using older music devices. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Late night host Jimmy Kimmel fought back tears as he made his big return. It was exactly one week ago that his show was suspended after he made controversial comments about the assassination of Charlie Kirk. And last night Kimmel got a chance to tell his side of what happened. And Charlie Kirk's memorial at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona was attended by over 90-thousand people. Now we're learning... In that massive crowd was a popular baseball player who actually skipped a game to say a final goodbye to Kirk. Despite it causing a bit of an uproar... He says he has no regrets.  Plus, it's being called escalator-gate. We told you how President Trump and first lady Melania had to walk up the escalator at the United Nations after it just stopped working. The incident sparking major questions -- did someone deliberately cut off the power just to embarrass the president?  And it's the return of Hamburger Helper. If you're of a certain age, you'll probably remember mom taking some ground beef and mixing it up with hamburger helper. It was a staple back in the 70's. Now as families are watching their wallets... Sales are surging for this cost-effective comfort food.  To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week we're covering everything from a galaxy far, far away to potholes right here in Kent. First up: Lucasfilm just dropped the trailer for The Mandalorian and Grogu (yes, Baby Yoda is headed to the big screen). Then we jump into the sports world, where the Mariners are chasing the AL West, the Huskies and Hawks are racking up wins, and the Thunderbirds are off to a flying start. Hungry? We've got you covered with Hamburger Helper's new breakfast lineup (hashbrowns for the win).  City Business, we break down Kent Council updates, rebates for missed garbage pickups, and new tolling on SR 509. Our feature interview goes deep into “The Life of a Pothole”—what causes them, how they're fixed, and why your car hates them so much. Round it out with Kent events you won't want to miss from the Fall Clean-Up and Caravan Chronicles' 20th anniversary to the Fall Recycling Event and a quirky “Did You Know” about the time art was actually part of the Olympics. Also if you're interested in volunteering for Team up 2 Clean Up this weekend, you can register here!   

On this episode of the Chuck ToddCast, Chuck unpacks how Donald Trump's Department of Justice has become a political weapon, from targeting perceived enemies like James Comey to sweeping bribery cases under the rug, all while eroding public trust in law enforcement. He explores how Trump's strategy of framing his own criminal charges as political has worn down the public and set fire to the credibility of the legal system. Chuck also looks at the Democratic Party's internal strife over whether to embrace figures like Zohran Mamdani, the rising prospects of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and even murmurs of Lisa Murkowski eyeing a gubernatorial run. And beyond politics, he flags troubling signals in the economy—from surging Hamburger Helper sales to a slump in cardboard demand—that suggest things may not be as strong as the stock market makes them appear.Then, Dr. Michael Osterholm, one of the nation's foremost infectious disease experts, joins Chuck to confront the unsettling reality that Covid-19 was not “the big one.” From SARS and MERS as early warnings to the looming possibility of coronaviruses that are far more deadly than Covid, Osterholm argues that pandemics are inevitable—and the U.S. is dangerously unprepared. He discusses the political failures that prevented a serious after-action review, the collapse of government vaccine infrastructure, and why misinformation and anti-vaccine sentiment have left public health more vulnerable than ever.The conversation also looks forward: how mRNA technology could still be a game-changer, why developing respirators and updating building codes matter, and the urgent need for leadership with real bio-threat experience. Osterholm warns that everything from resurging childhood diseases to the rise of avian flu and the risk of bioterrorism are on the horizon, and he offers a sobering reminder—science is not fixed truth, it's the pursuit of truth. This episode is a wake-up call about what it will take to be ready for the next pandemic, which could be far worse than Covid-19.Finally, he answers listeners' questions in the “Ask Chuck” segment and previews an incredible weekend of sports. Got injured in an accident? You could be one click away from a claim worth millions. Just visit https://www.forthepeople.com/TODDCAST to start your claim now with Morgan & Morgan without leaving your couch. Remember, it's free unless you win!Timeline:(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements)00:00 Introduction04:00 Trump's DOJ targeting his perceived enemies05:15 Trump convinced his base that all his criminal charges were political06:45 Poor coordination by law enforcement allowed Trump to evade charges07:45 Trump fired attorney who wouldn't bring charges against enemies08:15 DOJ wants to charge James Comey with lying to congress10:00 Trump has telegraphed this prosecution13:15 Trump accused Biden DOJ of politicization, now his DOJ is overtly political14:00 Trump's DOJ swept Homan bribery under the rug15:00 Public trust in law enforcement is being destroyed16:30 Trump is wearing out the public17:30 Comey did his share of damage to the FBI's credibility18:30 We need a better system for staffing top law enforcement job19:45 Christopher Wray serving under Biden was good thing20:45 Trump is taking a blowtorch to the credibility of the legal system21:30 Mainstream Democrats are refusing to endorse Zohran Mamdani23:00 Kamala Harris gives tepid endorsement of Mamdani 25:15 Party either wants the Dem socialists in the coalition or they don't26:30 Fence sitting on Mamdani makes everybody mad28:00 Leadership can't have it both ways30:15 Democratic handwringing over Mamdani doesn't inspire confidence30:45 AOC may run for senate or the presidency31:45 AOC could win Chuck Schumer's seat33:15 Don't expect Chuck Schumer will run again34:15 Lisa Murkowski won't rule out gubernatorial run in 202636:45 Senators looking for options to get out of D.C.38:00 Sales of Hamburger Helper way up, warning sign for economy40:15 Cardboard box demand slumping, another warning sign41:15 Economy looks better than it is due to AI boost to stock market44:15 Dr. Michael Osterholm joins the Chuck ToddCast 45:30 Are American leaders ready for the next pandemic? 46:45 Covid wasn't "the big one" pandemic 47:45 SARS & MERS gave a warning about coronaviruses 48:45 Coronaviruses in the wild that are as infectious as covid but more deadly 49:30 Death rate of Covid was relatively low, could be much worse 51:00 Pandemics are inevitable, and could be much worse than covid 51:45 Politics didn't allow for an after action report on pandemic response 53:15 We'll never know if covid was from a lab or nature 54:45 We could have vaccines ready before pandemics begin, not doing the work 55:30 Did you write your book assuming a crank like Kennedy would run HHS? 56:00 Kennedy is the biggest challenge public health has faced in decades 56:45 Pandemics cause society to lose its collective mind 58:15 Anti vaxx anger came from people being angry about the pandemic 58:45 How do you prepare for a pandemic if the government isn't leading? 59:30 MRNA vaccines are easier to produce at scale 1:00:00 $500 million in funding cut for MRNA vaccines 1:01:00 CDC vaccine board is now completely dysfunctional 1:03:30 Where does medical research go without government backing? 1:04:00 PEPFAR was one of the best uses of American soft power 1:05:15 There's nobody in the White House with bio threat experience 1:06:00 Trump 1.0 had a credible pandemic response plan. 2.0 doesn't. 1:07:15 We will see diseases come back that we thought were gone 1:09:00 What preventative measures can be taken without the government? 1:09:45 Lockdowns don't work, surges of cases are inevitable 1:10:30 Lockdowns were over by June, impact was overstated 1:11:45 Lockdowns should only be based on hospital use/capacity 1:13:30 Don't do lockdowns, maximize medical care instead 1:14:45 Public misconception that vaccine would make people immune 1:15:45 News media needs to be better at messaging public health info 1:17:45 Risk to kids raised significantly with new covid variants 1:19:00 Updates to scientific info get labeled as "flip flopping" when it's normal 1:19:45 Science is not truth, it's the pursuit of truth 1:20:45 Kennedy now linking acetaminophen to autism 1:22:45 People dismiss health risks that fit their lifestyle, like drinking red wine 1:24:00 Half the country was anti-expert, now anti-expert's are in charge 1:25:45 BARDA was the envy of the world 1:27:15 What else should we be doing in preparation for the next "big" pandemic? 1:29:00 We need to develop a comfortable N95 respirator for the public 1:30:00 Updating building codes to help prevent respiratory virus transmission 1:32:30 MMR vaccine doesn't require a booster, likely confirms lifelong immunity 1:35:45 Theme parks in Orlando will pressure government over vaccine mandate 1:36:45 What's the status of H5N1 bird flu? 1:38:30 There will be another flu virus pandemic, we just don't know when 1:39:15 We're producing more poultry than ever, lots of opportunity for exposure 1:40:15 We should be vaccinating livestock and poultry 1:41:15 We're more vulnerable than ever to a bioterrorism attack1:43:45 Chuck's thoughts on the interview with Dr. Osterholm 1:44:15 Ask Chuck 1:44:30 Will Trump ever target podcasts the way he targets other media? 1:51:30 Comparing party platforms vs what they actually do while governing? 1:55:45 Why have Republican voters gone along with Trump's authoritarianism? 2:05:15 Weekend sports preview Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On this episode of the Chuck ToddCast, Chuck unpacks how Donald Trump's Department of Justice has become a political weapon, from targeting perceived enemies like James Comey to sweeping bribery cases under the rug, all while eroding public trust in law enforcement. He explores how Trump's strategy of framing his own criminal charges as political has worn down the public and set fire to the credibility of the legal system. Chuck also looks at the Democratic Party's internal strife over whether to embrace figures like Zohran Mamdani, the rising prospects of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and even murmurs of Lisa Murkowski eyeing a gubernatorial run. And beyond politics, he flags troubling signals in the economy—from surging Hamburger Helper sales to a slump in cardboard demand—that suggest things may not be as strong as the stock market makes them appear.Finally, he answers listeners' questions in the “Ask Chuck” segment and previews an incredible weekend of sports. Got injured in an accident? You could be one click away from a claim worth millions. Just visit https://www.forthepeople.com/TODDCAST to start your claim now with Morgan & Morgan without leaving your couch. Remember, it's free unless you win!Timeline:(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements)00:00 Introduction01:15 Trump's DOJ targeting his perceived enemies 02:30 Trump convinced his base that all his criminal charges were political 04:00 Poor coordination by law enforcement allowed Trump to evade charges 05:00 Trump fired attorney who wouldn't bring charges against enemies 05:30 DOJ wants to charge James Comey with lying to congress 07:15 Trump has telegraphed this prosecution 10:30 Trump accused Biden DOJ of politicization, now his DOJ is overtly political 11:15 Trump's DOJ swept Homan bribery under the rug 12:15 Public trust in law enforcement is being destroyed 13:45 Trump is wearing out the public 14:45 Comey did his share of damage to the FBI's credibility 15:45 We need a better system for staffing top law enforcement job 17:00 Christopher Wray serving under Biden was good thing 18:00 Trump is taking a blowtorch to the credibility of the legal system 18:45 Mainstream Democrats are refusing to endorse Zohran Mamdani 20:15 Kamala Harris gives tepid endorsement of Mamdani 22:30 Party either wants the Dem socialists in the coalition or they don't 23:45 Fence sitting on Mamdani makes everybody mad 25:15 Leadership can't have it both ways 27:30 Democratic handwringing over Mamdani doesn't inspire confidence 28:00 AOC may run for senate or the presidency 29:00 AOC could win Chuck Schumer's seat 30:30 Don't expect Chuck Schumer will run again 31:30 Lisa Murkowski won't rule out gubernatorial run in 2026 34:00 Senators looking for options to get out of D.C. 35:15 Sales of Hamburger Helper way up, warning sign for economy 37:30 Cardboard box demand slumping, another warning sign 38:30 Economy looks better than it is due to AI boost to stock market41:30 Chuck's thoughts on the interview with Dr. Osterholm 42:00 Ask Chuck 42:15 Will Trump ever target podcasts the way he targets other media? 49:15 Comparing party platforms vs what they actually do while governing? 53:30 Why have Republican voters gone along with Trump's authoritarianism? 1:03:00 Weekend sports preview Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hamburger Helper is making a comeback in these tough economic times... what is your cheap struggle meal? Plus Garner needs and MRI and has bumpy pumpkins.

Good morning!The Morning Breeze Brain Tease!The More You Know - Hamburger Helper is making a comeback!The Brighter Side.Ask us anything!Tuan won tickets to see Ed Sheeran!More on Hamburger Helper!

This week on This Week in Barbecue, we're talking Texas pride, Costco samples, and Hamburger Helper sales climbing like briskets in a smokehouse. Sheed digs into whether barbecue joints should give away samples like it's a Saturday at Costco, while James runs through Southern Living's “Top 50 BBQ in the South” list and questions if City Limits BBQ in South Carolina deserves its crown. We shout out Peg Leg Porker's booming whiskey side hustle (they need extra hands just to bottle it), laugh at some of the funniest barbecue signs you've ever seen, and touch on the economics of Hamburger Helper's surprising comeback. From Erica “Bluesmoke” Blair's judging comeback to the sensory magic that makes barbecue more than just food, this episode is a full plate. Tune in, laugh with us, and maybe rethink how many senses you're using when you fire up the pit.

There was a crash near Long Beach, and a man barricaded himself inside a 7-11 for hours. We also have a health update on beloved KFI technical director and crash survivor The Foosh. The German beer Löwenbräu has been around for 642 years! Also, there's a Costco ban for Iranian diplomats in the USA! Tim and Mark continue talking about their shared love of football. As we gear up for early Christmas sales at the likes of Target, Tim asks the important question: What the hell is “Summerween”?! Also, Tim talks about Casa Bianca in Eagle Rock, which is apparently the best pizza place in LA! Tim recalls childhood memories of Hamburger Helper, which is making a comeback, with sales up more than 14%.

Jimmy Kimmel delivers an emotional monologue during his anticipated return to late-night TV. Plus, the growing fallout from President Trump's visit to the U.N. Also, Multiple victims after a shooting at an ICE facility in Dallas, Texas. And, Hamburger Helper makes a comeback as American families are looking for quicker meals at lower prices. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hyundai factory raided by ICE :: Masked ICE no more in California :: Bad signs for the economy :: Are adult braces sexy? :: Turd's wild career dreams :: Hamburger Helper sales rising :: The children yearn for the mines :: 1970's inflation brought us Hamburger Helper :: Bonnie got a gun :: 8 second attention spans :: A Free Stater's crusade against the Massachussetts government in court, win :: Don't send your kids to hard time in government schools :: 2025-09-21 Hosts: Bonnie, Rich E Rich, Riley

In an economy with an uncertain future, people are looking to stretch their dollar further and work with much less. "Hamburger Helper" has been a popular brand for those working with less, and their sales have seen nearly a fifteen percent increase since August. Greg and Holly discuss what this shows about the state of the economy and read comments from listeners as they ask: What are your go-to meals when you need to stretch a buck?

The 'American Comeback Tour' to continue at USU after Charlie Kirk's death What to know about Autism and Tylenol use during pregnancy Budget bites: The economy according to Hamburger Helper Jimmy Kimmel Live! Reinstated, sort of… NASA's new generation of astronauts

Episode 675: Neal and Toby discuss the impact of the new $100K annual fee for H1-B Visas that has tech companies scrambling. Plus, details emerge from the pending TikTok deal that could bring ownership to the US. Also, Hamburger Helper sales are boosted by Americans trying to save money on food. Meanwhile, prizes are handed out to the quirkiest scientists in the world. Finally, what you need to know in the week ahead.  00:00 - Get your MBD live show tickets! 2:50 - Costly H1-B Visa fee 7:20 - TikTok deal imminent 11:30 - Hamburger helper booms 17:00 - Ig Nobel prize winners 21:00 - Week Ahead You can try reMarkable Paper Pro Move for 100 days for free. If it's not what you're looking for, get your money back. Get your paper tablet at https://www.remarkable.com today Get your MBD live show tickets here! Presale code LETSRIDE Subscribe to Morning Brew Daily for more of the news you need to start your day. Share the show with a friend, and leave us a review on your favorite podcast app. Listen to Morning Brew Daily Here:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.swap.fm/l/mbd-note⁠⁠⁠  Watch Morning Brew Daily Here:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@MorningBrewDailyShow⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hyundai factory raided by ICE :: Masked ICE no more in California :: Bad signs for the economy :: Are adult braces sexy? :: Turd's wild career dreams :: Hamburger Helper sales rising :: The children yearn for the mines :: 1970's inflation brought us Hamburger Helper :: Bonnie got a gun :: 8 second attention spans :: A Free Stater's crusade against the Massachussetts government in court, win :: Don't send your kids to hard time in government schools :: 2025-09-21 Hosts: Bonnie, Rich E Rich, Riley

Sienna's husband bought Hamburger Helper, and it triggered Sienna's childhood food trauma! What's your trauma food? Follow us on socials! @themorningmess Follow us on socials! @themorningmess

Sienna's husband bought Hamburger Helper, and it triggered Sienna's childhood food trauma! What's your trauma food? Follow us on socials! @themorningmess Follow us on socials! @themorningmess 

Sienna's husband bought Hamburger Helper, and it triggered Sienna's childhood food trauma! What's your trauma food? Follow us on socials! @themorningmess Follow us on socials! @themorningmess 

Sometimes the universe doesn't operate on a level playing field. What we learned in preschool. Song lyrics that are saving us now. The Thunderbirds at the Chicago Air and Water Show have wrought chaos at Turi's house. Marci admits to liking the Hamburger Helper Hand on her daughter's but...or at least preferring it to the ear guages. 

Note: "Act 2" will be a separate published audio podcast.*Check out EZ's morning radio show "The InZane Asylum Q100 Michigan with Eric Zane" Click here*Get a FREE 7 day trial to Patreon to "try it out."*Watch the show live, daily at 8AM EST on Twitch! Please click here to follow the page.Email the show on the Shoreliners Striping inbox: eric@ericzaneshow.comTopics:*Breaking news as rumors run wild about Howard Stern and SiriusXM parting ways!*Horrible Howard Stern black face bit.*The EZ Podcasting class is taking shape.*SNAP benefits no longer paying for sugary snacks / drinks. EZ Show chat discusses with EZ.*Amanda wants to lose weight and hopes that her colonoscopy will propel her to success.*The virtues of Hamburger Helper.*Amanda's titties are likely to have a strange shape if she loses the weight.*EZ is going to break is one-mile time!Sponsors:Oakland Auto Detail, Berlin Raceway, Adam Casari Realty Impact Power Sports, Frank Fuss / My Policy Shop Insurance, Kings Room Barbershop, Shoreliners Striping, Ervines Auto Repair Grand Rapids Hybrid & EV, TC Paintball, Dump-A-Haulics, Kuiper Tree CareInterested in advertising? Email eric@ericzaneshow.com and let me design a marketing plan for you.Contact: Shoreliners Striping inbox eric@ericzaneshow.comDiscord LinkEZSP TikTokSubscribe to my YouTube channelHire me on Cameo!Tshirts available herePlease subscribe, rate & write a review on Apple Podcastspatreon.com/ericzaneInstagram: ericzaneshowTwitterSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-eric-zane-show-podcast/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Reposted from Let It Rip: The Bear 'Cast, which you can find and subscribe to at: ⁠podcastica.com/podcast/let-it-rip-the-bear-cast⁠ --- We spoke about all things The Bear, digressed into a little mustard chat and some listener feedback. We still don't know about the Shapiro-verse, but we're pretty sure it's not Mamburger Helpfler. Articles we discussed… ⁠https://slate.com/culture/2025/07/the-bear-season-4-episode-4-worms-sydney-ayo-edebiri.html⁠ ⁠https://chicago.eater.com/2023/7/7/23787110/the-bear-season-2-one-off-hospitality-donnie-madia-blackbird⁠ What we cooked…Nothing! But we spoke about butter and chicken. All the music from The Bear can be found on ⁠TuneFind⁠. Music is ⁠Jump to the Top⁠ and ⁠Grizzly⁠ by Leva. Podcast artwork by the amazing Randy Stevenson. Next up: we're going to make Hamburger Helper and close out Season Four. Help! You can email or send a voice message to ⁠talk@podcastica.com⁠ Or check out our Facebook group, where we put up comment posts for each episode, at⁠ facebook.com/groups/podcastica⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Like the box mix but 100 times better https://mealprepmanual.com/hamburger-helper/

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Imagine a weeknight dinner that comes together in one pot, feels like a warm hug from the past, and still feels doable after a long day...If you're craving real comfort but feel short on time (and energy), this episode is your shortcut to cozy, crowd-pleasing pasta dishes that don't require juggling pots and pans or stressing over complicated steps. By the end of this episode, you'll learn how to: Reimagine classics like Hamburger Helper and SpaghettiOs. made with rich, caramelized tomato flavor and pantry staplesWhip up a no-cook pasta sauce that's fresh, herbaceous, and surprisingly simpleMake golden, crispy pan-fried gnocchi tossed with greens and feta—think part salad, part indulgent crispinessHit play now to discover your next weeknight dinner winner—without dirtying a sink full of dishes!***Links Homemade hamburger helper from Salt and LavenderOne pot homemade O's by Ree Drummond from Food NetworkPasta e ceci by Breana Lai Killeen for Food & WineHetty Lui McKinnon's crispy gnocchi with spinach and feta for NYT Cooking (unlocked)One pan creamy dill tortellini by Kristina Razon for The KitchenChicken Alfredo by the Daily Gourmet for All RecipesPasta with no-cook tomato sauce by Chandra Ram for Food & WineLemony hummus pasta by Christian Reynoso for NYT Cooking***Got a cooking question? Leave us a message on our hotline at: 323-452-9084For more recipes and cooking inspiration, sign up for our Substack here. You can also now find us on YouTube. Order Sonya's cookbook Braids for more Food Friends recipes!We love hearing from you — follow us on Instagram @foodfriendspod, or drop us a line at foodfriendspod@gmail.com!

Nerd Rage Radio Episode 493: Hamburger Helper NERD WEEKS Thunderbolts https://youtu.be/hUUszE29jS0 Magic The Gathering https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/magic-the-gathering-film-tv-universe-1236129132/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3sJvl4DItXyx1k8qTxYqjueozSaGimwdSZAZqAbxhk_9LzUfiCTk0_faw_aem_z19SgLP7XfK1L8jdGzTgPA Haslab https://youtu.be/yoHhGjpFhXU Follow NERD RAGE RADIO https://linktr.ee/Nerdrageradio?utm_source=linktree_profile_share<sid=381057fc-8547-43e4-a4a6-a77597494dcc SUPPORT US ON PATREON & GET TONS OF BONUS CONTENT!!! https://www.patreon.com/Nerdrageradio FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA Facebook.com/nerdrageradiopodcast Instagram @nerdrageradioig Twitter @nerdragecast WRITE IN TO THE SHOW Email: nerdrageradiomail@gmail.com

This week, Drewby and Yergy head to Dallas, Texas, to discuss the case of Jabraylon Bables, an adorable toddler who was killed by her mother's felon boyfriend, Carnelus Simmons. One evening while Carnelus was allegedly making Hamburger Helper, Jabraylon suffered 3rd degree scaling burns to 30% of his body. Carlneus claimed this was an accident, but when little Jabraylon succumbed to his injuries, the medical examiner determined that the toddler was intentionally submerged into a pot of boiling water. 

Marketing is a serious business. Even when it's silly.See, you still want your silly, funny content to be well planned, well-executed, and well distributed. In this episode, we're talking about how to take your sillies seriously.That's one of the marketing lessons we're taking from Hamburger Helper's Watch the Stove Mixtape. With the help of our special guest, HiBob CMO Sarah Reynolds, we also talk about how to run little content experiments, listening to your customers, and doubling down on your big wins.About our guest, Sarah ReynoldsSarah Reynolds (they/them) is Chief Marketing Officer at HiBob. An openly non-binary executive, Sarah writes widely about diversity and inclusion, pay equity, the future of work, and the intersection of bias, ethics, and technology. They love spicy food, and can frequently be found in their garden tending to their many varieties of hot chili pepper plants.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Hamburger Helper:Take your sillies seriously. If you're going to make funny or silly content, it should still be well planned and executed. Otherwise it can come off as cringey and become something you're not proud of. Ian says, “ [Hamburger Helper] did take the art part of [the mixtape] seriously. And that's when the music is actually good. If it was a stupid a** song that sounded bad, it would not have gone viral. It wouldn't have been popular.”Run little content experiments. Before you go through all the trouble of building out a campaign, tease the idea to your audience and see what catches. Ian says, “ I love the little cheap or free experiments that you can run by just throwing the tweet out there, putting it in an article, putting it in your newsletter, teasing something. So few people tease stuff because they're worried that if they don't do it, that somehow this is going to like disappoint some corporate overlords. But if you tease something and nobody ever asks you about it ever again, you probably shouldn't have made it in the first place. If you tease something and you don't do it and people ask you about it, then you have more reason to go make the thing.” Hamburger Helper's mascot, Lefty, tweeted about dropping a mixtape and it was the tweet that got the most engagement. So when their marketing team was tasked with doing something unique and different, they knew it was time to make the mixtape.Listen to your customers. If you tease your content ideas and you get lots of engagement, make the content. Give the people what they want. Sarah says, “ The original idea for [the mixtape] was a tweet from multiple years before the mixtape dropped where Lefty made a joke about releasing a mixtape and suddenly it was their most liked tweet of all time. And then subsequently over the intervening years, would make occasional jokes about the mixtapes almost ready and like the customers, the fans are like, ‘Yes, do it. I dare you.' And I mean at that point, you got years of data saying customers want this, right? Is it our core business? No, but let's see what happens if we give it to them.”If you have a big win, make a sequel. Or even a series. Like Hamburger Helper should have made a second or even third mixtape because this one did so well. Ian says, “ Once you have a hit, just keep winning.  It's so hard in the marketing world to ever give anybody something that they love. And once you do it, you just gotta keep going with it.  I think my biggest takeaway is once you find something good, build it into a series.”Quotes*"My first focus was inclusivity and accessibility. Let's make sure that the way that we represent ourselves is really holding true to our corporate values that focus on DEIB, that really speaks to every single person that we want to. Let's make sure that we look at things like color contrast. Let's make sure that we look at things like the typography that we're using and the brand styling that we're using, and we're making it so that it's accessible to all of the people that we want to reach, not just because my queer, disabled, non binary a** told you to do so, but because this is genuinely what we believe as a brand, and this is what we want to put out into the world, and this is what we want people to know about us, we want to lead in this space. So does that come with a very clear, direct ROI number? No, it doesn't. It comes with doing the right thing and being different and making sure that we're prioritizing the things that really matter to us and to our community and to our audience. We're being something for someone in a way that maybe not every brand in this space is thinking about.”Time Stamps[0:55] Meet Sarah Reynolds, CMO at HiBob[1:16] The Origin of the 'Watch the Stove' Mixtape[4:03] HiBob: Revolutionizing HR Tech[5:44] Creating the ‘Watch the Stove' Mixtape: From Idea to Execution[11:12] The Impact and Legacy of 'Watch the Stove'[33:00] Risks and Rewards in Marketing[36:18] The Power of Listening to Customers[43:31] Embracing Authenticity in Marketing[45:28] Content That Provides Value[49:43] Balancing Data and Vibes[54:55] Final Thoughts and PlugsLinksConnect with Sarah on LinkedInLearn more about HiBobAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. In today's episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

This week Daniel and El Cucuy catch you up on this past week. Rich Davis has become known at school as the guy from Have Kids, They Said, a smutty and unapologetic podcast. This has led to side-eyes and long stares, but Rich seems to embrace the attention. Some believe he promotes the show more than necessary, despite its explicit content being unsuitable for a school environment. Sirius XM pushes Have Kids harder than Rich's other projects, likely because people crave unfiltered content. Rich is at his most raw and authentic on this show, blending personal stories with his edgy humor. His message? Growth comes from discomfort, and kids need to learn resilience—no more participation trophies! Covino and Rich (CNR) aren't as explicit as they used to be, especially compared to their earlier content or their Patreon shows. Rich seems more image-conscious now, possibly due to parallels with Fox Sports or a desire to maintain a polished brand. While older CNR episodes felt more raw and unfiltered, their current Patreon content feels toned down. However, Rich's other show, Have Kids, They Said, remains edgier despite being free. The shift may stem from repeated conversations or adapting to a broader audience, but fans note the change in energy and style compared to their early days. Elon Musk jokes, stadium etiquette, and social media quirks collide in this lively discussion. The hosts humorously debate Elon's hair plugs and achievements, before diving into stadium do's and don'ts: respect the home team, keep your jersey subtle, and act like a polite guest to avoid trouble. They shift to social media, questioning the trend of creating pages for pets and possessions. While one admits to making a page for their dog, they later felt it was unnecessary, pondering if others truly care about such posts. It's a mix of humor, reflection, and relatable musings about modern culture. People follow trends and share quirky things like car pages for fun. Lisa says if it makes you happy, go for it, and I agree. We also reminisced about growing up, frying everything from spam to tortillas because it was cheap and practical. Funny how food connects us—like George Lopez's jokes about frying. I even made my mom's green salsa for the first time; it was so easy and delicious. Growing up, my family made do with affordable staples like beans, potatoes, and bologna, adapting to make ends meet. Creativity was key, and those memories stick with me. Hawaii treasures Spam, using it in various dishes. Inspired, I got creative with it—fry it right, and it's nostalgic, cheap, and delicious. It's comfort food like baloney, Sloppy Joes, or Hamburger Helper. Speaking of comfort, I love Jiffy Corn Muffins with KFC honey packets for a Marie Callender's vibe. Add chili sauce, and life's complete. Groceries remind me: balance healthy snacks with indulgence. Random thought—famous people like Helen Keller (blind and deaf) inspire reflection. Pop culture? Bow Wow grew up, Fat Joe stayed “Joe.” Names evolve, just like tastes and trends. It's all about staying true to roots while adapting. Let us know if you're getting our Patreon notifications! Some people aren't, and we're trying to fix it. For example, Lewis wasn't getting ours, though he sees others like Yannis Pappas. That's why we sent messages on Instagram—not to stalk you, but to check in with regulars. If you're missing notifications, please tell us. We appreciate your support! --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/aftershowbl/support

Swanner and Judd talk about: British Baking Contest; It's Florida Man; Rudolph; Santa Claus is Coming to Town; Elf; Hamburger Helper; Colonoscopy; St Denis Medical; and nothing else! Left Click To Listen, Right Click Here To Download

Look... sometimes as a parent you gotta make choices

Don't crap on Hamburger Helper. Sports Equinox night did not treat New York well. Blazers understand the assignment and lost to Kings. Ravens acquire receiver for Super Bowl push.

Don't crap on Hamburger Helper. Sports equinox night did not treat New York well. Blazers lose and maybe understand the assignment. Ravens get a wide receiver. Dan Lanning's comments on Michigan. Anthony Richardson benched. Worst Day on the Web: faking pictures that look like something else. Joe Mazzulla is a little weird. NFL 3up 3down. Who is the Heisman favorite? Big Ten tiebreaker. Baby got Back x Hallelujah.

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

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

This week, we talked about fried chicken, Family Feud, Hamburger Helper, The Franchise, Big Mac Hats, Nintendo Alarmo, G.I. Joe/Transformers Sgt. Slaughter Tank collab, the QoftheW, and more!   Salty Merch: https://www.teepublic.com/user/saltylanguagepods Our Patreon: Patreon.com/saltylanguage   Subscribe / rate / review us on Apple Podcasts!   Links: 1. Big Mac hat https://www.reddit.com/r/vintageads/comments/11f2u65/the_big_mac_hat_mcdonalds_translite_sign_1984/ 2. Nintendo Alarmo https://www.nintendo.com/us/whatsnew/make-waking-up-fun-with-nintendo-sound-clock-alarmo-available-now/ 3. G.I. Joe/Transformers Sgt. Slaughter Tank collab https://www.hasbropulse.com/product/transformers-collaborative-gi-joe-x-transformers-autobot-kup-triple-t/F99415L00?srsltid=AfmBOopxGyHVoNBlPfIMTl2e4MqMa1hpphdA35NIYMBibjUJfw1yO6wx QoftheW: What's something special you only bring out when guests are over?   Visit us at: saltylanguage.com Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/salty-language/id454587072?mt=2 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3GnINOQglJq1jedh36ZjGC iHeart Radio: http://www.iheart.com/show/263-Salty-Language/ Google Play Music: https://play.google.com/music/listen#/ps/Ixozhhniffkdkgfp33brnqolvte Tony's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@allthebeers Bryan's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@IFinallyPlayed https://www.tiktok.com/@saltylanguage facebook.com/saltylanguage @salty_language / saltylanguage@gmail.com http://salty.libsyn.com/webpage  / http://www.youtube.com/user/SaltyLanguagePod Instagram/Threads: SaltyLanguage Reddit: r/saltylanguage Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/salty-language tangentboundnetwork.com Share with your friends!

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