Podcast appearances and mentions of Stephanie Hansen

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 10, 2026 20:33

My guest is Kurt Johnson Co-author of The Moon Tavern, A Culinary Love Story With Recipes. The Moon Tavern takes the reader on a romantic and culinary journey through the Islands of Croatia, where dark family secrets are revealed, quirky friends and relatives are found, and love is discovered.Vesna, or Ves, is a cookbook writer from Minneapolis who travels to the remote, exotic island of Lastovo off Croatia's Mediterranean coast to reconnect with her biological grandmother. She'd been adopted as a young child after her parents died in the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s. Ves is also fleeing a frayed relationship with her live-in partner, Reed.In Lastovo, she meets Dinko, a single, handsome, and wealthy vineyard owner, and his cute daughter Mia. With his help with the translation, Ves discovers her biological family's history and the dark secrets of what happened during the war. Romance, travel, and cooking ensue. She ultimately learns what matters most to her: simplicity in life, closeness with family, and someone to share love with. And, of course, food!Stephanie [00:00:00]:Hello, everybody, and welcome to Dishing with Stephanie's Dish, the podcast where we talk to people in the food space and other spaces. All the spaces of all the fun things. Kurt is my spouse, Kurt Johnson, and also the co author of the Moon Tavern, a culinary romance with recipes. It is a fiction book that is available on your bookshelf now. Welcome to the podcast, Kurt.Kurt Johnson [00:00:22]:Hi, thanks for having me.Stephanie [00:00:24]:Thanks for having us. The idea that we should work on a book together. I am, as many of you listening know, a cookbook writer and my husband is a fiction writer. And somewhere along the way, we decided that maybe it would be good to collaborate together. Kurt, was it you or me that had the idea first? I think it was you.Kurt Johnson [00:00:42]:Yeah, probably. I was kind of done with my past book writing about Las Vegas and looking for something different. And we'd been traveling a lot, so going to Croatia, going to Italy, going out west, going to Turkey. So I wanted to incorporate travel with a novel, and I also wanted to incorporate food. And so I thought this would be a lot of fun. Since we're traveling together, we have those shared experiences and you have the food experience and the food writing experience. So I thought it'd be a fun collaboration. And I've always liked the idea of love stories.Kurt Johnson [00:01:18]:Even my thriller books in Las Vegas had kind of a love story element. And it adds a dimension to a novel that, I don't know, makes it cohesive, makes it pull together in an emotional arc that's kind of fulfilling in the end.Stephanie [00:01:33]:Do you think you're a romantic at heart, or what is it about romances that are fun to write for you?Kurt Johnson [00:01:39]:Maybe I'm a romance at heart. I may be more stoic than that, though. I just. I like the idea of seeing people get together, seeing people enjoy the same interests and finding people that can fall in love. Of course, that's always the fun part. The hard part is once you get married and move on from there and have to deal with kids and daily life and work and all the other things that go with living life. And that's not that much fun to write.Stephanie [00:02:07]:Yeah, exactly. We as a couple, I think I can speak for me and you maybe on this one. We've always had great experiences traveling. We are good traveling companions. We like the spirit of adventure. Did you know that Croatia would be the spot for the first fiction endeavor?Kurt Johnson [00:02:24]:Yeah, that was a given since we'd been there five times and four times running a sailboat and visiting the islands. And as you know, Stephanie, I'm just enamored with those islands, I think they're so beautiful. And there was one island we discovered out there, Lastovo, which is the furthest island out. So a lot of the sailors and tourists just never get there. They stay closer to shore. So, you know, going out there the first time, this beautiful bay of Zachlopedia, where, you know, it's a, it's a protective cove which is beautiful turquoise water. And then taking the dinghy in, and then you walk up this path, I think it's about a two mile hike. And then you go over this ridge and this 16th, 15th century town opens up.Kurt Johnson [00:03:10]:You know, at one point maybe it had 10,000 residents. And, and it, it, when we first saw it, I don't know, 10, 15 years ago, it was abandoned. So it was a ghost town of 15th century buildings and churches and apartments in this beautiful valley of lush green foliage. So that's very picturesque. We had an incredible meal there of just simple anchovies and blitfa. And for you, for you people out there that don't know, blitfa is ubiquitous in Croatia. And it's, it's just spring potatoes with Swiss chard, but it's served with everything.Stephanie [00:03:52]:It is served with everything. And they sometimes have spinach, sometimes have like another type of green, but it's sort of like the potatoes are cooked till they're pretty soft, and then it's kind of mashed in a little bit. So it's not fully a mashed potato and it's not fully a roasted potato. It's sort of a combination of both. But it is good.Kurt Johnson [00:04:12]:Yeah, so, yeah, that's so, you know, it seemed such an exotic place, the island of Lastovo in Croatia, that it was a natural to place it there.Stephanie [00:04:23]:Can you tell a little bit of just an introduction of the story, like what people will find when they crack open the book?Kurt Johnson [00:04:30]:Sure. It's about Vesna, who is. Has a breakup with her live in boyfriend, and they'd had a restaurant. She was a chef, a cookbook authority, and had a restaurant, not unlike my dear wife Stephanie. And she has a breakup and she leaves Minneapolis to go to Croatia to uncover her. Her heritage. She had been adopted from Croatia, specifically Dubrovnik, when her parents died in the Serb bombing of Dubrovnik in 1991. So she was adopted out of there and raised in Minnesota.Kurt Johnson [00:05:05]:So then she goes to Croatia and rediscovers her dark family secrets and meets Dinko Radek, who is a winery owner, and, you know, romance ensues. But she has a life still back in Minneapolis that she has to go back to and resolve.Stephanie [00:05:24]:When we talked about putting this first concept together, you know, I see the world through food. Like, literally everything in sort of my life is framed by a meal, an experience, just the way that I see the world. It's always around food, celebrations. And so did you know that that would work for this Croatia book? Because I didn't. When you first brought it up, I was like, I can't be a Croatian grandma here. And writing recipes about what at the time I perceived as, like, dumplings.Kurt Johnson [00:05:53]:Yeah, I wasn't sure either, frankly. You know, so each chapter, there's 25 chapters, and each chapter in it has a description of cooking. And it's all Croatia cooking, Croatia recipes. You know, all food we at over the years where we were there. And then the idea of tagging on recipes was just kind of bringing it home. Like, here's the Croatia experience. Now here's how Stephanie would bring that back to the real world, which is here in the United States.Stephanie [00:06:21]:We have talked about doing a series of books. What is it about this genre that you think lends itself to other titles and other characters?Kurt Johnson [00:06:29]:Well, you know, it's an adventure book on one level, and there's always new places to visit. So the next book is based in Panza, Italy, where we've been a couple times. And it's this beautiful island off the coast of Italy in the Mediterranean. And, you know, Italian food. You go to Italy and what you remember is the pizza in Naples or the. The pasta in Rome and. And the busteca up in the hills. So, you know, a way to experience a place is.Kurt Johnson [00:07:04]:Is through food. And I like writing about new settings. You know, it. It's not as interesting writing about Minnesota,Stephanie [00:07:11]:but you've written a lot about Las Vegas. You've had how many books about Las Vegas? Three.Kurt Johnson [00:07:16]:Yeah, three. You know, two of the. Of kind of a thriller in. Two thrillers in a series, and then a book about RVing that ends up in. In Las Vegas. And Las Vegas is a interesting place, and I lived there for five years running nightclubs and restaurants. And so two of the books are Underbelly of Las Vegas, which I was a part of in the nightclub scene back in the late 80s. So that's just flat out fun to write about.Kurt Johnson [00:07:39]:And Las Vegas is such a weirdo place that it's fun to bring that to life.Stephanie [00:07:45]:It's interesting to hear you talk about that. The way you choose your stories is about place, because the first book, the Barrens, that you wrote with our Daughter Ellie, inspired by her experiences as a canoe camper in the tundra. That's also based in Place, too. Place is sort of what starts you on these journeys. It seems like, yeah, you know something,Kurt Johnson [00:08:07]:you threw me a curveball because I never really thought about it. But you're exactly right.Stephanie [00:08:12]:All.Kurt Johnson [00:08:12]:All these books start off with a setting, with a place, and then, you know, the plots revolve around. Around that. And there's just so many. So many different. There's a finite number of, really, plots you can choose from. It's kind of like a piano keyboard has all the. The notes that you want to make up a. A music piece the same way with plot structures.Kurt Johnson [00:08:34]:And so to take it to the next level, you really have to search out characters, and the characters are in a setting, so those two are inexplicably, Inextricably. Inextricably linked. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, the two go hand in hand. So character and place really can set a novel apart.Stephanie [00:08:59]:Can you think of other books that you've written or. Excuse me. No, not that you've written, that you've read. Where Place sort of started you off on this adventure?Kurt Johnson [00:09:07]:Yeah, probably. I really love Beautiful Ruins.Stephanie [00:09:11]:Jess Walters.Kurt Johnson [00:09:13]:Walters, yeah. And that starts off in Italy, kind of near Cinque de Terre. And it's kind of the poor version of Cinque de Terre, where the tourists don't go. And it was such a fascinating story. And then they bring that all back to Hollywood in America, and it just works so well. But what really captures your imagination is the description of this little seaside community. Before the whole plot takes over, IStephanie [00:09:41]:kind of think about that book. The Embarrassment of Mangoes.Kurt Johnson [00:09:44]:Yeah.Stephanie [00:09:44]:When you and I first started sailing and going on these adventures, we read that book. It was about a couple that buys a boat and sails through the Caribbean, and she is discovering spices and fruits and vegetables and things that she's never eaten before. And I just loved that book. It was really what got me into sailing and thinking about how to make that our life and whether or not, you know, we could buy a boat and do that. And that boat really had a huge setting of place. Can you think of, like. I don't know. When I think of other books, there's very few books that I think about character first.Stephanie [00:10:19]:I usually always think about the place. Maybe that's just something.Kurt Johnson [00:10:22]:Or the plot, too. Yeah, they're all just linked together. And you don't think about. Well, you were saying you don't think about character as much.Stephanie [00:10:31]:Not really.Kurt Johnson [00:10:32]:Yeah, it's funny. I think, you know, the best books people say are character driven, but they're inexplicable. What's the word again?Stephanie [00:10:41]:Inextricably.Kurt Johnson [00:10:43]:Inextricably. Trouble with that. Linked. So, you know, you pick a place and you pick a plot and then you build these characters. The characters have to build around that plot and so they kind of naturally flow. And, and I, I think they, if they're well written and honest, you shouldn't think of them. You know, they're interesting characters and you'll say, you know, this is Rabbit and the Rabbit series. And you'll know, but you won't say, oh, that's just a great character.Kurt Johnson [00:11:10]:I, I, I don't know that I certainly, you know, I'm probably deep into it and I look at the craft a lot so I can see where somebody has really spent some time to develop an honest character or where, you know, the narrative voice comes through and, and a character comes to life through this first person narrative voice. So I see that a lot moreStephanie [00:11:30]:people have a real, like they can't believe you can write a book. Like the idea of the literal act of sitting down and writing and how that works. People fantasize about writing it, but then very few people do. What was it that got you over the hump from thinking about writing it to actually sitting down and doing it?Kurt Johnson [00:11:47]:Well, selling our business and all of a sudden being able to free up time. Because for me, novel writing and I think was it Chrisham talked about, you know, writing at 5 in the morning before he goes to work at 7. I just couldn't do that. You know, I just, I'm very focused on one thing and, and so I needed to free up my time from work in order to get going. And then it was, can you put together, you know, a thousand or fifteen hundred words every day so that it links up into a novel and have that, not only that, that discipline, but also have the creative juices to produce scenes almost every day because, you know, like a, a good novel is created from 50 scenes. So I went from, you know, writing a memoir that I probably won't publish just to see if I can get, you know, a thousand words every day and put this together to then writing Las Vegas turnaround. And there I, I, I really just copied a lot of plot structures that I saw that I liked. And so it was easier for me to set up main characters, set up tertiary characters, subplots, because I had a blueprint from somebody else.Kurt Johnson [00:12:56]:And then, and then once, you know, you Keep writing. You get muscle memory for it and it becomes more, more natural and actually more fun because it becomes more organic. You'll follow characters through a town and they'll meet somebody and all of a sudden that person becomes a character in their universe and they say something and all of a sudden that takes off and you have to follow it. Now, you know, the woman's gonna fall in love with a guy at the end. But getting there is the fun part. And now I can do that a lot more organically.Stephanie [00:13:27]:If you are talking to any aspiring novel writers, what kind of advice do you have for them to get started?Kurt Johnson [00:13:34]:Well, you know, you gotta lower your expectations just because publishing is so hard, you know.Stephanie [00:13:39]:Can you elaborate on that?Kurt Johnson [00:13:41]:Well, you know, there's maybe two or three or 400 agents, most of them in New York City and they're all trying to make a buck. And it's hard to make a buck off a debut writer. It helps if you're MFA and you're writing in a genre because, you know, let's say 70% of the books are read by women and 70% of those are romances. And then men, the other 30%, probably 80% of what they read are, you know, thrillers or mysteries. So if you can pick a genre, that always helps. But yeah, it, you have to be more thoughtful about it. And I think, I think so many first time writers, you know, once they get the discipline and put, put the, the words on a page, they write that first personal novel, you know, and I wrote my memoir and it's, it's really 90% of those, they, you know, people have the, they aspire for the great American novel and it's too personal, it's too close to home. They can't break out from the reality of their lives to have fun with the plot and make things happen.Kurt Johnson [00:14:45]:So a lot of times these books, nothing happens. They're deeply emotional books where nothing happens and they're, they're excruciatingly boring. So you gotta get past that phase and then you gotta look at it as a, as a craft. And, you know, a big chunk of it's art, of course, whatever you wanna call that, you know, shedding light on the human experience. But a big chunk is craft. And I don't think you can get to the craft for most people in that first book. So you gotta keep writing, you know, and realize that the first couple books may not get published. So, you know, the barons got published.Kurt Johnson [00:15:21]:That was one, two, that was my third, fourth book, you know, and the, and two, the, the first three, two of them were duds that will never be published.Stephanie [00:15:31]:Yeah. Yeah. All right, well, it's good to chat with you about the book. We are in the marketing process of the book. I feel like books come in three waves. One is the idea that you're thinking about it. The second, the actual writing of it. And then the third is actual the marketing of it.Stephanie [00:15:48]:What do you think's the hardest part?Kurt Johnson [00:15:49]:Well, I mean, it's. The hardest part's finding an agent and finding a publisher. Then if you self publish, the hardest part is marketing. And at least it is for me because writing is so natural and fun for me. But I think for most people, you know, the writing's a hard part. And, and you know, like the Minnesota writer o', Brien, he hates writing, so he forces himself. Tim o'. Brien.Kurt Johnson [00:16:12]:So he forces himself to get those books out there. So probably that's the hardest part for him.Stephanie [00:16:17]:We had, I had a cookbook, two cookbooks out and I had a publisher, but they didn't publish this book because it was a fiction book. I think some people just assume like, oh, well, they've already had books out, but we self published this book. Why did we make that decision from your standpoint?Kurt Johnson [00:16:33]:Well, we couldn't get an A list agent or a New York publisher. There's just not, it comes off as almost a debut book and it's hard for them to make any money. So if you can't get an A lister, then you're, you know, stuck with boutique publishing companies and others and, and they just don't support the marketing of your book. And I've self published books in the past, so I know how to do it. I know how to put a professional product out there. And, and we can, you know, both of us are marketers and, and Stephanie has a large platform, so we can do a lot of our own marketing or, or outsource it, you know, but still we retain most of the profits. So when we do the marketing, we can reinvested or keep those profits.Stephanie [00:17:17]:Yeah, I, when you say profits, it sounds like there's a lot there. I'd like to, I mean, I mean,Kurt Johnson [00:17:22]:maybe, maybe we broke it even at this point, but then now we're looking at a marketing PR firm that's going to set us back another $5,000. But you know, if, if these books succeed and somebody makes a lot of money, it's the, it's the third, you know, book that's going to put them over the top. It's not the first.Stephanie [00:17:40]:I have this idea too that we're going to write these books and then sooner or later someone's going to turn them into a T series because it's going to be like the White Lotus where each season is a different location and a different cast of characters, but sort of the general premise is sort of the same.Kurt Johnson [00:17:56]:I hope so. You know, I hope an A list agent comes along and, and frees us from our servitude or whatever. And, but, and yeah, you know, there's, there's plenty of stories of self published authors that, that get deals or even boutique. Boutique authors that get deals. So you know, we can dream.Stephanie [00:18:16]:One thing that I'd like the listener to hear is what their part is in this because we've. I was leaving the coffee shop today. We're in Ely. That is the vacation backgrounds. But.Kurt Johnson [00:18:25]:Right.Stephanie [00:18:25]:I was leaving the coffee shop today and a woman stopped me and said, Stephanie, I had the opportunity to read the Moon Tavern. It's so good. I loved it so much. And she's telling me about it and telling her friend. And I have that experience a lot where people have really, really enjoyed this book. And I just want the listener to know that leaving reviews on Goodreads or Amazon or Barnes and Noble or wherever you bought the book or if you can' find a book, asking for it at your local bookseller. Cause they can always order it when you're self published. The more buzz you can create about these books, the better chance that someone will hear about it, someone will buy it and eventually a publisher, if they hear about a book and they like it, then they may pick it up.Stephanie [00:19:03]:So I think if you like what you're reading and you want to see more of this type of work in the world and books that you like, that's something that you can do to help us out.Kurt Johnson [00:19:13]:Yes, a 5 on Amazon or top rating on any other Goodreads is good too. Yeah, it's, it's all, it's all good. So yes, those, those help a lot. Just because the more reviews you can get and the more five star reviews you get, the more people will pick up the book, the more buzz you'll get. So yeah, so it helps us immeasurably.Stephanie [00:19:35]:Another thing before we wrap up here, someone asked me about the Cover of the book. Do you want to talk about how you picked the artwork?Kurt Johnson [00:19:41]:Yeah, I was pretty much online Xee Reider, she's in St. Paul and she's a muralist mostly. And I really liked the look that she had. So I reached out to her, and she did the original artwork, and then each chapter ends with a recipe, and there's a pen and ink drawing, and she did those. And I really think that adds another level to the book. And I love a beautiful cover.Stephanie [00:20:10]:Yeah, the cover is really nice. She did a great job. All right, well, that is it for this episode of the podcast. Just want to chat with you and give people a little background. Thanks for being a guest. Stephanie Hansen's @StephaniesDish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Dishing With Stephanies Dish

success water olympic games management modern beef invite hansen mineral nrc stephanie hansen

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 10, 2026 20:33

My guest is Kurt Johnson Co-author of The Moon Tavern, A Culinary Love Story With Recipes. The Moon Tavern takes the reader on a romantic and culinary journey through the Islands of Croatia, where dark family secrets are revealed, quirky friends and relatives are found, and love is discovered.Vesna, or Ves, is a cookbook writer from Minneapolis who travels to the remote, exotic island of Lastovo off Croatia's Mediterranean coast to reconnect with her biological grandmother. She'd been adopted as a young child after her parents died in the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s. Ves is also fleeing a frayed relationship with her live-in partner, Reed.In Lastovo, she meets Dinko, a single, handsome, and wealthy vineyard owner, and his cute daughter Mia. With his help with the translation, Ves discovers her biological family's history and the dark secrets of what happened during the war. Romance, travel, and cooking ensue. She ultimately learns what matters most to her: simplicity in life, closeness with family, and someone to share love with. And, of course, food!Stephanie [00:00:00]:Hello, everybody, and welcome to Dishing with Stephanie's Dish, the podcast where we talk to people in the food space and other spaces. All the spaces of all the fun things. Kurt is my spouse, Kurt Johnson, and also the co author of the Moon Tavern, a culinary romance with recipes. It is a fiction book that is available on your bookshelf now. Welcome to the podcast, Kurt.Kurt Johnson [00:00:22]:Hi, thanks for having me.Stephanie [00:00:24]:Thanks for having us. The idea that we should work on a book together. I am, as many of you listening know, a cookbook writer and my husband is a fiction writer. And somewhere along the way, we decided that maybe it would be good to collaborate together. Kurt, was it you or me that had the idea first? I think it was you.Kurt Johnson [00:00:42]:Yeah, probably. I was kind of done with my past book writing about Las Vegas and looking for something different. And we'd been traveling a lot, so going to Croatia, going to Italy, going out west, going to Turkey. So I wanted to incorporate travel with a novel, and I also wanted to incorporate food. And so I thought this would be a lot of fun. Since we're traveling together, we have those shared experiences and you have the food experience and the food writing experience. So I thought it'd be a fun collaboration. And I've always liked the idea of love stories.Kurt Johnson [00:01:18]:Even my thriller books in Las Vegas had kind of a love story element. And it adds a dimension to a novel that, I don't know, makes it cohesive, makes it pull together in an emotional arc that's kind of fulfilling in the end.Stephanie [00:01:33]:Do you think you're a romantic at heart, or what is it about romances that are fun to write for you?Kurt Johnson [00:01:39]:Maybe I'm a romance at heart. I may be more stoic than that, though. I just. I like the idea of seeing people get together, seeing people enjoy the same interests and finding people that can fall in love. Of course, that's always the fun part. The hard part is once you get married and move on from there and have to deal with kids and daily life and work and all the other things that go with living life. And that's not that much fun to write.Stephanie [00:02:07]:Yeah, exactly. We as a couple, I think I can speak for me and you maybe on this one. We've always had great experiences traveling. We are good traveling companions. We like the spirit of adventure. Did you know that Croatia would be the spot for the first fiction endeavor?Kurt Johnson [00:02:24]:Yeah, that was a given since we'd been there five times and four times running a sailboat and visiting the islands. And as you know, Stephanie, I'm just enamored with those islands, I think they're so beautiful. And there was one island we discovered out there, Lastovo, which is the furthest island out. So a lot of the sailors and tourists just never get there. They stay closer to shore. So, you know, going out there the first time, this beautiful bay of Zachlopedia, where, you know, it's a, it's a protective cove which is beautiful turquoise water. And then taking the dinghy in, and then you walk up this path, I think it's about a two mile hike. And then you go over this ridge and this 16th, 15th century town opens up.Kurt Johnson [00:03:10]:You know, at one point maybe it had 10,000 residents. And, and it, it, when we first saw it, I don't know, 10, 15 years ago, it was abandoned. So it was a ghost town of 15th century buildings and churches and apartments in this beautiful valley of lush green foliage. So that's very picturesque. We had an incredible meal there of just simple anchovies and blitfa. And for you, for you people out there that don't know, blitfa is ubiquitous in Croatia. And it's, it's just spring potatoes with Swiss chard, but it's served with everything.Stephanie [00:03:52]:It is served with everything. And they sometimes have spinach, sometimes have like another type of green, but it's sort of like the potatoes are cooked till they're pretty soft, and then it's kind of mashed in a little bit. So it's not fully a mashed potato and it's not fully a roasted potato. It's sort of a combination of both. But it is good.Kurt Johnson [00:04:12]:Yeah, so, yeah, that's so, you know, it seemed such an exotic place, the island of Lastovo in Croatia, that it was a natural to place it there.Stephanie [00:04:23]:Can you tell a little bit of just an introduction of the story, like what people will find when they crack open the book?Kurt Johnson [00:04:30]:Sure. It's about Vesna, who is. Has a breakup with her live in boyfriend, and they'd had a restaurant. She was a chef, a cookbook authority, and had a restaurant, not unlike my dear wife Stephanie. And she has a breakup and she leaves Minneapolis to go to Croatia to uncover her. Her heritage. She had been adopted from Croatia, specifically Dubrovnik, when her parents died in the Serb bombing of Dubrovnik in 1991. So she was adopted out of there and raised in Minnesota.Kurt Johnson [00:05:05]:So then she goes to Croatia and rediscovers her dark family secrets and meets Dinko Radek, who is a winery owner, and, you know, romance ensues. But she has a life still back in Minneapolis that she has to go back to and resolve.Stephanie [00:05:24]:When we talked about putting this first concept together, you know, I see the world through food. Like, literally everything in sort of my life is framed by a meal, an experience, just the way that I see the world. It's always around food, celebrations. And so did you know that that would work for this Croatia book? Because I didn't. When you first brought it up, I was like, I can't be a Croatian grandma here. And writing recipes about what at the time I perceived as, like, dumplings.Kurt Johnson [00:05:53]:Yeah, I wasn't sure either, frankly. You know, so each chapter, there's 25 chapters, and each chapter in it has a description of cooking. And it's all Croatia cooking, Croatia recipes. You know, all food we at over the years where we were there. And then the idea of tagging on recipes was just kind of bringing it home. Like, here's the Croatia experience. Now here's how Stephanie would bring that back to the real world, which is here in the United States.Stephanie [00:06:21]:We have talked about doing a series of books. What is it about this genre that you think lends itself to other titles and other characters?Kurt Johnson [00:06:29]:Well, you know, it's an adventure book on one level, and there's always new places to visit. So the next book is based in Panza, Italy, where we've been a couple times. And it's this beautiful island off the coast of Italy in the Mediterranean. And, you know, Italian food. You go to Italy and what you remember is the pizza in Naples or the. The pasta in Rome and. And the busteca up in the hills. So, you know, a way to experience a place is.Kurt Johnson [00:07:04]:Is through food. And I like writing about new settings. You know, it. It's not as interesting writing about Minnesota,Stephanie [00:07:11]:but you've written a lot about Las Vegas. You've had how many books about Las Vegas? Three.Kurt Johnson [00:07:16]:Yeah, three. You know, two of the. Of kind of a thriller in. Two thrillers in a series, and then a book about RVing that ends up in. In Las Vegas. And Las Vegas is a interesting place, and I lived there for five years running nightclubs and restaurants. And so two of the books are Underbelly of Las Vegas, which I was a part of in the nightclub scene back in the late 80s. So that's just flat out fun to write about.Kurt Johnson [00:07:39]:And Las Vegas is such a weirdo place that it's fun to bring that to life.Stephanie [00:07:45]:It's interesting to hear you talk about that. The way you choose your stories is about place, because the first book, the Barrens, that you wrote with our Daughter Ellie, inspired by her experiences as a canoe camper in the tundra. That's also based in Place, too. Place is sort of what starts you on these journeys. It seems like, yeah, you know something,Kurt Johnson [00:08:07]:you threw me a curveball because I never really thought about it. But you're exactly right.Stephanie [00:08:12]:All.Kurt Johnson [00:08:12]:All these books start off with a setting, with a place, and then, you know, the plots revolve around. Around that. And there's just so many. So many different. There's a finite number of, really, plots you can choose from. It's kind of like a piano keyboard has all the. The notes that you want to make up a. A music piece the same way with plot structures.Kurt Johnson [00:08:34]:And so to take it to the next level, you really have to search out characters, and the characters are in a setting, so those two are inexplicably, Inextricably. Inextricably linked. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, the two go hand in hand. So character and place really can set a novel apart.Stephanie [00:08:59]:Can you think of other books that you've written or. Excuse me. No, not that you've written, that you've read. Where Place sort of started you off on this adventure?Kurt Johnson [00:09:07]:Yeah, probably. I really love Beautiful Ruins.Stephanie [00:09:11]:Jess Walters.Kurt Johnson [00:09:13]:Walters, yeah. And that starts off in Italy, kind of near Cinque de Terre. And it's kind of the poor version of Cinque de Terre, where the tourists don't go. And it was such a fascinating story. And then they bring that all back to Hollywood in America, and it just works so well. But what really captures your imagination is the description of this little seaside community. Before the whole plot takes over, IStephanie [00:09:41]:kind of think about that book. The Embarrassment of Mangoes.Kurt Johnson [00:09:44]:Yeah.Stephanie [00:09:44]:When you and I first started sailing and going on these adventures, we read that book. It was about a couple that buys a boat and sails through the Caribbean, and she is discovering spices and fruits and vegetables and things that she's never eaten before. And I just loved that book. It was really what got me into sailing and thinking about how to make that our life and whether or not, you know, we could buy a boat and do that. And that boat really had a huge setting of place. Can you think of, like. I don't know. When I think of other books, there's very few books that I think about character first.Stephanie [00:10:19]:I usually always think about the place. Maybe that's just something.Kurt Johnson [00:10:22]:Or the plot, too. Yeah, they're all just linked together. And you don't think about. Well, you were saying you don't think about character as much.Stephanie [00:10:31]:Not really.Kurt Johnson [00:10:32]:Yeah, it's funny. I think, you know, the best books people say are character driven, but they're inexplicable. What's the word again?Stephanie [00:10:41]:Inextricably.Kurt Johnson [00:10:43]:Inextricably. Trouble with that. Linked. So, you know, you pick a place and you pick a plot and then you build these characters. The characters have to build around that plot and so they kind of naturally flow. And, and I, I think they, if they're well written and honest, you shouldn't think of them. You know, they're interesting characters and you'll say, you know, this is Rabbit and the Rabbit series. And you'll know, but you won't say, oh, that's just a great character.Kurt Johnson [00:11:10]:I, I, I don't know that I certainly, you know, I'm probably deep into it and I look at the craft a lot so I can see where somebody has really spent some time to develop an honest character or where, you know, the narrative voice comes through and, and a character comes to life through this first person narrative voice. So I see that a lot moreStephanie [00:11:30]:people have a real, like they can't believe you can write a book. Like the idea of the literal act of sitting down and writing and how that works. People fantasize about writing it, but then very few people do. What was it that got you over the hump from thinking about writing it to actually sitting down and doing it?Kurt Johnson [00:11:47]:Well, selling our business and all of a sudden being able to free up time. Because for me, novel writing and I think was it Chrisham talked about, you know, writing at 5 in the morning before he goes to work at 7. I just couldn't do that. You know, I just, I'm very focused on one thing and, and so I needed to free up my time from work in order to get going. And then it was, can you put together, you know, a thousand or fifteen hundred words every day so that it links up into a novel and have that, not only that, that discipline, but also have the creative juices to produce scenes almost every day because, you know, like a, a good novel is created from 50 scenes. So I went from, you know, writing a memoir that I probably won't publish just to see if I can get, you know, a thousand words every day and put this together to then writing Las Vegas turnaround. And there I, I, I really just copied a lot of plot structures that I saw that I liked. And so it was easier for me to set up main characters, set up tertiary characters, subplots, because I had a blueprint from somebody else.Kurt Johnson [00:12:56]:And then, and then once, you know, you Keep writing. You get muscle memory for it and it becomes more, more natural and actually more fun because it becomes more organic. You'll follow characters through a town and they'll meet somebody and all of a sudden that person becomes a character in their universe and they say something and all of a sudden that takes off and you have to follow it. Now, you know, the woman's gonna fall in love with a guy at the end. But getting there is the fun part. And now I can do that a lot more organically.Stephanie [00:13:27]:If you are talking to any aspiring novel writers, what kind of advice do you have for them to get started?Kurt Johnson [00:13:34]:Well, you know, you gotta lower your expectations just because publishing is so hard, you know.Stephanie [00:13:39]:Can you elaborate on that?Kurt Johnson [00:13:41]:Well, you know, there's maybe two or three or 400 agents, most of them in New York City and they're all trying to make a buck. And it's hard to make a buck off a debut writer. It helps if you're MFA and you're writing in a genre because, you know, let's say 70% of the books are read by women and 70% of those are romances. And then men, the other 30%, probably 80% of what they read are, you know, thrillers or mysteries. So if you can pick a genre, that always helps. But yeah, it, you have to be more thoughtful about it. And I think, I think so many first time writers, you know, once they get the discipline and put, put the, the words on a page, they write that first personal novel, you know, and I wrote my memoir and it's, it's really 90% of those, they, you know, people have the, they aspire for the great American novel and it's too personal, it's too close to home. They can't break out from the reality of their lives to have fun with the plot and make things happen.Kurt Johnson [00:14:45]:So a lot of times these books, nothing happens. They're deeply emotional books where nothing happens and they're, they're excruciatingly boring. So you gotta get past that phase and then you gotta look at it as a, as a craft. And, you know, a big chunk of it's art, of course, whatever you wanna call that, you know, shedding light on the human experience. But a big chunk is craft. And I don't think you can get to the craft for most people in that first book. So you gotta keep writing, you know, and realize that the first couple books may not get published. So, you know, the barons got published.Kurt Johnson [00:15:21]:That was one, two, that was my third, fourth book, you know, and the, and two, the, the first three, two of them were duds that will never be published.Stephanie [00:15:31]:Yeah. Yeah. All right, well, it's good to chat with you about the book. We are in the marketing process of the book. I feel like books come in three waves. One is the idea that you're thinking about it. The second, the actual writing of it. And then the third is actual the marketing of it.Stephanie [00:15:48]:What do you think's the hardest part?Kurt Johnson [00:15:49]:Well, I mean, it's. The hardest part's finding an agent and finding a publisher. Then if you self publish, the hardest part is marketing. And at least it is for me because writing is so natural and fun for me. But I think for most people, you know, the writing's a hard part. And, and you know, like the Minnesota writer o', Brien, he hates writing, so he forces himself. Tim o'. Brien.Kurt Johnson [00:16:12]:So he forces himself to get those books out there. So probably that's the hardest part for him.Stephanie [00:16:17]:We had, I had a cookbook, two cookbooks out and I had a publisher, but they didn't publish this book because it was a fiction book. I think some people just assume like, oh, well, they've already had books out, but we self published this book. Why did we make that decision from your standpoint?Kurt Johnson [00:16:33]:Well, we couldn't get an A list agent or a New York publisher. There's just not, it comes off as almost a debut book and it's hard for them to make any money. So if you can't get an A lister, then you're, you know, stuck with boutique publishing companies and others and, and they just don't support the marketing of your book. And I've self published books in the past, so I know how to do it. I know how to put a professional product out there. And, and we can, you know, both of us are marketers and, and Stephanie has a large platform, so we can do a lot of our own marketing or, or outsource it, you know, but still we retain most of the profits. So when we do the marketing, we can reinvested or keep those profits.Stephanie [00:17:17]:Yeah, I, when you say profits, it sounds like there's a lot there. I'd like to, I mean, I mean,Kurt Johnson [00:17:22]:maybe, maybe we broke it even at this point, but then now we're looking at a marketing PR firm that's going to set us back another $5,000. But you know, if, if these books succeed and somebody makes a lot of money, it's the, it's the third, you know, book that's going to put them over the top. It's not the first.Stephanie [00:17:40]:I have this idea too that we're going to write these books and then sooner or later someone's going to turn them into a T series because it's going to be like the White Lotus where each season is a different location and a different cast of characters, but sort of the general premise is sort of the same.Kurt Johnson [00:17:56]:I hope so. You know, I hope an A list agent comes along and, and frees us from our servitude or whatever. And, but, and yeah, you know, there's, there's plenty of stories of self published authors that, that get deals or even boutique. Boutique authors that get deals. So you know, we can dream.Stephanie [00:18:16]:One thing that I'd like the listener to hear is what their part is in this because we've. I was leaving the coffee shop today. We're in Ely. That is the vacation backgrounds. But.Kurt Johnson [00:18:25]:Right.Stephanie [00:18:25]:I was leaving the coffee shop today and a woman stopped me and said, Stephanie, I had the opportunity to read the Moon Tavern. It's so good. I loved it so much. And she's telling me about it and telling her friend. And I have that experience a lot where people have really, really enjoyed this book. And I just want the listener to know that leaving reviews on Goodreads or Amazon or Barnes and Noble or wherever you bought the book or if you can' find a book, asking for it at your local bookseller. Cause they can always order it when you're self published. The more buzz you can create about these books, the better chance that someone will hear about it, someone will buy it and eventually a publisher, if they hear about a book and they like it, then they may pick it up.Stephanie [00:19:03]:So I think if you like what you're reading and you want to see more of this type of work in the world and books that you like, that's something that you can do to help us out.Kurt Johnson [00:19:13]:Yes, a 5 on Amazon or top rating on any other Goodreads is good too. Yeah, it's, it's all, it's all good. So yes, those, those help a lot. Just because the more reviews you can get and the more five star reviews you get, the more people will pick up the book, the more buzz you'll get. So yeah, so it helps us immeasurably.Stephanie [00:19:35]:Another thing before we wrap up here, someone asked me about the Cover of the book. Do you want to talk about how you picked the artwork?Kurt Johnson [00:19:41]:Yeah, I was pretty much online Xee Reider, she's in St. Paul and she's a muralist mostly. And I really liked the look that she had. So I reached out to her, and she did the original artwork, and then each chapter ends with a recipe, and there's a pen and ink drawing, and she did those. And I really think that adds another level to the book. And I love a beautiful cover.Stephanie [00:20:10]:Yeah, the cover is really nice. She did a great job. All right, well, that is it for this episode of the podcast. Just want to chat with you and give people a little background. Thanks for being a guest. Stephanie Hansen's @StephaniesDish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Trace Mineral Management for the Modern Beef Herd with Dr. Stephanie Hansen

Real Science Exchange

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 7, 2026 45:40

The episode opens with introductions and an overview of the discussion, establishing the critical role trace minerals play in modern beef production (00:00 – 01:35). The conversation frames mineral nutrition not simply as a requirement for preventing deficiencies, but as a strategic management tool that can influence animal performance, health, reproductive success, and profitability throughout the production cycle. Early in the discussion, Dr. Hansen introduces her "Olympic podium" framework for evaluating mineral nutrition programs (01:35 – 06:28). She describes bronze-level nutrition as meeting basic NRC requirements, silver-level nutrition as incorporating regional considerations and mineral antagonists, and gold-level nutrition as fully optimized supplementation tailored to the unique challenges and goals of a specific production system. This framework highlights the difference between simply meeting minimum requirements and strategically maximizing animal performance through precision nutrition. The conversation then examines how dramatic advances in genetics, nutrition, and management have transformed the beef industry (06:28 – 07:42). Today's cattle are capable of growth rates, feed efficiencies, and production outcomes that exceed historical standards, prompting questions about whether traditional mineral recommendations remain adequate for supporting the needs of modern animals. As performance expectations have evolved, mineral nutrition strategies may need to evolve as well. One of the most important discussions in the episode focuses on the balance between zinc and copper supplementation (07:42 – 13:13). Dr. Hansen explains that while zinc frequently delivers benefits at higher inclusion levels due to its involvement in countless biological processes, copper requires a much more cautious approach. The panel discusses how copper availability is heavily influenced by antagonists and how both deficiency and excess can create significant challenges. Rather than relying solely on predetermined mineral ratios, producers are encouraged to evaluate their systems holistically and make decisions based on actual risk factors and mineral availability. A major theme throughout the episode is the impact of mineral antagonists and water quality on trace mineral status (13:13 – 17:18). The discussion highlights sulfur, iron, and molybdenum as some of the most important antagonists affecting mineral absorption and utilization. Water quality often receives less attention than feed ingredients, yet seasonal changes, differences in water sources, and fluctuations in mineral content can substantially influence animal performance. Understanding these variables is essential for developing effective supplementation programs that account for real-world production conditions. The conversation then shifts to reproductive performance and immune health, with particular emphasis on zinc's biological importance (17:18 – 22:14). Often referred to as the "spark of life," zinc plays critical roles in early embryo development, cellular function, tissue repair, and immune response. The panel explains why maintaining adequate zinc status can have far-reaching implications for fertility, calf viability, and overall herd productivity, making it one of the most influential trace minerals in beef cattle nutrition. A particularly timely discussion centers on the growing population of dairy-beef cross calves entering beef production systems (22:14 – 27:57). Dr. Hansen explains that these animals may arrive with mineral profiles that differ substantially from traditional beef calves. While many native beef calves often enter feedlots with copper deficiencies, dairy-beef calves may possess excessively high liver copper concentrations due to different management and supplementation practices. These differences underscore the need for targeted mineral programs rather than blanket recommendations applied across all cattle populations. Beyond these key topics, the panel shares practical management strategies for improving mineral nutrition in commercial beef operations. The discussion explores how mineral supplementation can be viewed as a form of risk mitigation, helping animals better withstand stressors such as transportation, weather fluctuations, health challenges, and inconsistent feed intake. The speakers also emphasize the importance of adjusting supplementation strategies based on antagonists and environmental conditions rather than relying exclusively on fixed formulations. Additional insights focus on improving consistency in cow-calf mineral delivery systems and developing nutrition programs that support long-term herd resilience. The episode concludes with a reminder that modern beef production systems are increasingly diverse and complex. As genetics, management, and production goals continue to evolve, mineral nutrition programs must become more targeted and system-specific. Success depends on understanding the unique challenges within each operation and developing strategies that optimize animal health, reproductive performance, efficiency, and lifetime productivity. Join the Real Science Exchange Please subscribe and share with your industry friends. Invite more people to join us at the Real Science Exchange virtual pub table. Please be sure to register for our upcoming Real Science Lecture Series webinars. Finally, if you want one of our Real Science Exchange t-shirts, screenshot your rating, review, or subscription. Then, email a picture to anh.marketing@balchem.com. Include your size and mailing address. As a result, we'll mail you a shirt.

myTalk Loves Local: Canterbury Park

Weekly Dish on MyTalk

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 20, 2026 8:03

Stephanie March and Stephanie Hansen of The Weekly Dish talk to Jennifer Lauerman, VP of Marketing & Entertainment at Canterbury Park and Tony Perella, Director of Food & Beverage at the track in this episode of myTalk Loves Local. They discuss Tacos & Tequila Tasting Experience happening on June 27th as well as other exciting events at Canterbury Park and more in the Shakopee area.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

director marketing food local loves tacos beverage shakopee canterbury park mytalk stephanie hansen stephanie march weekly dish

Episode 70: Hugh Jackman Rumors, Blake Lively Fallout & Kylie on Netflix

Lori & Julia's Book Club

Play Episode Listen Later May 29, 2026 63:48

We're rooting for John Travolta's new movie Propeller One-Way Night Coach and breaking down the latest drama between Deborra-Lee Furness and Hugh Jackman, including rumors of a tell-all book. We review Kylie Minogue's new Netflix documentary Kylie and ask: do we have Star Wars fatigue? Meanwhile, Michael continues dominating the box office with part two on the way, and we've got an update on T. J. Holmes and Amy Robach. Plus, why Hollywood may be distancing itself from both Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni. We also dive into Royal Family headlines involving Prince Andrew, Prince Harry, and Prince William. On the TV front, we're loving Dutton Ranch on Paramount+ and sharing other must-watch shows. Plus, the latest casting shakeups for The Real Housewives of Rhode Island and The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and Lori's game show advice for Stephanie Hansen.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

S10 E12: Cooking Up a Second Act: Stephanie Hansen's Recipe for Reinvention of Stephanie's Dish

The View In Your Mirror Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later May 28, 2026 59:53

We sit down with Stephanie Hansen – cookbook author, TV host of Taste Buds with Stephanie, and author of the novel The Moon Tavern – to explore what it means to age well, work with purpose, and own your value in midlife and beyond. In this candid conversation, we cover: Perimenopause, menopause, and why they're determined the next generation of women will have better information Stephanie's winding path through radio, entrepreneurship, cookbooks, and fiction How travel and food in Croatia shaped The Moon Tavern Stephanie's core mantra: no one really knows what they're doing – they're just doing it Navigating the emotions of turning 65 You'll walk away inspired to start where you are, say your dreams out loud, and curate a third chapter that feels full of flavor, purpose, and possibility. Our Non Profit Spotlight is Every Meal _ Katie Harms: katie@katieharms.com, www.katieharms.com Lisa Rubin: lisa@wardrobeconsulting.net, www.wardrobeconsulting.net . Follow Us On: Instagram | LinkedIn | Facebook | YouTube Please take a moment to rate our podcast wherever you are reading or listening to this! Thank you! We are thankful to our sponsors Jester Concepts (owner of Rustica Bakery) and Beem St. Louis Park. Click here: Complimentary Session at beem

tv recipes croatia reinvention dish perimenopause second act cooking up taste buds louis park stephanie hansen

Trace Mineral Requirements: A Practical Guide for Dairy Nutritionists with Dr. Bill Weiss

Real Science Exchange

Play Episode Listen Later May 19, 2026 65:43

The episode opens with a welcome to the Real Science Exchange and introductions to the panel, including Steve Martin, Maria Spindola, Stephanie Hansen, and Dr. Bill Weiss, setting the stage for a deep dive into mineral nutrition. (00:00 – 02:19) The discussion begins by comparing NASEM requirements with practical feeding recommendations, emphasizing how minimum requirements are designed to prevent deficiency—not maximize productivity. The panel explores how nutritionists incorporate safety margins and manage risk in formulation, including considerations around mineral toxicity and environmental impact. (04:21 – 08:19) From there, the conversation shifts to real-world application, highlighting the challenges of measuring mineral absorption and translating formulation strategies into on-farm execution. The panel discusses feeding logistics and how variability in mixing, delivery, and intake affects outcomes in dairy nutrition programs. (08:19 – 09:58) Attention then turns to specific minerals, including copper and iodine, and the role of antagonists in reducing mineral availability. The speakers discuss the risks of overfeeding inorganic minerals and the dairy industry's evolving approach to copper supplementation, along with the broader implications for animal performance and human health. (12:44 – 18:44) The panel also explores diagnostic tools and testing methods, including feed, water, and forage analysis, as well as more advanced techniques like liver biopsies. They highlight the importance of understanding molybdenum levels, ash content, and other factors that can influence trace mineral balance and absorption. (20:32 – 27:54) As the conversation continues, the focus shifts to optimization strategies—connecting mineral nutrition to health outcomes like hoof integrity, antioxidant status, and overall performance. The role of selenium, vitamin E, and structured testing approaches are discussed, along with practical tools nutritionists can use to evaluate and refine feeding programs. (31:14 – 41:45) The episode also examines water quality and background mineral contributions, emphasizing how often-overlooked sources can impact total mineral intake. A deeper dive into mineral requirements and sources follows, including emerging insights on manganese, differences between beef and dairy systems, and key areas for future research. (43:37 – 49:52) Finally, the panel tackles the ongoing debate around sulfate trace minerals and their potential effects on fiber digestibility and nutrient utilization. The episode closes with a discussion on alternative mineral sources, cobalt and vitamin B12 requirements, and key takeaways for building more precise, performance-driven mineral nutrition programs. (51:21 – 58:12) Please subscribe and share with your industry friends to invite more people to join us at the Real Science Exchange virtual pub table. If you want one of our Real Science Exchange t-shirts, screenshot your rating, review, or subscription, and email a picture to anh.marketing@balchem.com. Include your size and mailing address, and we'll mail you a shirt.

attention requirements weiss nutritionists dairy steve martin mineral practical guide b12 stephanie hansen

Episode 61: Stephanie Hansen's Moon Tavern, Bob Odenkirk's Minnesota Era & a Kate Hudson Netflix Pick

Lori & Julia's Book Club

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 29, 2026 58:28

Stephanie Hansen and her husband Kurt join Lori & Julia to talk about their recent trip to Turkey and their new book Moon Tavern. We also talk Bob Odenkirk and his surprising number of Minnesota projects, including Normal and a potential series about David Carr. Plus, TV recommendations—Running Point on Netflix starring Kate Hudson and RJ Decker on ABC / Hulu—actors playing outside their age range, Julia's Mother-of-the-Groom dress search, and a wild Florida Man story.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

tv netflix mother moon minnesota turkey normal florida man tavern groom bob odenkirk kate hudson david carr stephanie hansen netflix picks abc hulu

South Africa on Safari is our next group trip Destination

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 24, 2026 20:52

Original Episode Transcript FollowsStephanie Hansen:Hello, everybody, and welcome to Dishing with Stephanie's Dish, the podcast where we talk to people in the food space. And also today, we're going to talk travel, because whenever I travel, food's always a big part of it. I'm here with my friend Michael Kenny, and he owns the travel agency Defined Destinations. And Michael and I met and have gone on a number of trips. We've gone to Croatia together. We're just about to embark on Turkey. We are also planning a new trip that we just launched, that is a trip to South Africa. And a lot of times the best way to get people excited about these trips is to talk about them.And Michael does more than that. He scouts them out for me first. So, Michael, you went to this trip?Michael Kenney:I did. I'm your personal scout, but I love it. There's not a. There's not a better deal than being able to do that and then going on with you and Kurt and with everybody else. So we've had some fun adventures. But, yes, I recently got back with my family. We went scouted this South Africa trip out, or Southern Africa, I should say that we visit four different countries. And it was.I've been on a safari before, but it was in. In Kenya, which was fabulous as well. But this is a whole different experience. So I brought my wife and my two kids, and we had one of the best experiences, from seeing Cape Town to Johannesburg and then all the wildlife, different lodges and on boats. So we do all these different sorts of transportation and see four different countries. And it was unbelievable. I came back really, really excited. I was excited in the beginning, but having gone on it and then really first experiencing it firsthand was phenomenal.And. And I knew you and Kurt would love it. And of course, everyone that follows you as well. It was just. It's really a trip of a lifetime.Stephanie Hansen:So we put the trip out there. It is a more expensive trip, and we had a limited number of seats we had that could join the trip. And, you know, I've never done a trip that is on the higher end like that in terms of expense. And you're just. You have a lot of in flight situations within the country. You have a lot of different lodging situations. There's a boat, like, in order to do all the things we wanted to do, there were a lot of moving parts.Michael Kenney:Yep.Stephanie Hansen:So we put the trip out there and it sold out, like, right away. Right. So then Michael was like, okay, do we want to try and do another one? And of course we do, because I want you guys to have as many of these experiences as we can put together. Because I think traveling this way is great. I love traveling in a group for destinations that maybe I'm not comfortable in fully by myself. So Michael has secured another trip, a second round that is the same itinerary, but they leave. I think it's a day later.Michael Kenney:Yes. And let me just touch on that. You hit some good points in there. Yeah. One reason the trip, it's, it's. It's definitely at the highest price point we've ever offered a trip. But I think if you're going out there and you're shopping in African safari, you see that as well. So the value is there with all the different.Essentially all the meals are included where we're at on, on this trip, the inner flights inside the countries as well. From a couple smaller bush planes to the larger flights that go from Cape Town to Johannesburg, Johannesburg up towards Victoria Falls, etc. Those are already included in all the transfers. And this is a different trip too, Stephanie, because it's not like a typical motor coach group that you're going with all these big lodges and motor coaches coming in. This trip is. Can only take 16 people. It's not because we design it that way, it's the ship only handles 16 people. So if you go on our website, you take a look at it, you'll see this small intimate cruiser on this river slash lake, Lake Kariba, which is part of the Zambezi.Stephanie Hansen's @StephaniesDish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Michael Kenney:And in the game lodge that we stayed at too for four nights as well there, there's only eight cabins for 16 people. So it's a real intimate experience and it will only be for our group. Same thing for your departure on May 8 and the 1 that we still have, there's only. We just sold one another cabin online just, just now. So there's four cabins left May 9th through the 25th of 2027. Same thing is gonna be true for that. It's only gonna be our group as well. So there's no other groups going to be in, on, on the ship and then in the lodge too.Michael Kenney:So it's a real small intimate experience and it's just real, real lovely.Stephanie Hansen:Can you walk us through like some of the high points having done this trip?Michael Kenney:Yeah. Oh, what do you start? I think this is just. Sometimes you use the word potpourri too much, but it's, it's really a bit of different. You know, you think you go to Africa just for the safari itself, but we go in and we visit Cape Town and Cape Town blew me away. It was one of the most beautiful cities and I'm not necessarily a city person, but it was just beautiful sitting under Table Mountain. We'll go up to Table Mountain, we'll go visit the areas around it, we'll go visit some vineyards. South African wine is to die for. We'll visit that.We have a wine tasting included. We get to see penguins on this penguin beach in South Africa, which I didn't know there was penguins in, in South Africa. So we're actually good to go see those. And you actually get up pretty close too, so that was a real highlight. Nelson Mandela's home in the prison, we're going to go visit that. So we have a cultural experience as well. But then we fly into Johannesburg. We'll get to hear the history in Johannesburg for a night.And then we fly further north and we go into the. Our game lodge. We spend for four days right on the Zambezi River. You'll absolutely love this place. You're. You're really well taken care of. You eat really well and you see the wildlife all around you right from your lodge. You sit in your plunge pool and there could be hippos down below you.It's incredible. It's just a real amazing experience. And then we fly to Lake Kariba, we get on the boat itself and we have four nights again. There's just 16 of us total. And it's. This is where it's really different. You glide up into shore and there can be elephants, giraffes, lions feeding in the water itself. It's.This isn't a zoo. This is incredible. You are right there with it. That a real slow experience. You're really able to take it in. So I invite, you know, anybody that's watching this to go online. Just take a look at our photos. It's free to do that and we pride ourselves.The majority of all the photos on it were taken while on the trip, especially with me and my family. So you'll get to really see what it really was, was like. So say you've done a trip to Tanzania or Kenya and have done a safari. This is. This is different. You see four different countries. It's a slower pace, smaller groups. It lovely.So those are really the experiences that I enjoyed the most, were the penguins seeing around Cape Town. Of course, the different game drives all the different wildlife. Victoria Falls, which is one of the most stunning waterfalls you'll ever see. It was. It was really enlightening and it was fabulous and everything's taken care of for you. So to Be able to do something on this on your own. To do the same trip would be really difficult. Putting all the flights together, the meals, what are we going to do? We've taken care of all of that.All you have to do essentially is register for the trip and then we can help you with getting international airfare when it does come available later in the summer for this May 9th through the 25th, 2027 trip. So it, it was just an amazing experience.Stephanie Hansen:So can you talk a little bit about the food? Because I have no idea what African food is going to be like.Michael Kenney:Yeah, I, I think this, it's not like we're out eating street food, you know, in some of the villages we're not doing that. It's all in a controlled environment from the salads to things like that because you want to drink bottled water. We never got sick while on the trip itself, but it's, it's real, it's westernized, let's say that. So a lot of meat and potatoes and fish and different things like that. So there won't be anything a little bit, I think outside of your comfort zone. So I, we really, really. Well, like lots of beef, chicken, sometimes there'd be lamb, but you can have choices too. So they're really great with diets with that.But again, the food was really safe. Nothing too exotic. You have a chance. Maybe you want to try ostrich or something like that. You can do that. But it's a real, it's really high level too. Especially at the lodges and the boats itself. All sit down plated meals.Really, really nice. But again it's, it's, it's safer on the meat and potato side on that. But it's, it's really nice high end food which you'll, I think I, I know you'll enjoy.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah. And was there different fruit?Michael Kenney:Yeah, some of the fruits, I can't remember. You'd be like, well, what is that? I don't know. Honestly, I wish I had the list on there. Like, well, what is that? Well, let's, let's try it. If you're in the markets and things like that. But they, they do, especially in the mornings they'll bring some fruits on, on the plate and you'll have, you're like, well what? And you just try it. So yeah, I'm not really good to help you on that. I'm sorry.No, but it's there exotic fruits wheneverStephanie Hansen:we're traveling because we went to Thailand together. We've been to Vietnam, Cambodia, whenever we're Traveling in these countries, there's always fruits that I've never, I don't even know what they are like. I'm just always amazed by how many fruits there are in the world.Michael Kenney:Yeah, it's crazy. Like I said, you go through and you're like, what is that? Especially on our Vietnam, Cambodia trip here, it's, that's, that's really exotic with the food. This is a little bit different, but yeah, we're in the southern hemisphere, right down to the Cape of Good Hope, which you'll actually see too. So you see different, different foods for sure, so they'll point that out too. But it's. The main course is definitely not exotic, but you'll see some really neat, neat, different fruits, things like that.Stephanie Hansen:We talked about South African wines, so I'm glad we're doing that because that was a blast. So this second itinerary leaves a day later. Will there ever be an opportunity where I will overlap and interact with the second? It's kind of hard to tell at this point.Michael Kenney:Yeah, it, it really is. And we'll know a little bit more later on because we're in, in contact because we'll have they. The ships. We have two different ships on it and it's just a day apart, like you said. But we're in the lodge for four days. Our lodges are different, they're close by. But we're working on trying to see maybe if we get a couple game drives together, maybe maybe a meal somewhere that we could see each other once or twice during, or maybe even three times with Cape Town too, that we could run into each other as well. So if you decide to book, because you won't be on the second trip, the second departure, we're hoping two or three times we'll be able to, to, to run in each other.But again, it's not guaranteed. But we're very hopeful because both of the ships are completely ours. So I'm sure we can, we can do a little overlapping in our two lodge stays. They're relatively close, but they're, they're different from each other. So we might be able to pop in and visit each other maybe for a happy hour on one of our boats, because each lodge has got like its own beautiful pontoon to go out and go look at the wildlife and we might run into that too, but. Yeah, but other than that, and you're not being on the second one, their tenders are the same, just different lodges. And they're both very, very amazing, high quality lodges. And again, if you go Online, you can see both the different boats and the lodges too, which you'll absolutely love.Stephanie Hansen:I love too, Michael, that you actually took these trips. When I travel with you, you're very upfront about what, you know, what, you don't know. We get in country guides if we need more expertise, and a lot of times you want that because you want a local person to share with you the local feel of the place and to give you information based on their perspective of living there or being familiar with the country.Michael Kenney:Yeah, I think that that's, that's, that's really important. People want to not just get the information to make sure it's correct, but just like what's life like being you're from Namibia or Zimbabwe or South Africa and we have these local guides. We have, you know, the folks with us in the lodge and when we're doing the game drives a professional that will tell you, you know, what you're seeing, how they, you know, migration or whatever they're doing and what they consume, all of that. So you've got that, that credibility too. So we have that throughout, from our city guides to our, our on land folks as well. You'll really get that expertise. So you'll, you'll come back feeling, you know, about the people itself, which there's. We could have different podcast talking about that.I loved it. And then, you know, the animals that you're going to sing like, oh, I didn't know. It's, it's a really educational but rewarding, relaxing trip as well, which you, you, I know you'll, you'll enjoy.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. And people say that the African people are like just fabulous.Michael Kenney:They are it. And again, I've been to Africa a few times not, not to, to these parts. The people are wonderful. And I don't know if you're going to bring it up, but the languages. So revisiting different four countries and, and they, they speak different dialects of in. In the different countries and different languages as well, from English to African and wherever, you know, from where their group is from. But they use English as kind of the common language. So you'll.If we have a little overlap with some of our guides from Namibia to Botswana, they're going to speak English with each other, which was. I was like, oh, wow. I didn't, you know, really realize that. So the language is never a problem. Everything's in English. Even in. Through all of the countries visited. You would see the road signs.It's all in English, which was like, oh, wow, that's interesting. But then you get to hear them speaking with each other, their languages and they'll talk about that too. But I was, I was really surprised about the whole language situation being it really a lot of English.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah, I'm excited about that. Okay, so when we say expensive, can you just say on the podcast how much the trip is? Because I don't want people not to explore it.Michael Kenney:Oh yeah.Stephanie Hansen:You get so many things and a lot of people that are, you know, TV hosts and that sort of thing are hosting week long trips places and they cost more than this trip costs.Michael Kenney:So yeah, for the, for the land only per person It's $12,000. And so you, other than that you just need to get your international airfare to and from South Africa. And we have that all written down if you want to look at and for it yourself. But like I mentioned earlier, rates don't come out availability about 10 months prior to departure. So it'll be sometime later this summer, maybe in July that you'll start seeing what rates would be to fly into to Cape Town with that. But again the value is really there. It's typically double the price that we usually have for our trips going to Europe and other places like that. But I think if you go through it and if you've done your research, if you've looked at trips to Africa before, you'll see the value there with all the, all the flights, all the meals, all that included and it, like you said it, it's sold out right away.People I think understand that too. And we only have a few cabins left on the second departure so hopefully you're able to join it. But take a look at the website again, it's free to do that. Look at all the things that we offer, all the inclusions. I think everyone will see the value there for sure.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah, I was just noticing another person going somewhere for a week and it was like 15,000. And I was like, wait, we're going to Africa, we're doing all of this great stuff, all the meals are included, it's over, it's two week long trip and we're going on all these game drives. Like this is more than maybe most people would spend on a vacation. But like for a trip of a lifetime it's very, I thought really well priced. And I went and looked at Nat Geo. I looked at some of the other trips were actually cheaper than those too.Michael Kenney:Yeah. And I think a lot of people are just looking when you, you first look at it too, you want to make sure you're comparing apples to Apple. So, you know, we encourage you to go out there and shop and look at other companies because I know you'll come back and you'll see our value. A lot of them are just maybe doing similar game drives that we're doing, but they're not including like Cape Town in it and we are, which is huge. Again, you might not be a city person, but you're gonna love Cape Town. Not just the city itself, the drives around there, going to, to see the penguins and to go up into the area where the, the vineyards are, it's abso stunning. So there's a lot to it. So I encourage everybody to take a look and you'll again see the value and all the different experiences you'll haveStephanie Hansen:on this trip and the vibes. Because I'll be there on the first trip, hopefully I'll get to overlap with you on the second trip. I don't want to make any promises we can't keep, but I feel good that I'll see you at least once and then we can like talk about all the stuff that we saw when we get back. So it's going to be just great vibes.Michael Kenney:Exactly. And I already know the majority of the people that from previous trips that have already booked the second departure. So if you're thinking about it, I'm looking at the name list. There's some really good people on this, on this trip. So you're going to have fun. You'll have a great guides throughout. So it's yes, they won't have you incurred on the trip, which is sad, but I think at the same time you're really going to love, if you're going for this experience, you're absolutely going to love it for sure. And we encourage.Send an email to us. Give me a call. I'd be happy to talk to you about the trip itself. But again, having just a few cabins left, I know this one will sell out too. So if you're on the fence again, give me a call, send me an email. I'd be happy to get you on it because this will be our Last one for 2027, so we'd love to have anybody else join.Stephanie Hansen:I'll put all that information in the podcast release. Also, it pays to be traveler with us because we have a pretty good list now of people that are repeat travelers and I think that says a lot about you as someone coordinating these trips. I think it says a lot about me as someone that is fun to go on these trips with, like we have someone that's coming up on, this will be their fourth trip with us. They're, they're high end experiences, they're fun. We don't take ourselves too seriously. We have a good time. The pacing is right. If you need to peel off because you need a day to just relax, you can usually do that at the different places.It really, I, I feel like while we're leading a trip, we also understand it's your trip, not ours. So if you need to do, you know, like, I remember when we did a cooking class, Lori standing up on the bus and saying, well, who wants to do that? And everyone went except for her. And then Kurt went with her, so she wasn't alone. But again, if the cooking class isn't your jam, then you can find some way to do something else. So just to see a good time?Michael Kenney:No, it is if this is your vacation. But I honestly think everything that's in this itinerary, you're going to want to, to join in. And again, this is a relaxed pace too. But sometimes we have some earlier game drives to, to go see the animals that are out there early in the morning, which you want to do. But then we'll usually have the afternoon free that you can go into your plunge pool, sit by one of the beautiful trees and have having a cocktail or something like that. So it's really relaxed as well and you have time to take it in and I think that's really important. Sometimes everything's just go, go, go and see how much you can see and do. I mean, we are, we're going, but we still have that time to sit back and relax.And that's what's really fun about even being on the ship. Second, because we're moving around and, and popping into small little bays and seeing when animals come up through these savannahs. It's stunning. You're like, you're in the comfort of a beautiful boat and you're going up and there's, you know, elephants coming down to water, which I loved, or the hippos just down below you. We go fishing one time or a couple times, whatever we want to do. And just the wildlife around you. And it's like, oh, I'm not in a Minnesota northern lake right now. It's, it's pretty spectacular.Michael Kenney:So, Kurt, no swimming off the boat, please. Unlike Kariba with, with knowing, uh, there's a tiger fish in there. There's these world famous fish that people like to fish for, the sharp teeth, but it's more so you got to watch out for those hippos. Of course.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah. Are there crocodiles?Michael Kenney:Yes, there are. So, yes, there's the crocodiles and the hippos in there. So don't go in the water.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah.Michael Kenney:But it's fun to be on our big boat, so it's, it's safe and you get up really up close to everything, which is super cool.Stephanie Hansen:All right, well, I'm looking forward to it, Michael. Again, I'll put all the information in the podcast notes here. Thanks for joining us and I'll see you. Well, I won't see you tomorrow because I'm leaving for Turkey a few days early because I like to get there and get fresh before you guys all arrive so that I have a personality. But I'll see you in a couple days in Turkey.Michael Kenney:That sounds great. Thanks so much, Stephanie.Stephanie Hansen:Okay, bye. Bye.Stephanie Hansen's @StephaniesDish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

South Africa on Safari is our next group trip Destination

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 24, 2026 20:52

Original Episode Transcript FollowsStephanie Hansen:Hello, everybody, and welcome to Dishing with Stephanie's Dish, the podcast where we talk to people in the food space. And also today, we're going to talk travel, because whenever I travel, food's always a big part of it. I'm here with my friend Michael Kenny, and he owns the travel agency Defined Destinations. And Michael and I met and have gone on a number of trips. We've gone to Croatia together. We're just about to embark on Turkey. We are also planning a new trip that we just launched, that is a trip to South Africa. And a lot of times the best way to get people excited about these trips is to talk about them.And Michael does more than that. He scouts them out for me first. So, Michael, you went to this trip?Michael Kenney:I did. I'm your personal scout, but I love it. There's not a. There's not a better deal than being able to do that and then going on with you and Kurt and with everybody else. So we've had some fun adventures. But, yes, I recently got back with my family. We went scouted this South Africa trip out, or Southern Africa, I should say that we visit four different countries. And it was.I've been on a safari before, but it was in. In Kenya, which was fabulous as well. But this is a whole different experience. So I brought my wife and my two kids, and we had one of the best experiences, from seeing Cape Town to Johannesburg and then all the wildlife, different lodges and on boats. So we do all these different sorts of transportation and see four different countries. And it was unbelievable. I came back really, really excited. I was excited in the beginning, but having gone on it and then really first experiencing it firsthand was phenomenal.And. And I knew you and Kurt would love it. And of course, everyone that follows you as well. It was just. It's really a trip of a lifetime.Stephanie Hansen:So we put the trip out there. It is a more expensive trip, and we had a limited number of seats we had that could join the trip. And, you know, I've never done a trip that is on the higher end like that in terms of expense. And you're just. You have a lot of in flight situations within the country. You have a lot of different lodging situations. There's a boat, like, in order to do all the things we wanted to do, there were a lot of moving parts.Michael Kenney:Yep.Stephanie Hansen:So we put the trip out there and it sold out, like, right away. Right. So then Michael was like, okay, do we want to try and do another one? And of course we do, because I want you guys to have as many of these experiences as we can put together. Because I think traveling this way is great. I love traveling in a group for destinations that maybe I'm not comfortable in fully by myself. So Michael has secured another trip, a second round that is the same itinerary, but they leave. I think it's a day later.Michael Kenney:Yes. And let me just touch on that. You hit some good points in there. Yeah. One reason the trip, it's, it's. It's definitely at the highest price point we've ever offered a trip. But I think if you're going out there and you're shopping in African safari, you see that as well. So the value is there with all the different.Essentially all the meals are included where we're at on, on this trip, the inner flights inside the countries as well. From a couple smaller bush planes to the larger flights that go from Cape Town to Johannesburg, Johannesburg up towards Victoria Falls, etc. Those are already included in all the transfers. And this is a different trip too, Stephanie, because it's not like a typical motor coach group that you're going with all these big lodges and motor coaches coming in. This trip is. Can only take 16 people. It's not because we design it that way, it's the ship only handles 16 people. So if you go on our website, you take a look at it, you'll see this small intimate cruiser on this river slash lake, Lake Kariba, which is part of the Zambezi.Stephanie Hansen's @StephaniesDish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Michael Kenney:And in the game lodge that we stayed at too for four nights as well there, there's only eight cabins for 16 people. So it's a real intimate experience and it will only be for our group. Same thing for your departure on May 8 and the 1 that we still have, there's only. We just sold one another cabin online just, just now. So there's four cabins left May 9th through the 25th of 2027. Same thing is gonna be true for that. It's only gonna be our group as well. So there's no other groups going to be in, on, on the ship and then in the lodge too.Michael Kenney:So it's a real small intimate experience and it's just real, real lovely.Stephanie Hansen:Can you walk us through like some of the high points having done this trip?Michael Kenney:Yeah. Oh, what do you start? I think this is just. Sometimes you use the word potpourri too much, but it's, it's really a bit of different. You know, you think you go to Africa just for the safari itself, but we go in and we visit Cape Town and Cape Town blew me away. It was one of the most beautiful cities and I'm not necessarily a city person, but it was just beautiful sitting under Table Mountain. We'll go up to Table Mountain, we'll go visit the areas around it, we'll go visit some vineyards. South African wine is to die for. We'll visit that.We have a wine tasting included. We get to see penguins on this penguin beach in South Africa, which I didn't know there was penguins in, in South Africa. So we're actually good to go see those. And you actually get up pretty close too, so that was a real highlight. Nelson Mandela's home in the prison, we're going to go visit that. So we have a cultural experience as well. But then we fly into Johannesburg. We'll get to hear the history in Johannesburg for a night.And then we fly further north and we go into the. Our game lodge. We spend for four days right on the Zambezi River. You'll absolutely love this place. You're. You're really well taken care of. You eat really well and you see the wildlife all around you right from your lodge. You sit in your plunge pool and there could be hippos down below you.It's incredible. It's just a real amazing experience. And then we fly to Lake Kariba, we get on the boat itself and we have four nights again. There's just 16 of us total. And it's. This is where it's really different. You glide up into shore and there can be elephants, giraffes, lions feeding in the water itself. It's.This isn't a zoo. This is incredible. You are right there with it. That a real slow experience. You're really able to take it in. So I invite, you know, anybody that's watching this to go online. Just take a look at our photos. It's free to do that and we pride ourselves.The majority of all the photos on it were taken while on the trip, especially with me and my family. So you'll get to really see what it really was, was like. So say you've done a trip to Tanzania or Kenya and have done a safari. This is. This is different. You see four different countries. It's a slower pace, smaller groups. It lovely.So those are really the experiences that I enjoyed the most, were the penguins seeing around Cape Town. Of course, the different game drives all the different wildlife. Victoria Falls, which is one of the most stunning waterfalls you'll ever see. It was. It was really enlightening and it was fabulous and everything's taken care of for you. So to Be able to do something on this on your own. To do the same trip would be really difficult. Putting all the flights together, the meals, what are we going to do? We've taken care of all of that.All you have to do essentially is register for the trip and then we can help you with getting international airfare when it does come available later in the summer for this May 9th through the 25th, 2027 trip. So it, it was just an amazing experience.Stephanie Hansen:So can you talk a little bit about the food? Because I have no idea what African food is going to be like.Michael Kenney:Yeah, I, I think this, it's not like we're out eating street food, you know, in some of the villages we're not doing that. It's all in a controlled environment from the salads to things like that because you want to drink bottled water. We never got sick while on the trip itself, but it's, it's real, it's westernized, let's say that. So a lot of meat and potatoes and fish and different things like that. So there won't be anything a little bit, I think outside of your comfort zone. So I, we really, really. Well, like lots of beef, chicken, sometimes there'd be lamb, but you can have choices too. So they're really great with diets with that.But again, the food was really safe. Nothing too exotic. You have a chance. Maybe you want to try ostrich or something like that. You can do that. But it's a real, it's really high level too. Especially at the lodges and the boats itself. All sit down plated meals.Really, really nice. But again it's, it's, it's safer on the meat and potato side on that. But it's, it's really nice high end food which you'll, I think I, I know you'll enjoy.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah. And was there different fruit?Michael Kenney:Yeah, some of the fruits, I can't remember. You'd be like, well, what is that? I don't know. Honestly, I wish I had the list on there. Like, well, what is that? Well, let's, let's try it. If you're in the markets and things like that. But they, they do, especially in the mornings they'll bring some fruits on, on the plate and you'll have, you're like, well what? And you just try it. So yeah, I'm not really good to help you on that. I'm sorry.No, but it's there exotic fruits wheneverStephanie Hansen:we're traveling because we went to Thailand together. We've been to Vietnam, Cambodia, whenever we're Traveling in these countries, there's always fruits that I've never, I don't even know what they are like. I'm just always amazed by how many fruits there are in the world.Michael Kenney:Yeah, it's crazy. Like I said, you go through and you're like, what is that? Especially on our Vietnam, Cambodia trip here, it's, that's, that's really exotic with the food. This is a little bit different, but yeah, we're in the southern hemisphere, right down to the Cape of Good Hope, which you'll actually see too. So you see different, different foods for sure, so they'll point that out too. But it's. The main course is definitely not exotic, but you'll see some really neat, neat, different fruits, things like that.Stephanie Hansen:We talked about South African wines, so I'm glad we're doing that because that was a blast. So this second itinerary leaves a day later. Will there ever be an opportunity where I will overlap and interact with the second? It's kind of hard to tell at this point.Michael Kenney:Yeah, it, it really is. And we'll know a little bit more later on because we're in, in contact because we'll have they. The ships. We have two different ships on it and it's just a day apart, like you said. But we're in the lodge for four days. Our lodges are different, they're close by. But we're working on trying to see maybe if we get a couple game drives together, maybe maybe a meal somewhere that we could see each other once or twice during, or maybe even three times with Cape Town too, that we could run into each other as well. So if you decide to book, because you won't be on the second trip, the second departure, we're hoping two or three times we'll be able to, to, to run in each other.But again, it's not guaranteed. But we're very hopeful because both of the ships are completely ours. So I'm sure we can, we can do a little overlapping in our two lodge stays. They're relatively close, but they're, they're different from each other. So we might be able to pop in and visit each other maybe for a happy hour on one of our boats, because each lodge has got like its own beautiful pontoon to go out and go look at the wildlife and we might run into that too, but. Yeah, but other than that, and you're not being on the second one, their tenders are the same, just different lodges. And they're both very, very amazing, high quality lodges. And again, if you go Online, you can see both the different boats and the lodges too, which you'll absolutely love.Stephanie Hansen:I love too, Michael, that you actually took these trips. When I travel with you, you're very upfront about what, you know, what, you don't know. We get in country guides if we need more expertise, and a lot of times you want that because you want a local person to share with you the local feel of the place and to give you information based on their perspective of living there or being familiar with the country.Michael Kenney:Yeah, I think that that's, that's, that's really important. People want to not just get the information to make sure it's correct, but just like what's life like being you're from Namibia or Zimbabwe or South Africa and we have these local guides. We have, you know, the folks with us in the lodge and when we're doing the game drives a professional that will tell you, you know, what you're seeing, how they, you know, migration or whatever they're doing and what they consume, all of that. So you've got that, that credibility too. So we have that throughout, from our city guides to our, our on land folks as well. You'll really get that expertise. So you'll, you'll come back feeling, you know, about the people itself, which there's. We could have different podcast talking about that.I loved it. And then, you know, the animals that you're going to sing like, oh, I didn't know. It's, it's a really educational but rewarding, relaxing trip as well, which you, you, I know you'll, you'll enjoy.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. And people say that the African people are like just fabulous.Michael Kenney:They are it. And again, I've been to Africa a few times not, not to, to these parts. The people are wonderful. And I don't know if you're going to bring it up, but the languages. So revisiting different four countries and, and they, they speak different dialects of in. In the different countries and different languages as well, from English to African and wherever, you know, from where their group is from. But they use English as kind of the common language. So you'll.If we have a little overlap with some of our guides from Namibia to Botswana, they're going to speak English with each other, which was. I was like, oh, wow. I didn't, you know, really realize that. So the language is never a problem. Everything's in English. Even in. Through all of the countries visited. You would see the road signs.It's all in English, which was like, oh, wow, that's interesting. But then you get to hear them speaking with each other, their languages and they'll talk about that too. But I was, I was really surprised about the whole language situation being it really a lot of English.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah, I'm excited about that. Okay, so when we say expensive, can you just say on the podcast how much the trip is? Because I don't want people not to explore it.Michael Kenney:Oh yeah.Stephanie Hansen:You get so many things and a lot of people that are, you know, TV hosts and that sort of thing are hosting week long trips places and they cost more than this trip costs.Michael Kenney:So yeah, for the, for the land only per person It's $12,000. And so you, other than that you just need to get your international airfare to and from South Africa. And we have that all written down if you want to look at and for it yourself. But like I mentioned earlier, rates don't come out availability about 10 months prior to departure. So it'll be sometime later this summer, maybe in July that you'll start seeing what rates would be to fly into to Cape Town with that. But again the value is really there. It's typically double the price that we usually have for our trips going to Europe and other places like that. But I think if you go through it and if you've done your research, if you've looked at trips to Africa before, you'll see the value there with all the, all the flights, all the meals, all that included and it, like you said it, it's sold out right away.People I think understand that too. And we only have a few cabins left on the second departure so hopefully you're able to join it. But take a look at the website again, it's free to do that. Look at all the things that we offer, all the inclusions. I think everyone will see the value there for sure.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah, I was just noticing another person going somewhere for a week and it was like 15,000. And I was like, wait, we're going to Africa, we're doing all of this great stuff, all the meals are included, it's over, it's two week long trip and we're going on all these game drives. Like this is more than maybe most people would spend on a vacation. But like for a trip of a lifetime it's very, I thought really well priced. And I went and looked at Nat Geo. I looked at some of the other trips were actually cheaper than those too.Michael Kenney:Yeah. And I think a lot of people are just looking when you, you first look at it too, you want to make sure you're comparing apples to Apple. So, you know, we encourage you to go out there and shop and look at other companies because I know you'll come back and you'll see our value. A lot of them are just maybe doing similar game drives that we're doing, but they're not including like Cape Town in it and we are, which is huge. Again, you might not be a city person, but you're gonna love Cape Town. Not just the city itself, the drives around there, going to, to see the penguins and to go up into the area where the, the vineyards are, it's abso stunning. So there's a lot to it. So I encourage everybody to take a look and you'll again see the value and all the different experiences you'll haveStephanie Hansen:on this trip and the vibes. Because I'll be there on the first trip, hopefully I'll get to overlap with you on the second trip. I don't want to make any promises we can't keep, but I feel good that I'll see you at least once and then we can like talk about all the stuff that we saw when we get back. So it's going to be just great vibes.Michael Kenney:Exactly. And I already know the majority of the people that from previous trips that have already booked the second departure. So if you're thinking about it, I'm looking at the name list. There's some really good people on this, on this trip. So you're going to have fun. You'll have a great guides throughout. So it's yes, they won't have you incurred on the trip, which is sad, but I think at the same time you're really going to love, if you're going for this experience, you're absolutely going to love it for sure. And we encourage.Send an email to us. Give me a call. I'd be happy to talk to you about the trip itself. But again, having just a few cabins left, I know this one will sell out too. So if you're on the fence again, give me a call, send me an email. I'd be happy to get you on it because this will be our Last one for 2027, so we'd love to have anybody else join.Stephanie Hansen:I'll put all that information in the podcast release. Also, it pays to be traveler with us because we have a pretty good list now of people that are repeat travelers and I think that says a lot about you as someone coordinating these trips. I think it says a lot about me as someone that is fun to go on these trips with, like we have someone that's coming up on, this will be their fourth trip with us. They're, they're high end experiences, they're fun. We don't take ourselves too seriously. We have a good time. The pacing is right. If you need to peel off because you need a day to just relax, you can usually do that at the different places.It really, I, I feel like while we're leading a trip, we also understand it's your trip, not ours. So if you need to do, you know, like, I remember when we did a cooking class, Lori standing up on the bus and saying, well, who wants to do that? And everyone went except for her. And then Kurt went with her, so she wasn't alone. But again, if the cooking class isn't your jam, then you can find some way to do something else. So just to see a good time?Michael Kenney:No, it is if this is your vacation. But I honestly think everything that's in this itinerary, you're going to want to, to join in. And again, this is a relaxed pace too. But sometimes we have some earlier game drives to, to go see the animals that are out there early in the morning, which you want to do. But then we'll usually have the afternoon free that you can go into your plunge pool, sit by one of the beautiful trees and have having a cocktail or something like that. So it's really relaxed as well and you have time to take it in and I think that's really important. Sometimes everything's just go, go, go and see how much you can see and do. I mean, we are, we're going, but we still have that time to sit back and relax.And that's what's really fun about even being on the ship. Second, because we're moving around and, and popping into small little bays and seeing when animals come up through these savannahs. It's stunning. You're like, you're in the comfort of a beautiful boat and you're going up and there's, you know, elephants coming down to water, which I loved, or the hippos just down below you. We go fishing one time or a couple times, whatever we want to do. And just the wildlife around you. And it's like, oh, I'm not in a Minnesota northern lake right now. It's, it's pretty spectacular.Michael Kenney:So, Kurt, no swimming off the boat, please. Unlike Kariba with, with knowing, uh, there's a tiger fish in there. There's these world famous fish that people like to fish for, the sharp teeth, but it's more so you got to watch out for those hippos. Of course.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah. Are there crocodiles?Michael Kenney:Yes, there are. So, yes, there's the crocodiles and the hippos in there. So don't go in the water.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah.Michael Kenney:But it's fun to be on our big boat, so it's, it's safe and you get up really up close to everything, which is super cool.Stephanie Hansen:All right, well, I'm looking forward to it, Michael. Again, I'll put all the information in the podcast notes here. Thanks for joining us and I'll see you. Well, I won't see you tomorrow because I'm leaving for Turkey a few days early because I like to get there and get fresh before you guys all arrive so that I have a personality. But I'll see you in a couple days in Turkey.Michael Kenney:That sounds great. Thanks so much, Stephanie.Stephanie Hansen:Okay, bye. Bye.Stephanie Hansen's @StephaniesDish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Cookbook Author Sarah Peterson, "Vintage Dish and Tell" and I talk sandwich loaf and the keepers of family recipes

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 11, 2026 30:26

Welcome to "Dishing with Stephanie's Dish," the show where we dive into the stories of people passionate about food, family traditions, and the recipes that connect us all. I'm your host, Stephanie Hansen, and today, I'm thrilled to sit down with cookbook author Sarah Peterson, whose new book, Dish and Tell: Recipes from the Heart, celebrates the beauty of vintage family recipes and the memories shared around the table. Dish and Tell: Recipes from the Heart highlights celebrated dishes from Peterson's recipe box—and collects stories from other passionate home cooks who opened their kitchens to share their own tried-and-true recipes. Peterson takes readers along as she visits, cooks, and bakes with friends old and new to present a smorgasbord of family favorites. She serves up stories about the people behind the dishes and offers special tips and tricks from the keepers of these recipes.Whether you're an avid home cook, a lover of kitchen nostalgia, or just here for some culinary inspiration, get ready to hear heartfelt stories, tips on cookbook writing, and a delicious conversation that will leave you hungry for more!Original Episode Transcript Follows:Stephanie Hansen [00:00:02]:Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Dishing with Stephanie's Dish podcast, where we talk to people in the food space who are as obsessed about food as we are. And today we're talking to the cookbook author Sarah Peterson. She is the author of Dish and Tell Recipes from the Heart. I'm going to hold up her book so that you guys can see it. It looks so cute. It's pink. Sarah, I am really excited to talk to you because I don't normally get to know people sort of along the whole journey of them writing a book and then seeing it released into the world. But that did happen with you and I.Sarah Peterson [00:00:37]:Yes, it did. We've known each other a little while, or at least I've known you. I've followed your career, and so it's been really great to have you to consult with a little bit, and you've really been a mentor to me throughout this process.Stephanie Hansen [00:00:50]:Well, and I think for you, coming from the PR world, which was where your background was, and then taking it into a cookbook, I'm seeing so many, like, similarities of how you're approaching things, and I think it's just super smart, and I can't wait to talk to you. So can you just give the viewer, the listener, a little bit of backstory about the book and why you wrote it and why it's special to you?Sarah Peterson [00:01:17]:Yes.Stephanie Hansen [00:01:18]:So.Sarah Peterson [00:01:18]:So about five years ago, maybe more, I started thinking about what I wanted to do with my career. I'd been in PR a long time, telling other people's stories, writing in the voice of other people. I wanted to do something of my own. I had this love of everything vintage. I'm very nostalgic. I love any opportunity to, like, go back to my grandma's kitchens in my mind and, like, imagine them in their homes. And so this idea started brewing about, you know, what if I blogged about family recipes and shared some of these handwritten recipe cards, recipe boxes, my love of vintage. So I started with Instagram first, and I was posting a little bit, and then I.Sarah Peterson [00:02:00]:That kind of evolved into a blog, and that just really grew and grew, and it was just not my own family's recipes, but other people's families, too. Like, I started to just talk to my friends and my neighbors and ask them what are the recipes in their families that I've been handing down through the generations that are really close, you know, to their hearts, and started to share those stories on the blog and then thought, well, this could be a book. A book is daunting as you know, to write, but I had some encouragement from my dad and some other people and just pitched it to the Historical Society, and I'm just so grateful that they decided to publish it.Stephanie Hansen [00:02:37]:And what we're seeing in terms of trends for cookbooks is cookbooks that are AI proof, In other words, cookbooks that have a real narrative point of view on a story. And this book seems like it is exactly that and more. Did you feel uncomfortable or were you nervous about, like, being the keeper, the seed keeper, as it were, or the storykeeper of these stories and how you would translate them into an actual book?Sarah Peterson [00:03:07]:Yes. You mean for, like, other families? Yeah, absolutely. And I think what gave me maybe a little bit of confidence is that something that I had done in my career as a PR person and in one particular project for a client, I was tasked with shining the spotlight on small independent restaurants and the special role that they play in their communities. And so I had this chance to really interview them and tell their stories and talk about how they were making a difference in their communities. And so I was thinking about what I wanted to do with recipes and family stories, kind of drawing on that past experience of the storytelling, the type of storytelling I had done for restaurants and, like, small restaurant owners. And I think that helped give me some confidence. I think just seeing the difference it makes in someone's life, too, when they see a story printed about them. And I also love to shine the spotlight on, like, the underdogs.Sarah Peterson [00:04:03]:And I feel like home cooks don't get a lot of time in the sun, you know, So I wanted to do that. But, yeah, I do think there's a lot of responsibility you carry when you're telling somebody else's story. And it's not something I take lightly. So when I approach a story, I really, you know, lean on my journalistic background. I have a degree in journalism, try to get all the facts straight, run things by people, do fact checking, that kind of thing, too.Stephanie Hansen [00:04:33]:So you assembled all these stories and put them into a book along with your own family stories. And how has the book been received? Because it's really beautiful. It's super charming. There's lots of photos, recipe cards. It's very stylized in a sweet way.Sarah Peterson [00:04:51]:Thank you. I think it's been received really well. It's fun to see. Like, I've done a couple of events where people come up and they're just like, oh, this book is just so sweet. It reminds me of my grandma, and I can't wait to go look through her recipe box. That's like, the biggest compliment I can get. The Star Tribune editor, Nicole, she said she's the editor of Taste. She said it was like opening the book is like getting a big hug.Sarah Peterson [00:05:15]:And I think that's just so sweet, too. Like, I really wanted people to, of course, love the recipes and the stories, but I think, like, the imagery of vintage dishes, of recipe boxes, of grandmas and aprons, I mean, that's just like, so me. And I love all that, and I'm happy that other people seem to really love that as well.Stephanie Hansen [00:05:34]:I know it's hard to answer this question so soon after having the book come out, but this really does feel like it could continue on and be a series and continue to live on in your Instagram. Could even be like, audio, you know, version, or you could do television things with it because there's so much historical narrative in there. Has that occurred to you at all?Sarah Peterson [00:06:00]:Not so much yet. I mean, I'm trying to figure that all out now. Like, what do I want to do next? And I think, like, I would love to do more storytelling, more sharing of recipes, maybe more on my sub stack and my Instagram. But yeah, I mean, it could, there could be future editions of the book. But that's just so ambitious for me right now. Just kind of in the thick of it. Maybe I'll have to tap you for some more knowledge later on. But I mean, I do have, like, in talking to these families that I interviewed for the book, other stories would come up that they're, you know, other recipes.Sarah Peterson [00:06:34]:And certainly people that I've been meeting, doing events are telling me about their recipes. I had this woman come to see me at a book event at Kowalski's last weekend, and she brought her family cookbook that she had made, you know, just something that she had pieced together but was sharing with her family. And so it was really sweet, and I love seeing that, too. And I think, you know, sharing some of the recipes that other people share with me at events, but also talking about how they're recording their family recipes. Like, I think, if anything, I'd love to be an inspiration for other people or give people an inspiration to collect those recipes and show some of the formats that other families are using to share those with with their extended family.Stephanie Hansen [00:07:15]:As we talk about the nuts and bolts of making a cookbook, what was the hardest part for you in putting this book together?Sarah Peterson [00:07:25]:I think it was. It seemed so massive in the beginning, like, the organization of a cookbook. I've learned a lot in the process and, like, Have a rockin spreadsheet now. But that was very daunting in the beginning. Then I got into the thick of it, and I think toward the end, like, the editing. Oh, my gosh, that was really something because you don't know exactly when it's going to hit. Like, when are you going to have to look through this whole thing? Like, after. Even before it was in layout, like, just getting the manuscript and after the editor had done a first pass, and then you have to reread it all again, and you just have to, like, carve out a bunch of time and just get into it.Sarah Peterson [00:08:07]:And I thought that was really hard. It reminded me of being back in college when you're cramming for a final.Stephanie Hansen [00:08:11]:Yeah.Sarah Peterson [00:08:13]:So I didn't, like, love that. But, I mean, it's just part of the process.Stephanie Hansen [00:08:18]:Yeah. Because the manuscript comes back and you don't know when. And then all of a sudden, like, your entire life is put on hold for however long it takes you to get through it.Sarah Peterson [00:08:25]:And for me, it was like a summer weekend. Like, oh, okay. I guess I'm gonna just be doing this for the next two weekend. Yeah.Stephanie Hansen [00:08:33]:How did you feel about the photographing of the book? Because that can be a challenging part that stops people.Sarah Peterson [00:08:40]:I'm glad you asked about that because as you know, we have the same publisher. And it's really like, they were so great. They're like, sarah, just take photos like you're, you know, doing on your Instagram. These will be great. We'll make it work. Well, yes, but I just was, like, feeling I'm not a food stylist. You know, I do my thing and I take pictures in the moment when I'm making food, but I'm like, I don't know if these are cookbook worthy. And I do everything on my iPhone.Sarah Peterson [00:09:08]:I'm not gonna get a fancy camera. So as I got further along the process, pretty late in the process, I'm like, I just need some help, because I want somebody to help me get a really pretty shot for the COVID Help me shoot some of the things. Like, meat is so hard to take a pretty picture.Stephanie Hansen [00:09:24]:Yeah, for sure.Sarah Peterson [00:09:25]:Meatball. Or, you know, like, just. Oh. I was just really struggling, and I listened to your podcast and I know that you interviewed Rachel White of Set the Table Photography, who happens to be a food stylist as well. And I'd been following her on Instagram and really liked her style. So I reached out to her after hearing her on your podcast, and we met, and I just told her what I was doing. I said, I don't have a lot of money, but here's a few shots that I'd like to get. And she also took some headshots of me.Sarah Peterson [00:09:52]:But she came to my house for a few days, and we just banged out as much as we could. Not even like three full days. Like, two and a half days. I just was, like, cooking up a storm. We did headshots and lifestyle shots one morning, and then just a bunch of recipes and then, like, a bunch. A brunch spread one day, too.Stephanie Hansen [00:10:10]:So what that translated to me when looking at the book was we'll call them, like, some hero shots.Sarah Peterson [00:10:16]:Exactly.Stephanie Hansen [00:10:18]:That were. They were. It was funny because I couldn't necessarily tell when I was looking at the book, but I could see, like, just from the perspective of the stylized nature of the background and the more complete shot. Like, let's see if I can just find one that I can hold up.Sarah Peterson [00:10:44]:Yeah, A lot of the shots in, you know, the chapter intros.Stephanie Hansen [00:10:49]:Yeah, it's like, that one maybe.Sarah Peterson [00:10:52]:Yes, yes.Stephanie Hansen [00:10:53]:And I thought maybe that one.Sarah Peterson [00:10:56]:I took that one, actually. But I think just having Rachel, like, in. In the end, too, I was like, well, people are gonna. Is this gonna be weird to have a mix of really good professional pictures than my pictures? And then it was really important for me to have pictures that the families submitted, so candids and snapshots. And I know feature a lot of those in your cookbook, too. And I think those are so important, and I think they all came together. I hope so. Yeah, I did that one, too.Stephanie Hansen [00:11:28]:Oh, see, look at.Sarah Peterson [00:11:30]:I can't even tell if you look in the back. We credit which pages are definitely her pictures. But, you know, she did the COVIDStephanie Hansen [00:11:37]:shot, and that's this one. Yeah. No, I. I knew you had worked with her, but when I looked through the book, I thought I could tell, but I couldn't, so. Good for you.Sarah Peterson [00:11:49]:She helped me do the. The Dutch pancake.Stephanie Hansen [00:11:52]:Yep. Those are so hard to get because they deflate.Sarah Peterson [00:11:58]:I know. And the day that we did it, I just made the most gigantic one ever in my largest lodge skillet. And it worked. And, like, screaming in excitement that it came out so beautiful. And then it did deflate, but we made it look pretty with berries and powder. Powdered sugar. I did that one, too. That one.Sarah Peterson [00:12:16]:Handballs. But, like, she did these really pretty pictures of my recipe cards and recipe boxes, and she took pictures of me with my grandma's dishes. So she got a lot of shots, too, that obviously I Couldn't take because I was in them. Yeah, it was really nice. And I've been using her photos like crazy and all of my Instagram and marketing efforts, so I'm just so grateful that I had her. I wish I could have hired her for the whole thing. But I think, too, when you're making a cookbook, I don't know about you, but I like to eat what I make. And I'm, like, photographing it in the moment.Stephanie Hansen [00:12:49]:Yes.Sarah Peterson [00:12:50]:And I do like those kind of pictures too, so I'm really glad I have a mix.Stephanie Hansen [00:12:54]:I. I feel like, for me, if I'm not living that life or I'm not like, that is the life I live. So the intention is that it's happening in real time. I'm. I felt like this. Making this thing today, when I made it, this is what it looked like. This is how I ate it. This is how it.Stephanie Hansen [00:13:14]:The dishes I served it in. To me, that's what makes this food life fun. So when it becomes like a complete chore or a list or a job, that's when I find I don't like it as much.Sarah Peterson [00:13:26]:Right. And I do think that people resonate to real life pictures.Stephanie Hansen [00:13:31]:Yeah. We're lucky in that way, because if we would have been doing this during the fussy Instagram, first coming alive and everything being blown out white, beautiful shots,Sarah Peterson [00:13:42]:I don't know that we have to do that. And especially with AI now, you want things to look a little imperfect.Stephanie Hansen [00:13:47]:Tell me about how you scheduled your book tour and how you worked with your publishing company, because I feel like you're approaching it very methodically from a publicist standpoint, and I think that's helpful for cookbook writers.Sarah Peterson [00:14:05]:Well, I'm glad it appears so, because that is. That's been like a big surprise, like, book tour. Okay. I. You know, I didn't really know what to expect, and I've seen everything you've done, and you've done a phenomenal job. And I'm like, if I can do a fraction of what Stephanie does, that would be great. So really, right now, I'm in the thick of it. The book came out in February, but it was a little bit slow in getting events because I had a vacation and some other things planned.Sarah Peterson [00:14:33]:But then now, coming into April, I've got a lot more going on, and I've just been fielding requests that have come through the publisher or through my website, and I haven't said no to a lot. Although, know, like, there's things that come up, like speaking Opportunities. And I don't know that I'm there yet to do that kind of thing. So I'm just doing a mix of like, traditional book signings. The independent bookstores I absolutely love. I had a really sweet event in New at a bookstore called Luca. It was like, seriously, the set of the Gilmore Girls. It was so cute.Sarah Peterson [00:15:10]:That bookstore is amazing. And they had addition tell event where we talked about this. Like, how fun would it be to have people bring a recipe from their recipe box and we do a little recipe card swap. So we did that. And then they also made some of the dishes from the cookbook and we had like a potluck style event. So that was really sweet. So I think, you know, some of these events that come up are people that request them. Yeah, I do put on my PR hat and I'm like, well, how can we make this extra special and make it more an experience? And so I've been bringing.Sarah Peterson [00:15:42]:I've been hauling my grandma's china teacups to all these events filled with flowers. I gave you one places I use doilies made by my Aunt Jeannie. I bring pictures of the women in my family that I call the keepers that have been the keepers of our food traditions. So I sort of have this traveling roadshow.Stephanie Hansen [00:16:02]:A kid. Yeah.Sarah Peterson [00:16:04]:But in terms of the events that I'm doing, I've just. Whatever comes my way, I'm kind of doing. I am not like seeking out things. I will say, though I do love the independent bookstores are really fun. And then this week I have an event at Fickers up in Duluth, which is my home. You know, Duluth and Cloquet. So that will be really exciting to do something like that where they're making the food and I just, you know, come in and speak and mingle with people. That will be.Sarah Peterson [00:16:32]:That will be nice.Stephanie Hansen [00:16:34]:We have an or we have a Taste Buds with Stephanie episode coming up with you. I know Michelle is editing it right now, and it is where we made sandwich loaf. And you have the recipe and the techniques for sandwich loaf in your book. Can you just talk a little bit about why sandwich loaf is important to you?Sarah Peterson [00:16:57]:I would love to talk about sandwich loaf.Stephanie Hansen [00:17:00]:It was the funnest thing I've done.Sarah Peterson [00:17:03]:Sandwich loaf is something that I just. I just love it so much. And for people who don't know what it is, it's basically a layered sandwich that comes in a loaf. It looks really pretty, like almost like a wedding cake. And then you slice it so it's like layers. It's Bread with layers of tuna salad, egg salad, chicken salad, pimento cheese, whatever you want to put on the inside. And then it's all encased in cream cheese and decorated with. You can decorate it with, like, piped cream cheese that's tinted so it truly does look like a pretty cake.Sarah Peterson [00:17:35]:Or. My friend Tony and I like to do it with vegetables and herbs and just make little flowers and whimsical butterflies. So my passion for sandwich loaf started when I was probably growing up. It just showed up at, like, wedding showers, baby showers, graduations. And I always loved it. I mean, I loved how it tasted, and it was just kind of enamored by how charming it is. And then my friend Tony had it at her wedding, and we just. We.Sarah Peterson [00:18:01]:We share a bond over sandwich loaf. And part of it. She has an aunt that works at the Super One Deli up in Cloquet and made these things. And that's how we'd get them growing up. They're always ordered from the deli. They didn't make them. But Tony and I were like, we should. We should make one of these.Sarah Peterson [00:18:17]:You know, we can buy the. It's called Pullman bread. It's that long, rectangular bread. She's like, we can just order that from the deli and make our own sandwich loaf. And wouldn't this be fun? And I think we were probably influenced by Instagram seeing other kinds of decorated cakes.Stephanie Hansen [00:18:33]:Yeah.Sarah Peterson [00:18:33]:Pasture breads, where people are doing, like, fun, fun scenes. So we just started doing it a few years ago around Mother's Day. We've done it at her house. We've done it at my house, my parents house. And we'd share it with ladies in our life that we know would appreciate it. And we got such a great response. People that know sandwich loaf love it, and they're just so excited to get it. So we make, like, the big ones, then we'd cut them up and do little smaller ones, decorate them really cute and hand them out around town.Stephanie Hansen [00:19:03]:It was so fun to make that with you. I had seen sandwich loaf, but when Michelle, my producer, was like, hey, she wants to make a sandwich loaf. I was like, yeah, we can make whatever she wants to make. And then when I got there, I was like, oh, yeah, like, this is how we do it. And just making the pimento cheese and, you know, do you put tuna in? Because some people feel weird about fish. And then we had this. Do you have a salmon loaf? Like, do you have egg salad? Just such a blast making that. And I can't wait for us to show people what that's like on television.Stephanie Hansen [00:19:40]:This weekend it'll air Saturday at 8.30am it will launch on Instagram or, excuse me, it will launch on YouTube on Thursday and then it lives into perpetuity. And I'm sure they'll air it again. So it's nicely timed for your book. Thank goodness.Sarah Peterson [00:19:55]:And it's sandwich loaf season, I mean, in my world. So I'll be up in Duluth around Mother's Day and my friend Tony and I are planning to get together and make some. And it's just such a pretty spring thing and I think it would be great if people started serving them again at showers.Stephanie Hansen [00:20:08]:Yes, yes.Sarah Peterson [00:20:11]:Beautiful food item. And it's, it's tasty. You can customize it how you want. You know, you can make more than one if somebody doesn't like tuna or if you want to add some other salad. Yeah, I think it's going to be great. And it would be a fun group activity, wouldn't it, with your girlfriends?Stephanie Hansen [00:20:27]:Like. Yes.Sarah Peterson [00:20:28]:I love it because we just have fun decorating them together.Stephanie Hansen [00:20:31]:I also think it's a good multi generational thing, like for Mother's Day where, you know, you can have the kids, the grandkids, really, everyone can sort of get involved if they're, you know, I guess they have to be 10 or older probably. Unless they're. I mean, you see these little kids on Instagram making gourmet meals now. I don't know how that works. That wasn't.Sarah Peterson [00:20:51]:Well, you could make a peanut butter and jelly one. Like you could really modify the ingredients. I mean, that's not the way that I grew up with it, but it'd be fun to see what people do with it.Stephanie Hansen [00:21:00]:Yeah. And you could think you could frost it with peanut butter. Like that'd be pretty easy to do, actually.Sarah Peterson [00:21:04]:Yeah.Stephanie Hansen [00:21:05]:Or just frosting in and of itself and then have like a, a sweet with jam and kind of. That would be really good too. Or like a cream cheese buttercream for sure.Sarah Peterson [00:21:17]:And I just think it's so pretty when you cut into it too. Like it's pretty on its own when it's decorated in its loaf form. But when you slice into it, the picture of, you know, just how it looks when, when it's on the plate I think is really pretty.Stephanie Hansen [00:21:32]:I'm just gonna see if I can find it here so I can show it.Sarah Peterson [00:21:35]:Yeah, here's the. It looks kind of funny on the camera there.Stephanie Hansen [00:21:39]:Can you see it pull back a little bit? Yes, now I can. Yep. It looks great.Sarah Peterson [00:21:45]:That's like in its full, complete form. And then here it is sliced. And I like it on vintage luncheon plates that, you know, the kind our grandmas and our moms used years ago. And they have the little indentation for the coffee mug.Stephanie Hansen [00:22:01]:We just had Easter yesterday and my mother in law is 94, I think, and came for Easter dinner. And over the years she keeps giving me, you know, dishes and things that she's offloading, as it were, but I kept. I've kept stuff. And we used to have Easter all the time in Nebraska with her at her house there. So I made the Easter spread. I used her tablecloth, I used her silverware forks. I used these little paper mache bunnies that she used to put on the table that I still kept. And it was so sweet to see her come to the house yesterday and sit down and like recognize all this stuff that we had when Ellie was little and we would have Easter with her.Stephanie Hansen [00:22:46]:It was. I was so glad I kept it all. You know, it's kind of a pain, but I'm so glad I did.Sarah Peterson [00:22:51]:Oh, and you'll have that to enjoy for years. And what a great memory. I mean, and I bet Dolores was just tickled.Stephanie Hansen [00:22:56]:She was, she really, she. She really was. And the funny thing, I said, well, you know, that's your tablecloth. And she said, well, where are the napkins? And I didn't really remember that there were napkins because they were in a closet and probably in a box and I didn't unearth them. So I was like, oh, I have the napkins. I just didn't get them out. Like, you know, where are the napkins? All right, so we are going to feature you on the Taste Buds episode. It's a Dec.Stephanie Hansen [00:23:22]:Decades episode where we had to think of recipes that were important to us like through the decades. So sandwich loaf was one. Then I did a Chicken Marbella, which I don't know if you did any dinner parties in the 80s, but if you did, that was what everybody made into like probably the early 90s too.Sarah Peterson [00:23:44]:I can't wait to try that. I have not had that dish.Stephanie Hansen [00:23:47]:It is the simplest thing to make and it has a power punch of flavor. I always double the sauce just because I like it. Really saucy, but it sounds gross. And my producer was like, oh, wait, we're putting prunes in this. I was like, yeah, you just gotta trust me. It's gonna be really great. And then by the time it's all done, you have this really delicious Sauce and the cooked chicken and you can just throw it in one big pan or one big pot and then serve it right from the pot. So it's an easy dinner party.Sarah Peterson [00:24:19]:Dinner party, yeah. That sounds really good.Stephanie Hansen [00:24:22]:Do you have any, like 80s or 90s dishes that you. Not actual dishes, but things to make that you're like, oh, I. If I had to do a decades theme, what would you make?Sarah Peterson [00:24:32]:You know, let's see. So the 80s, I wasn't cooking too much, but I love.Stephanie Hansen [00:24:37]:Because you're so much younger than me.Sarah Peterson [00:24:38]:I'm not so much younger, but I was in that time of life where it was like high school. School.Stephanie Hansen [00:24:43]:Yep.Sarah Peterson [00:24:44]:Not doing a lot of entertaining or anything. I can't think of. I don't know if this is. I mean, we love Dorito. The taco salad with Doritos. I don't know if that's 80s or 90s, but like.Stephanie Hansen [00:24:56]:No, it's. I think it's 90s. And we actually talked about taco salads when we were trying to think about, like, what would be we. I couldn't think of anything of the 90s. And then my producer Michelle, like came up with a bunch of stuff. And taco salad was actually also mud pie.Sarah Peterson [00:25:14]:Yes.Stephanie Hansen [00:25:15]:So we ended up making a mud pie bar that was actually a recipe that my stepmom had. But, like, people were eating a lot of mud pie apparently in the 90s. And chocolate lava cakes.Sarah Peterson [00:25:27]:Oh my gosh. And chocolate lava cakes. Are they. They're back. I mean, I see they are back. My daughter Lucy is a big fan, so anytime we're out to eat, she's got to get a chocolate lava cake.Stephanie Hansen [00:25:36]:Have you ever made one?Sarah Peterson [00:25:38]:No, have you?Stephanie Hansen [00:25:39]:I have attempted it like three different times and it never works. I always get a delicious brownie but like getting that molten lava piece in the middle have not succeeded yet. So I didn't want to do that on camera because I was like, oh, I just don't know.Sarah Peterson [00:25:56]:So, yeah, in 90s dishes. I was just thinking of one thing that my mom has made throughout my life and is in the cookbook are Italian shells. So the big pasta shells. Yes, we ate them a lot in the 90s. We probably ate them definitely after. But just the big pasta shells loaded with Italian sausage, some torn up bread, a, you know, an egg base in there and some pasta sauce and cheese and then smothered with more sauce and cheese. That was like at every big occasion in my life.Stephanie Hansen [00:26:28]:I love it. So delicious. Well, Sarah, congratulations on the book. I'm happy to be on this journey with you, and I'm real proud of you. I think the book is beautiful, and I'm glad you're having so much success. And I can't wait till people see us make sandwich loaf on taste buds this weekend.Sarah Peterson [00:26:46]:Well, thank you. And I just have to thank you for everything, Stephanie. It's been so fun to watch your career and how you've evolved and. And done all these amazing things with your radio show, with your books, all your books and the TV show, too. It's been really fun to follow along.Stephanie Hansen [00:27:01]:Thanks. I. I had people that helped me along the way, so I feel like it's my obligation, but also my joy to help other people because, you know, I. There are things about being a freelance creator and freelance writer and cookbook writer that no one can answer for you unless they've done it. And, you know that first person that told you, like, how much they made and how long it took and what to expect for food costs and, like, those were really valuable lessons that I was so glad that I learned and that people gave me the real deal because I think that is part of, you know, some people write books for fame and fortune. Some people write them to document a historical time in their life or something that's important to them. And then some people just do it because they think it's fun. But all of it and getting, you know, the historical background about what it's going to cost and how long it's going to take, it's important information, I think, to learn before you set out on the journey.Sarah Peterson [00:28:01]:Right. And you're doing such a great service to find that information and share it with the world. So.Stephanie Hansen [00:28:07]:Yeah. And I think your story about the food stylist, too, like, people, you don't have to have a food stylist. Do the whole book. Like, you could have 10 shots or hero shots or the beginning of chapter shots. That's a great way to do.Sarah Peterson [00:28:19]:And just like spending that time with Rachel, too, for those two or three days, like, I just learned so much. So I've taken some of that experience and been able to piggyback on that and some of the photography and things that I'm doing now.Stephanie Hansen [00:28:33]:Yeah, she's really good at it. So I'm glad that Rachel was a resource for you. Her podcast, you can find it in the archives, too, of Dishing with Stephanie's Dish, because it's in there and it's a good one to listen to. So, Sarah, thanks for being with me today. Congratulations on the book. It is Dish and Tell. And where can people get the book and how do you want them toSarah Peterson [00:28:53]:follow you so they can find the book at, you know, online through the major retailers. And then if you're in the Twin Cities, it's at, like, Kowalski's and a lot of independent bookstores. It's even at Barnes and Noble. I went by and visited it this weekend at the Barnes and Noble in Roseville. I've been going around and seeing my book at different places. It's so exciting, and people can follow me. My website is vintagedishandtel.com. my social media handles are the same.Sarah Peterson [00:29:19]:Vintage, Dish and Tell. And then I have a sub stack too, which, if you can't find, just go to my website and you'll be able to link to it.Stephanie Hansen [00:29:26]:Has anyone told you that when you see your book in the wild, you're supposed to sign them?Sarah Peterson [00:29:31]:No, I've thought about that. Do you, like. Do you talk to the bookstore manager or the.Stephanie Hansen [00:29:38]:Sometimes I wouldn't. At a Barnes and Noble, I'd probably just do it. But there's a real rationale behind it, because booksellers can return books that don't sell. They can't return books that are signed.Sarah Peterson [00:29:50]:I'm gonna go sign every one I can find.Stephanie Hansen [00:29:52]:Yeah, I. Whenever I'm out and about, and if it's a small store, I will tell them, okay. But if I see it, I'm. I'll just. I go to the bookseller and I'm like, hey, I'm here and my book is here. Do you mind if I sign a couple? A lot of them have stickers and they'll put, you know, signed edition. But if I'm at, like, Barnes and Noble, I just sit there with my pen and sign them all.Sarah Peterson [00:30:11]:Oh, that's great. Yeah.Stephanie Hansen [00:30:12]:So make sure you sign them.Sarah Peterson [00:30:13]:Thanks for that. Hot tip.Stephanie Hansen [00:30:14]:Yeah, hot tip. Hot tip. All right, Sarah, thanks for joining me today.Sarah Peterson [00:30:18]:Thank you.Stephanie Hansen [00:30:18]:Okay, bye. Bye.Sarah Peterson [00:30:20]:Bye.Stephanie Hansen's @StephaniesDish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Cookbook Author Sarah Peterson, "Vintage Dish and Tell" and I talk sandwich loaf and the keepers of family recipes

friends stories struggle wtf warm up cruise ships lively lauderdale baldoni family week stephanie hansen

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 11, 2026 30:26

Welcome to "Dishing with Stephanie's Dish," the show where we dive into the stories of people passionate about food, family traditions, and the recipes that connect us all. I'm your host, Stephanie Hansen, and today, I'm thrilled to sit down with cookbook author Sarah Peterson, whose new book, Dish and Tell: Recipes from the Heart, celebrates the beauty of vintage family recipes and the memories shared around the table. Dish and Tell: Recipes from the Heart highlights celebrated dishes from Peterson's recipe box—and collects stories from other passionate home cooks who opened their kitchens to share their own tried-and-true recipes. Peterson takes readers along as she visits, cooks, and bakes with friends old and new to present a smorgasbord of family favorites. She serves up stories about the people behind the dishes and offers special tips and tricks from the keepers of these recipes.Whether you're an avid home cook, a lover of kitchen nostalgia, or just here for some culinary inspiration, get ready to hear heartfelt stories, tips on cookbook writing, and a delicious conversation that will leave you hungry for more!Original Episode Transcript Follows:Stephanie Hansen [00:00:02]:Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Dishing with Stephanie's Dish podcast, where we talk to people in the food space who are as obsessed about food as we are. And today we're talking to the cookbook author Sarah Peterson. She is the author of Dish and Tell Recipes from the Heart. I'm going to hold up her book so that you guys can see it. It looks so cute. It's pink. Sarah, I am really excited to talk to you because I don't normally get to know people sort of along the whole journey of them writing a book and then seeing it released into the world. But that did happen with you and I.Sarah Peterson [00:00:37]:Yes, it did. We've known each other a little while, or at least I've known you. I've followed your career, and so it's been really great to have you to consult with a little bit, and you've really been a mentor to me throughout this process.Stephanie Hansen [00:00:50]:Well, and I think for you, coming from the PR world, which was where your background was, and then taking it into a cookbook, I'm seeing so many, like, similarities of how you're approaching things, and I think it's just super smart, and I can't wait to talk to you. So can you just give the viewer, the listener, a little bit of backstory about the book and why you wrote it and why it's special to you?Sarah Peterson [00:01:17]:Yes.Stephanie Hansen [00:01:18]:So.Sarah Peterson [00:01:18]:So about five years ago, maybe more, I started thinking about what I wanted to do with my career. I'd been in PR a long time, telling other people's stories, writing in the voice of other people. I wanted to do something of my own. I had this love of everything vintage. I'm very nostalgic. I love any opportunity to, like, go back to my grandma's kitchens in my mind and, like, imagine them in their homes. And so this idea started brewing about, you know, what if I blogged about family recipes and shared some of these handwritten recipe cards, recipe boxes, my love of vintage. So I started with Instagram first, and I was posting a little bit, and then I.Sarah Peterson [00:02:00]:That kind of evolved into a blog, and that just really grew and grew, and it was just not my own family's recipes, but other people's families, too. Like, I started to just talk to my friends and my neighbors and ask them what are the recipes in their families that I've been handing down through the generations that are really close, you know, to their hearts, and started to share those stories on the blog and then thought, well, this could be a book. A book is daunting as you know, to write, but I had some encouragement from my dad and some other people and just pitched it to the Historical Society, and I'm just so grateful that they decided to publish it.Stephanie Hansen [00:02:37]:And what we're seeing in terms of trends for cookbooks is cookbooks that are AI proof, In other words, cookbooks that have a real narrative point of view on a story. And this book seems like it is exactly that and more. Did you feel uncomfortable or were you nervous about, like, being the keeper, the seed keeper, as it were, or the storykeeper of these stories and how you would translate them into an actual book?Sarah Peterson [00:03:07]:Yes. You mean for, like, other families? Yeah, absolutely. And I think what gave me maybe a little bit of confidence is that something that I had done in my career as a PR person and in one particular project for a client, I was tasked with shining the spotlight on small independent restaurants and the special role that they play in their communities. And so I had this chance to really interview them and tell their stories and talk about how they were making a difference in their communities. And so I was thinking about what I wanted to do with recipes and family stories, kind of drawing on that past experience of the storytelling, the type of storytelling I had done for restaurants and, like, small restaurant owners. And I think that helped give me some confidence. I think just seeing the difference it makes in someone's life, too, when they see a story printed about them. And I also love to shine the spotlight on, like, the underdogs.Sarah Peterson [00:04:03]:And I feel like home cooks don't get a lot of time in the sun, you know, So I wanted to do that. But, yeah, I do think there's a lot of responsibility you carry when you're telling somebody else's story. And it's not something I take lightly. So when I approach a story, I really, you know, lean on my journalistic background. I have a degree in journalism, try to get all the facts straight, run things by people, do fact checking, that kind of thing, too.Stephanie Hansen [00:04:33]:So you assembled all these stories and put them into a book along with your own family stories. And how has the book been received? Because it's really beautiful. It's super charming. There's lots of photos, recipe cards. It's very stylized in a sweet way.Sarah Peterson [00:04:51]:Thank you. I think it's been received really well. It's fun to see. Like, I've done a couple of events where people come up and they're just like, oh, this book is just so sweet. It reminds me of my grandma, and I can't wait to go look through her recipe box. That's like, the biggest compliment I can get. The Star Tribune editor, Nicole, she said she's the editor of Taste. She said it was like opening the book is like getting a big hug.Sarah Peterson [00:05:15]:And I think that's just so sweet, too. Like, I really wanted people to, of course, love the recipes and the stories, but I think, like, the imagery of vintage dishes, of recipe boxes, of grandmas and aprons, I mean, that's just like, so me. And I love all that, and I'm happy that other people seem to really love that as well.Stephanie Hansen [00:05:34]:I know it's hard to answer this question so soon after having the book come out, but this really does feel like it could continue on and be a series and continue to live on in your Instagram. Could even be like, audio, you know, version, or you could do television things with it because there's so much historical narrative in there. Has that occurred to you at all?Sarah Peterson [00:06:00]:Not so much yet. I mean, I'm trying to figure that all out now. Like, what do I want to do next? And I think, like, I would love to do more storytelling, more sharing of recipes, maybe more on my sub stack and my Instagram. But yeah, I mean, it could, there could be future editions of the book. But that's just so ambitious for me right now. Just kind of in the thick of it. Maybe I'll have to tap you for some more knowledge later on. But I mean, I do have, like, in talking to these families that I interviewed for the book, other stories would come up that they're, you know, other recipes.Sarah Peterson [00:06:34]:And certainly people that I've been meeting, doing events are telling me about their recipes. I had this woman come to see me at a book event at Kowalski's last weekend, and she brought her family cookbook that she had made, you know, just something that she had pieced together but was sharing with her family. And so it was really sweet, and I love seeing that, too. And I think, you know, sharing some of the recipes that other people share with me at events, but also talking about how they're recording their family recipes. Like, I think, if anything, I'd love to be an inspiration for other people or give people an inspiration to collect those recipes and show some of the formats that other families are using to share those with with their extended family.Stephanie Hansen [00:07:15]:As we talk about the nuts and bolts of making a cookbook, what was the hardest part for you in putting this book together?Sarah Peterson [00:07:25]:I think it was. It seemed so massive in the beginning, like, the organization of a cookbook. I've learned a lot in the process and, like, Have a rockin spreadsheet now. But that was very daunting in the beginning. Then I got into the thick of it, and I think toward the end, like, the editing. Oh, my gosh, that was really something because you don't know exactly when it's going to hit. Like, when are you going to have to look through this whole thing? Like, after. Even before it was in layout, like, just getting the manuscript and after the editor had done a first pass, and then you have to reread it all again, and you just have to, like, carve out a bunch of time and just get into it.Sarah Peterson [00:08:07]:And I thought that was really hard. It reminded me of being back in college when you're cramming for a final.Stephanie Hansen [00:08:11]:Yeah.Sarah Peterson [00:08:13]:So I didn't, like, love that. But, I mean, it's just part of the process.Stephanie Hansen [00:08:18]:Yeah. Because the manuscript comes back and you don't know when. And then all of a sudden, like, your entire life is put on hold for however long it takes you to get through it.Sarah Peterson [00:08:25]:And for me, it was like a summer weekend. Like, oh, okay. I guess I'm gonna just be doing this for the next two weekend. Yeah.Stephanie Hansen [00:08:33]:How did you feel about the photographing of the book? Because that can be a challenging part that stops people.Sarah Peterson [00:08:40]:I'm glad you asked about that because as you know, we have the same publisher. And it's really like, they were so great. They're like, sarah, just take photos like you're, you know, doing on your Instagram. These will be great. We'll make it work. Well, yes, but I just was, like, feeling I'm not a food stylist. You know, I do my thing and I take pictures in the moment when I'm making food, but I'm like, I don't know if these are cookbook worthy. And I do everything on my iPhone.Sarah Peterson [00:09:08]:I'm not gonna get a fancy camera. So as I got further along the process, pretty late in the process, I'm like, I just need some help, because I want somebody to help me get a really pretty shot for the COVID Help me shoot some of the things. Like, meat is so hard to take a pretty picture.Stephanie Hansen [00:09:24]:Yeah, for sure.Sarah Peterson [00:09:25]:Meatball. Or, you know, like, just. Oh. I was just really struggling, and I listened to your podcast and I know that you interviewed Rachel White of Set the Table Photography, who happens to be a food stylist as well. And I'd been following her on Instagram and really liked her style. So I reached out to her after hearing her on your podcast, and we met, and I just told her what I was doing. I said, I don't have a lot of money, but here's a few shots that I'd like to get. And she also took some headshots of me.Sarah Peterson [00:09:52]:But she came to my house for a few days, and we just banged out as much as we could. Not even like three full days. Like, two and a half days. I just was, like, cooking up a storm. We did headshots and lifestyle shots one morning, and then just a bunch of recipes and then, like, a bunch. A brunch spread one day, too.Stephanie Hansen [00:10:10]:So what that translated to me when looking at the book was we'll call them, like, some hero shots.Sarah Peterson [00:10:16]:Exactly.Stephanie Hansen [00:10:18]:That were. They were. It was funny because I couldn't necessarily tell when I was looking at the book, but I could see, like, just from the perspective of the stylized nature of the background and the more complete shot. Like, let's see if I can just find one that I can hold up.Sarah Peterson [00:10:44]:Yeah, A lot of the shots in, you know, the chapter intros.Stephanie Hansen [00:10:49]:Yeah, it's like, that one maybe.Sarah Peterson [00:10:52]:Yes, yes.Stephanie Hansen [00:10:53]:And I thought maybe that one.Sarah Peterson [00:10:56]:I took that one, actually. But I think just having Rachel, like, in. In the end, too, I was like, well, people are gonna. Is this gonna be weird to have a mix of really good professional pictures than my pictures? And then it was really important for me to have pictures that the families submitted, so candids and snapshots. And I know feature a lot of those in your cookbook, too. And I think those are so important, and I think they all came together. I hope so. Yeah, I did that one, too.Stephanie Hansen [00:11:28]:Oh, see, look at.Sarah Peterson [00:11:30]:I can't even tell if you look in the back. We credit which pages are definitely her pictures. But, you know, she did the COVIDStephanie Hansen [00:11:37]:shot, and that's this one. Yeah. No, I. I knew you had worked with her, but when I looked through the book, I thought I could tell, but I couldn't, so. Good for you.Sarah Peterson [00:11:49]:She helped me do the. The Dutch pancake.Stephanie Hansen [00:11:52]:Yep. Those are so hard to get because they deflate.Sarah Peterson [00:11:58]:I know. And the day that we did it, I just made the most gigantic one ever in my largest lodge skillet. And it worked. And, like, screaming in excitement that it came out so beautiful. And then it did deflate, but we made it look pretty with berries and powder. Powdered sugar. I did that one, too. That one.Sarah Peterson [00:12:16]:Handballs. But, like, she did these really pretty pictures of my recipe cards and recipe boxes, and she took pictures of me with my grandma's dishes. So she got a lot of shots, too, that obviously I Couldn't take because I was in them. Yeah, it was really nice. And I've been using her photos like crazy and all of my Instagram and marketing efforts, so I'm just so grateful that I had her. I wish I could have hired her for the whole thing. But I think, too, when you're making a cookbook, I don't know about you, but I like to eat what I make. And I'm, like, photographing it in the moment.Stephanie Hansen [00:12:49]:Yes.Sarah Peterson [00:12:50]:And I do like those kind of pictures too, so I'm really glad I have a mix.Stephanie Hansen [00:12:54]:I. I feel like, for me, if I'm not living that life or I'm not like, that is the life I live. So the intention is that it's happening in real time. I'm. I felt like this. Making this thing today, when I made it, this is what it looked like. This is how I ate it. This is how it.Stephanie Hansen [00:13:14]:The dishes I served it in. To me, that's what makes this food life fun. So when it becomes like a complete chore or a list or a job, that's when I find I don't like it as much.Sarah Peterson [00:13:26]:Right. And I do think that people resonate to real life pictures.Stephanie Hansen [00:13:31]:Yeah. We're lucky in that way, because if we would have been doing this during the fussy Instagram, first coming alive and everything being blown out white, beautiful shots,Sarah Peterson [00:13:42]:I don't know that we have to do that. And especially with AI now, you want things to look a little imperfect.Stephanie Hansen [00:13:47]:Tell me about how you scheduled your book tour and how you worked with your publishing company, because I feel like you're approaching it very methodically from a publicist standpoint, and I think that's helpful for cookbook writers.Sarah Peterson [00:14:05]:Well, I'm glad it appears so, because that is. That's been like a big surprise, like, book tour. Okay. I. You know, I didn't really know what to expect, and I've seen everything you've done, and you've done a phenomenal job. And I'm like, if I can do a fraction of what Stephanie does, that would be great. So really, right now, I'm in the thick of it. The book came out in February, but it was a little bit slow in getting events because I had a vacation and some other things planned.Sarah Peterson [00:14:33]:But then now, coming into April, I've got a lot more going on, and I've just been fielding requests that have come through the publisher or through my website, and I haven't said no to a lot. Although, know, like, there's things that come up, like speaking Opportunities. And I don't know that I'm there yet to do that kind of thing. So I'm just doing a mix of like, traditional book signings. The independent bookstores I absolutely love. I had a really sweet event in New at a bookstore called Luca. It was like, seriously, the set of the Gilmore Girls. It was so cute.Sarah Peterson [00:15:10]:That bookstore is amazing. And they had addition tell event where we talked about this. Like, how fun would it be to have people bring a recipe from their recipe box and we do a little recipe card swap. So we did that. And then they also made some of the dishes from the cookbook and we had like a potluck style event. So that was really sweet. So I think, you know, some of these events that come up are people that request them. Yeah, I do put on my PR hat and I'm like, well, how can we make this extra special and make it more an experience? And so I've been bringing.Sarah Peterson [00:15:42]:I've been hauling my grandma's china teacups to all these events filled with flowers. I gave you one places I use doilies made by my Aunt Jeannie. I bring pictures of the women in my family that I call the keepers that have been the keepers of our food traditions. So I sort of have this traveling roadshow.Stephanie Hansen [00:16:02]:A kid. Yeah.Sarah Peterson [00:16:04]:But in terms of the events that I'm doing, I've just. Whatever comes my way, I'm kind of doing. I am not like seeking out things. I will say, though I do love the independent bookstores are really fun. And then this week I have an event at Fickers up in Duluth, which is my home. You know, Duluth and Cloquet. So that will be really exciting to do something like that where they're making the food and I just, you know, come in and speak and mingle with people. That will be.Sarah Peterson [00:16:32]:That will be nice.Stephanie Hansen [00:16:34]:We have an or we have a Taste Buds with Stephanie episode coming up with you. I know Michelle is editing it right now, and it is where we made sandwich loaf. And you have the recipe and the techniques for sandwich loaf in your book. Can you just talk a little bit about why sandwich loaf is important to you?Sarah Peterson [00:16:57]:I would love to talk about sandwich loaf.Stephanie Hansen [00:17:00]:It was the funnest thing I've done.Sarah Peterson [00:17:03]:Sandwich loaf is something that I just. I just love it so much. And for people who don't know what it is, it's basically a layered sandwich that comes in a loaf. It looks really pretty, like almost like a wedding cake. And then you slice it so it's like layers. It's Bread with layers of tuna salad, egg salad, chicken salad, pimento cheese, whatever you want to put on the inside. And then it's all encased in cream cheese and decorated with. You can decorate it with, like, piped cream cheese that's tinted so it truly does look like a pretty cake.Sarah Peterson [00:17:35]:Or. My friend Tony and I like to do it with vegetables and herbs and just make little flowers and whimsical butterflies. So my passion for sandwich loaf started when I was probably growing up. It just showed up at, like, wedding showers, baby showers, graduations. And I always loved it. I mean, I loved how it tasted, and it was just kind of enamored by how charming it is. And then my friend Tony had it at her wedding, and we just. We.Sarah Peterson [00:18:01]:We share a bond over sandwich loaf. And part of it. She has an aunt that works at the Super One Deli up in Cloquet and made these things. And that's how we'd get them growing up. They're always ordered from the deli. They didn't make them. But Tony and I were like, we should. We should make one of these.Sarah Peterson [00:18:17]:You know, we can buy the. It's called Pullman bread. It's that long, rectangular bread. She's like, we can just order that from the deli and make our own sandwich loaf. And wouldn't this be fun? And I think we were probably influenced by Instagram seeing other kinds of decorated cakes.Stephanie Hansen [00:18:33]:Yeah.Sarah Peterson [00:18:33]:Pasture breads, where people are doing, like, fun, fun scenes. So we just started doing it a few years ago around Mother's Day. We've done it at her house. We've done it at my house, my parents house. And we'd share it with ladies in our life that we know would appreciate it. And we got such a great response. People that know sandwich loaf love it, and they're just so excited to get it. So we make, like, the big ones, then we'd cut them up and do little smaller ones, decorate them really cute and hand them out around town.Stephanie Hansen [00:19:03]:It was so fun to make that with you. I had seen sandwich loaf, but when Michelle, my producer, was like, hey, she wants to make a sandwich loaf. I was like, yeah, we can make whatever she wants to make. And then when I got there, I was like, oh, yeah, like, this is how we do it. And just making the pimento cheese and, you know, do you put tuna in? Because some people feel weird about fish. And then we had this. Do you have a salmon loaf? Like, do you have egg salad? Just such a blast making that. And I can't wait for us to show people what that's like on television.Stephanie Hansen [00:19:40]:This weekend it'll air Saturday at 8.30am it will launch on Instagram or, excuse me, it will launch on YouTube on Thursday and then it lives into perpetuity. And I'm sure they'll air it again. So it's nicely timed for your book. Thank goodness.Sarah Peterson [00:19:55]:And it's sandwich loaf season, I mean, in my world. So I'll be up in Duluth around Mother's Day and my friend Tony and I are planning to get together and make some. And it's just such a pretty spring thing and I think it would be great if people started serving them again at showers.Stephanie Hansen [00:20:08]:Yes, yes.Sarah Peterson [00:20:11]:Beautiful food item. And it's, it's tasty. You can customize it how you want. You know, you can make more than one if somebody doesn't like tuna or if you want to add some other salad. Yeah, I think it's going to be great. And it would be a fun group activity, wouldn't it, with your girlfriends?Stephanie Hansen [00:20:27]:Like. Yes.Sarah Peterson [00:20:28]:I love it because we just have fun decorating them together.Stephanie Hansen [00:20:31]:I also think it's a good multi generational thing, like for Mother's Day where, you know, you can have the kids, the grandkids, really, everyone can sort of get involved if they're, you know, I guess they have to be 10 or older probably. Unless they're. I mean, you see these little kids on Instagram making gourmet meals now. I don't know how that works. That wasn't.Sarah Peterson [00:20:51]:Well, you could make a peanut butter and jelly one. Like you could really modify the ingredients. I mean, that's not the way that I grew up with it, but it'd be fun to see what people do with it.Stephanie Hansen [00:21:00]:Yeah. And you could think you could frost it with peanut butter. Like that'd be pretty easy to do, actually.Sarah Peterson [00:21:04]:Yeah.Stephanie Hansen [00:21:05]:Or just frosting in and of itself and then have like a, a sweet with jam and kind of. That would be really good too. Or like a cream cheese buttercream for sure.Sarah Peterson [00:21:17]:And I just think it's so pretty when you cut into it too. Like it's pretty on its own when it's decorated in its loaf form. But when you slice into it, the picture of, you know, just how it looks when, when it's on the plate I think is really pretty.Stephanie Hansen [00:21:32]:I'm just gonna see if I can find it here so I can show it.Sarah Peterson [00:21:35]:Yeah, here's the. It looks kind of funny on the camera there.Stephanie Hansen [00:21:39]:Can you see it pull back a little bit? Yes, now I can. Yep. It looks great.Sarah Peterson [00:21:45]:That's like in its full, complete form. And then here it is sliced. And I like it on vintage luncheon plates that, you know, the kind our grandmas and our moms used years ago. And they have the little indentation for the coffee mug.Stephanie Hansen [00:22:01]:We just had Easter yesterday and my mother in law is 94, I think, and came for Easter dinner. And over the years she keeps giving me, you know, dishes and things that she's offloading, as it were, but I kept. I've kept stuff. And we used to have Easter all the time in Nebraska with her at her house there. So I made the Easter spread. I used her tablecloth, I used her silverware forks. I used these little paper mache bunnies that she used to put on the table that I still kept. And it was so sweet to see her come to the house yesterday and sit down and like recognize all this stuff that we had when Ellie was little and we would have Easter with her.Stephanie Hansen [00:22:46]:It was. I was so glad I kept it all. You know, it's kind of a pain, but I'm so glad I did.Sarah Peterson [00:22:51]:Oh, and you'll have that to enjoy for years. And what a great memory. I mean, and I bet Dolores was just tickled.Stephanie Hansen [00:22:56]:She was, she really, she. She really was. And the funny thing, I said, well, you know, that's your tablecloth. And she said, well, where are the napkins? And I didn't really remember that there were napkins because they were in a closet and probably in a box and I didn't unearth them. So I was like, oh, I have the napkins. I just didn't get them out. Like, you know, where are the napkins? All right, so we are going to feature you on the Taste Buds episode. It's a Dec.Stephanie Hansen [00:23:22]:Decades episode where we had to think of recipes that were important to us like through the decades. So sandwich loaf was one. Then I did a Chicken Marbella, which I don't know if you did any dinner parties in the 80s, but if you did, that was what everybody made into like probably the early 90s too.Sarah Peterson [00:23:44]:I can't wait to try that. I have not had that dish.Stephanie Hansen [00:23:47]:It is the simplest thing to make and it has a power punch of flavor. I always double the sauce just because I like it. Really saucy, but it sounds gross. And my producer was like, oh, wait, we're putting prunes in this. I was like, yeah, you just gotta trust me. It's gonna be really great. And then by the time it's all done, you have this really delicious Sauce and the cooked chicken and you can just throw it in one big pan or one big pot and then serve it right from the pot. So it's an easy dinner party.Sarah Peterson [00:24:19]:Dinner party, yeah. That sounds really good.Stephanie Hansen [00:24:22]:Do you have any, like 80s or 90s dishes that you. Not actual dishes, but things to make that you're like, oh, I. If I had to do a decades theme, what would you make?Sarah Peterson [00:24:32]:You know, let's see. So the 80s, I wasn't cooking too much, but I love.Stephanie Hansen [00:24:37]:Because you're so much younger than me.Sarah Peterson [00:24:38]:I'm not so much younger, but I was in that time of life where it was like high school. School.Stephanie Hansen [00:24:43]:Yep.Sarah Peterson [00:24:44]:Not doing a lot of entertaining or anything. I can't think of. I don't know if this is. I mean, we love Dorito. The taco salad with Doritos. I don't know if that's 80s or 90s, but like.Stephanie Hansen [00:24:56]:No, it's. I think it's 90s. And we actually talked about taco salads when we were trying to think about, like, what would be we. I couldn't think of anything of the 90s. And then my producer Michelle, like came up with a bunch of stuff. And taco salad was actually also mud pie.Sarah Peterson [00:25:14]:Yes.Stephanie Hansen [00:25:15]:So we ended up making a mud pie bar that was actually a recipe that my stepmom had. But, like, people were eating a lot of mud pie apparently in the 90s. And chocolate lava cakes.Sarah Peterson [00:25:27]:Oh my gosh. And chocolate lava cakes. Are they. They're back. I mean, I see they are back. My daughter Lucy is a big fan, so anytime we're out to eat, she's got to get a chocolate lava cake.Stephanie Hansen [00:25:36]:Have you ever made one?Sarah Peterson [00:25:38]:No, have you?Stephanie Hansen [00:25:39]:I have attempted it like three different times and it never works. I always get a delicious brownie but like getting that molten lava piece in the middle have not succeeded yet. So I didn't want to do that on camera because I was like, oh, I just don't know.Sarah Peterson [00:25:56]:So, yeah, in 90s dishes. I was just thinking of one thing that my mom has made throughout my life and is in the cookbook are Italian shells. So the big pasta shells. Yes, we ate them a lot in the 90s. We probably ate them definitely after. But just the big pasta shells loaded with Italian sausage, some torn up bread, a, you know, an egg base in there and some pasta sauce and cheese and then smothered with more sauce and cheese. That was like at every big occasion in my life.Stephanie Hansen [00:26:28]:I love it. So delicious. Well, Sarah, congratulations on the book. I'm happy to be on this journey with you, and I'm real proud of you. I think the book is beautiful, and I'm glad you're having so much success. And I can't wait till people see us make sandwich loaf on taste buds this weekend.Sarah Peterson [00:26:46]:Well, thank you. And I just have to thank you for everything, Stephanie. It's been so fun to watch your career and how you've evolved and. And done all these amazing things with your radio show, with your books, all your books and the TV show, too. It's been really fun to follow along.Stephanie Hansen [00:27:01]:Thanks. I. I had people that helped me along the way, so I feel like it's my obligation, but also my joy to help other people because, you know, I. There are things about being a freelance creator and freelance writer and cookbook writer that no one can answer for you unless they've done it. And, you know that first person that told you, like, how much they made and how long it took and what to expect for food costs and, like, those were really valuable lessons that I was so glad that I learned and that people gave me the real deal because I think that is part of, you know, some people write books for fame and fortune. Some people write them to document a historical time in their life or something that's important to them. And then some people just do it because they think it's fun. But all of it and getting, you know, the historical background about what it's going to cost and how long it's going to take, it's important information, I think, to learn before you set out on the journey.Sarah Peterson [00:28:01]:Right. And you're doing such a great service to find that information and share it with the world. So.Stephanie Hansen [00:28:07]:Yeah. And I think your story about the food stylist, too, like, people, you don't have to have a food stylist. Do the whole book. Like, you could have 10 shots or hero shots or the beginning of chapter shots. That's a great way to do.Sarah Peterson [00:28:19]:And just like spending that time with Rachel, too, for those two or three days, like, I just learned so much. So I've taken some of that experience and been able to piggyback on that and some of the photography and things that I'm doing now.Stephanie Hansen [00:28:33]:Yeah, she's really good at it. So I'm glad that Rachel was a resource for you. Her podcast, you can find it in the archives, too, of Dishing with Stephanie's Dish, because it's in there and it's a good one to listen to. So, Sarah, thanks for being with me today. Congratulations on the book. It is Dish and Tell. And where can people get the book and how do you want them toSarah Peterson [00:28:53]:follow you so they can find the book at, you know, online through the major retailers. And then if you're in the Twin Cities, it's at, like, Kowalski's and a lot of independent bookstores. It's even at Barnes and Noble. I went by and visited it this weekend at the Barnes and Noble in Roseville. I've been going around and seeing my book at different places. It's so exciting, and people can follow me. My website is vintagedishandtel.com. my social media handles are the same.Sarah Peterson [00:29:19]:Vintage, Dish and Tell. And then I have a sub stack too, which, if you can't find, just go to my website and you'll be able to link to it.Stephanie Hansen [00:29:26]:Has anyone told you that when you see your book in the wild, you're supposed to sign them?Sarah Peterson [00:29:31]:No, I've thought about that. Do you, like. Do you talk to the bookstore manager or the.Stephanie Hansen [00:29:38]:Sometimes I wouldn't. At a Barnes and Noble, I'd probably just do it. But there's a real rationale behind it, because booksellers can return books that don't sell. They can't return books that are signed.Sarah Peterson [00:29:50]:I'm gonna go sign every one I can find.Stephanie Hansen [00:29:52]:Yeah, I. Whenever I'm out and about, and if it's a small store, I will tell them, okay. But if I see it, I'm. I'll just. I go to the bookseller and I'm like, hey, I'm here and my book is here. Do you mind if I sign a couple? A lot of them have stickers and they'll put, you know, signed edition. But if I'm at, like, Barnes and Noble, I just sit there with my pen and sign them all.Sarah Peterson [00:30:11]:Oh, that's great. Yeah.Stephanie Hansen [00:30:12]:So make sure you sign them.Sarah Peterson [00:30:13]:Thanks for that. Hot tip.Stephanie Hansen [00:30:14]:Yeah, hot tip. Hot tip. All right, Sarah, thanks for joining me today.Sarah Peterson [00:30:18]:Thank you.Stephanie Hansen [00:30:18]:Okay, bye. Bye.Sarah Peterson [00:30:20]:Bye.Stephanie Hansen's @StephaniesDish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

4/3 FRI HOUR 1: The struggles of getting to this job on time, a WTF warm-up, Jason's cruise ship stories, and a Lively/Baldoni update

Jason & Alexis

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 3, 2026 40:20

We're wrapping up Friends and Family Week with Stephanie Hansen! And Jason is live from Ft. Lauderdale! The struggles of getting to this job on time, a WTF warm-up, Jason's cruise ship stories, and a Lively/Baldoni update -- many charges dismissed, but they're still going to trial See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

330 | Why Beef-on-Dairy Calves Fail to Thrive in the Feedyard with Stephanie Hansen

Uplevel Dairy Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 2, 2026 25:06

On the Uplevel Dairy Podcast, Peggy Coffeen interviews Dr. Stephanie Hansen of Iowa State University at Adisseo's VIP seminar about why beef-on-dairy calves often fail to thrive in the feedlot. Hansen, a feedlot “mineral nerd,” explains how high liver copper—seen in necropsy results at 800–900 ppm—can originate from late-gestation cow diets and be compounded in dairy systems by copper-fortified milk replacer and starter feed while calves are still functionally monogastric, leading to greater absorption. Research funded by the Iowa Beef Checkoff found high liver copper did not affect vaccine response but did worsen outcomes in a respiratory disease challenge, increasing fever, clinical signs, and lung consolidation, alongside systemic inflammation and potentially compromised liver health. Action steps include moderating copper in late-gestation and calf starter diets, avoiding feedlot copper over-fortification, reassessing frequent vaccination protocols, and considering zinc's anti-inflammatory benefits. Hansen also notes she writes national-park crime thrillers under the pen name SL Hansen, with a new book due April 2026.This Episode is brought to you by AdisseoThis episode is sponsored by Uplevel Dairy Podcast Founding Partner Adisseo, a global leader in nutritional solutions and premier provider of rumen-protected methionine for dairy producers who want to optimize milk production, capture more value from components, and maintain the health of their high-performing herds. Learn more at https://www.adisseo.com/en/00:00 Why Calves Struggle00:45 Sponsor Message01:30 Meet Mineral Nerd03:21 Feedlot Mystery Copper04:46 Beef Copper Fortification07:25 Dairy System One Two Punch09:26 Toxicity Signs Inflammation12:34 Respiratory Challenge Study15:25 Other Thrive Factors17:29 Producer Action Steps21:15 Zinc Balancing Idea22:04 Author Side Quest23:56 Wrap Up Takeaways

action research fail thrive beef vip hansen dairy iowa state university calves stephanie hansen peggy coffeen

3/23 MON HOUR 1: Journeys into the bleph-o-sphere, Journeys into the ear canal, Denise Richards looks amazing, and "Project Hail Mary" is a hit

Jason & Alexis

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 23, 2026 42:01

Stephanie Hansen takes us on a plastic surgery journey for her blepharoplasty, Jason got that cotton swab out of his ear, Denise Richards's facelift looks amazing, and "Project Hail Mary" is a hit at the box officeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

canal journeys sphere project hail mary denise richards stephanie hansen

Fhima's closed, hard times for restaurants since Op. Metro Surge and more with Stephanie Hansen

news restaurants minneapolis closed surge metro hard times stephanie hansen

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 10, 2026 14:57

Our friend Stephanie Hansen joins Chad to talk about the surprise closing of Fhima's in downtown Minneapolis, difficulties many restaurants downtown face today as the area evolves, and the hard times restaurants beyond just downtown feel today due to Operation Metro Surge.

Ending the Iran war today & Stephanie Hansen

news iran ending minneapolis iran war stephanie hansen

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 10, 2026 38:29

Chad opens the hour arguing the war in Iran should end today before a conversation with Stephanie Hansen on the closing of Fhima's restaurant and the difficulties many other restaurants are experiencing today in downtown Minneapolis and beyond.

Reshaping DHS, Ask Adam, getting out of Iran today, Stephanie Hansen and more!

news iran reshaping tim walz dhs stephanie hansen

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 10, 2026 79:00

Chad opens the show with a quick listen to some of the Q&A from Governor Walz's press conference announcing his plan to reshape and modernize DHS and plenty of reaction from Chad. Later, we have some fun with Ask Adam Anything, Chad argues the war in Iran should end today, and Stephanie Hansen joins to talk about the closing of Fhima's and much more from the local, struggling food scene.

Strategic Zinc Supplementation in Cattle Diets

Nebraska Extension Almanac Radio

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 9, 2026 4:52

Transportation of cattle is an essential component of the U.S. beef production system, but the stress caused with moving cattle is also associated with reduced feedlot performance and increased incidents of bovine respiratory diseases. Stephanie Hansen an Iowa State Feedlot Nutritionist says new research on strategic zinc supplementation is helping to fix this issue.

strategic transportation diets cattle zinc supplementation stephanie hansen

Tim Niver owner of Mucci's restaurant and Podcast Host of Niver Niver Land

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 30, 2026 32:18

Hello, everybody. Welcome to Dishing with Stephanie's Dish, the podcast where we talk to people in the food space, cookbook writers, people that are obsessed with food. And I'm really delighted today to speak with Tim Niver. He is the host of the Niver Niverland podcast and also a restaurateur in St. Paul, our fine capital city. He owns Mochis, also is a friend. And I was just noticing in my calendar, we recorded about a year ago today.Subscribe to Niver Niver Land on YoutubeListen to the PodcastVisit Mucci's ItalianTim Niver:Yeah, well, I know we recorded before. I don't remember the, the date, but I'm glad to, I'm glad to be back on. It's, it's, it's a good time to talk about things.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah. And we. I'm going to release this podcast on Friday, so it'll be timely. I moving it up in my schedule because we have been under extreme stress as restaurateurs and people in the hospitality industry basically for the last two months. But really increasingly in the last two weeks as ICE agents, 3,000 of them have started roaming the streets of Both Minneapolis and St. Paul and our surrounding suburbs and towns, asking people for papers, going into restaurants, stopping cars on the road, doing traffic enforcement type stops, going to people's homes, taking children as little as 2 and 5 years old. And unfortunately, these actions have resulted in the shooting of Renee Good also over the weekend on Saturday, the shooting of Alex Pretty. And it is so interesting.As this podcast was being released, a relief fund for Minnesota restaurants was launched by Stephanie March with support from The Minneapolis Foundation. You can give here:Stephanie Hansen:I was on the air live with my radio partner Stephanie March on Saturday morning when the second shooting happened, which technically is the third shooting because there was another one where someone was shot in the leg in their house, defending themselves with a shovel and a broom. What I just am so wanting people to hear from Minneapolis and St. Paul and Minnesota in general is that the actions that are happening here, A, are not legal, B, are not law enforcement, and C, are creating so much harm to a community that has been trying to recover for the last five years since the COVID pandemic. And I'm so. It's always restaurants. We're the canary in the coal mine. Right.Tim Niver:I'm, I'm listening. And it's hard to refute anything you said. Number one, there's a, restaurants are involved in particular in moments of social change, were involved in helping support, care for the community at large. As a product of them supporting and caring for us at large, it's a debt that we want to owe to the community. But there's a lot of pressure to act and, and it's not always an easy decision because we're business people in this. In this state, business feels insignificant altogether. And then to continue to participate appropriately on whatever way you can is, I think, ultimately where we all need to be. Whatever we can do, whatever you feel like you want to do, that should be enough for people.But there's a lot of expectation.Stephanie Hansen:It's fascinating, too, because when I say that restaurants are the canary in the coal mine, I feel like when these situations happen or civil unrest happens or starts to unfold, we see it in the restaurant community because it is communal spaces. But then we also lean on the restaurateurs and people to provide food and community. And there's so much expectation not only for you to, hey, run your business and serve me my pizza in a timely fashion, but can you also donate and feed my whole community and show up? And it's so interesting because you guys do. Yes, you do. You can.Tim Niver:We do it despite being able to.Stephanie Hansen:Because you are hospitalitarians in your heart. Like, yeah, that is why you stay in this business. It is a level of service and leadership.Tim Niver:Yeah, yeah, it's. I just think it's a matter of care, which is what we innately provide. And when there's moments where care is especially needed. You've seen this community react in full. The restaurant community and the community at large, like, we've all reacted in full. We've been there for each other. It's inspiring.Stephanie Hansen:It is inspiring. And it's ongoing.Tim Niver:Yeah, it's ongoing. It's an economic occupation as well. Completely affects and dampens any kind of feelings of joy. The. The way you might want to express yourself on a birthday feels different. The way you want to express yourself on an anniversary might feel different. Things that we celebrate, that we, as restaurateurs, try to preserve. Now we're changing our language to It's really nice to have you here. Even the things we say prompting, you know, it's. It's not. It's discompassionate, perhaps, to ask somebody how they're doing right now. So. So we're talking to each other in a whole new language based on how. How things feel. It's pervasive on all levels. But we have to persist, right? We have to, as a business, even though it feels insignificant in the moment, you have to persist. You have to do the things through an, you know, austerity or what have you to understand clearly what you're able to support and give. And then on the Inside, you have to make the decision about folks who need every single hour of work that they get per week to stay afloat. Many restaurants are the same way. And so, you know, this kind of doubles down on a time that is not normally busy. It's a huge multiplier effect.Stephanie Hansen:It's like 20 below in January and has been for about a week in the Twin Cities with another potential week ahead.Tim Niver:Right. And, you know, it does keep people in the suburbs. That interaction between the inner parts of the city, it becomes a more of a bubble. So, you know, and understanding security. It's true. Like, I get it. You know, these are all real things. Overall, it's a big pill to swallow.Stephanie Hansen:And the weight is getting really heavy. The reason I think you're uniquely qualified to speak to me today is I want people to know that in 2025, you were the James Beard semifinalist for outstanding hospitality, and you are known in our community for providing great food, great service, but your whole being and your whole approach to care and hospitality within the confines of our restaurant's four walls is what you've really done your entire career. And you've mentioned that that looks like it's changed. It has to change. It has to be modernized in light of the times and the moments that we find ourselves in.Tim Niver:Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, we began to lean more, lead more with compassion after George Floyd and Covid, trying to understand, you know, there's also a lot of strengthened worker rights. A lot of things have been changing over the years, and in good fashion. But also, I guess the thing that we. We try to do is just stay with it. We've been through some of these similar feelings before. They're triggering.Stephanie Hansen:And thank you for saying that, because I. I do think that is a uniquely Minnesota thing in that five years ago, when the George Floyd murder happened, and, well, the lockdowns were first, and then the George Floyd murder. Like, when I hear a helicopter, I feel very anxious. I feel like a trauma of what is happening. I'm heightened. I'm scared. I'm looking around. I'm wondering if there's some breaking news.It's hard to describe that to people who haven't lived under that complete fear of what's next.Tim Niver:Yeah. And in many parts of the world, they live like that every day.Stephanie Hansen:And also true. Yeah. And. Oh, gosh.Tim Niver:But we certainly do gain a perspective that nobody else could have. It also provided ample levels of or already set types of organizations in times of need. People had done this before.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah. And it mobilized quick. How Fast people.Tim Niver:Well, you know, we're trying to. We're all trying to protect somebody here. We're all trying to protect somebody. So I really feel like having had experience like that, you have a new generation of restaurateurs and thinkers like Rectangle Pizza. They lead with love, but they'll fight for it. Just such heart and fearlessness. That's. That's fearlessness.I don't contain that. I don't contain that. Thank God they do. Thank God they do.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah.Tim Niver:And they're thrust into it too, like being where they are.Stephanie Hansen:To give some context, Wrecktangle Pizza put out a mutual aid fund and I think they raised at last count, over a hundred thousand dollars of. Oh, over two.Tim Niver:I believe it's over two through selling.Stephanie Hansen:Pizzas and collecting donations. And that money is going back into their communities. And we've seen a lot of that. These mutual aid funds that people have just started on their own.Tim Niver:Then they were visited the next, the following day after they did that by Ice2, perhaps recognizing that they were part of some resistance by helping take care of people and, you know, it just. How is that imaginable?Stephanie Hansen:What do you. I. It's hard to describe the. It's hard to describe the impact that the diverse population and immigrant population has had on the restaurant business as a whole. I think some people believe that everyone who works in a restaurant that is a black or a brown person is somehow an illegal person. And it's ignorant and I'm not sure people fully know, but there is this sort of idea too, like, well, these owners. These owners are employing these people without papers and we're just getting the bad guys. Can.You've been in this industry a long time. This industry is made up of a lot of people.Tim Niver:Yeah. You know, honestly, you hire somebody, you have to do the paperwork. That's the only way they can get paid. And I am not an ID expert. I do not run this through some sort of machine that tells me exactly where the documents are. We've. We've been very, very fortunate just for a matter of retention that we've done so little hiring. It made moochies in particular, but in general that, you know, it's just part of the first day packet, but you have to take care of it.Tim Niver:It's. It's immensely important to the infrastructure of a business to be organized in such a way and still mistakes can be made. But for me in particular, it's never a question. It's like, you have to have this to work. It's so easy. Either you do or you don't.And when you pay someone and give them a paycheck, there is an employment tax that's attached to that paycheck.Yeah. Oh, yeah. Their own. And then we match. Yeah, we. No, nobody gets around that. There's no way for them not to pay taxes unless somebody's doing something illegal. But everybody's got to do the same paperwork.They get the same i9 w4 and w2 at the end of the year. You know, it's all stated. That doesn't make somebody legal either. But in terms of when you hire somebody, you go through and you. You do what you can to do everything right. And hopefully they stay for a long time, whoever they are. Yeah, but we are made up of the community at large. Any city is going to be made up of a cast of characters and we certainly don't want them to be the same character over and over.The diversity speaks loudly to the depth of the culture that you exist in. So we benefit.Stephanie Hansen:It's also when we look at the diversity of the food culture that's offered in the Twin Cities. I mean, you're making Italian food.Tim Niver:Italian American. Yeah, yeah.Stephanie Hansen:Someone else is making Somali food, Ethiopian food, Vietnamese food. The irony is we have all these diverse cultures all coming together over this common tradition of breaking bread, of communally spending time in community together at our tables.Tim Niver:Yes.Stephanie Hansen:And it just saddens me that this is, this schism that is going to happen. It happens in restaurants first and then we're going to be the last ones to be able to pick up the pieces when all these creeps leave. And all of this is, you know, the bad guys and the murderers and the rapists and whatever excuse you want to use for this complete brutality that's happening to our community, then the restaurateurs will again pick it up. Food costs will probably increase. I would imagine none of these things that are happening are inexpensive. We have a somewhat broken food system nationally. You know, when you think about.Tim Niver:It's a rough year of tariffs. It was a rough year. Understanding the more in price increases, insurance costs, health care costs, whatever you're involved with, you know, I'm. My little business. You would be so shocked to know what we pay for insurance a year.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah, I just wrote my thousand dollar check for the month. Yeah, I'm a freelance person. No support.Tim Niver:A lot of money.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah, it is.Tim Niver:And those things have been ongoing. And then this obviously again is, like I said, a multiplying factor.Stephanie Hansen:So how do you keep. I mean, we've painted a Pretty gloomy picture. So how do you keep waking up every day and coming into your restaurant and finding joy? Because I think a couple of months in and two weeks of really acute persecution here, people are feeling really beleaguered.Tim Niver:Yeah, Weighted, I guess what I'd say. And I. And I haven't necessarily found it totally in myself, but we talk about preserving joy and pieces of it. You shouldn't think of joy being some all encompassing kind of a thing that just washes over you completely. You really have to parse it out and be deliberate with how you preserve your joy. Right now, that may be in a restaurant, I think I'm just starting to get my feet kind of how I feel personally. But the last few days kind of forced myself into tons of conversation. Even though that doesn't always feel comfortable.I feel like staying at home. So I think that conversation, there's. Maybe you're commiserating or whatever, but there is a unity when you don't hold up, when you don't sacrifice joy because of it feels wrong. In this time, I do believe, you know, my message to anybody would be is, and I am intent on this is just where you see joy, like stop and engage with it and. Or force it and make sure that you're trying anyway. Get out, go where you want to go. It doesn't have to be Moochie's. It doesn't.That that's not it, you know, but that. That's part of it too, you know, hey, we're giving a lot of money. Other, not just restaurants, people are giving a lot of money and resource to. To feeding people or staying safe or doing what they need to do right now. I mean, I understand dining out may not be your priority, but preserving a little bit of joy, if you could consider that. I think, I think there's a little tiny pot of gold. Right.Stephanie Hansen:I thought I would start out this year talking about, like, food trends, because I love to talk about food trends. It's like one of my favorite things to talk about. But, you know, that feels a little like we're not doing that today. How are your colleagues feeling? Like you have a unique ability because you have people on your podcast. You are behind the scenes in the hospitality business. How are your colleagues doing?Tim Niver:Beleaguered. Beleaguered. Same boat. You know, the tides are out. It's not in saying that is unattractive. You know, I get it. Like saying. Saying that things are hard is kind of an unattractive thing or unhospitable thing.But we're all feeling it. It's. It's kind of hard. Anyway, I'm empathic, so, like, I'm just, like, sponging energy, and I. It's. It's really hard to, like, you know, continue to hear it.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah. I. I also think something that has come to me over the years of working in this business is we think about artists and musicians as these very creative beings. Right. And their art is their song or their poem or their story. And what I have learned in this business is that my fellow hospitalitarity people are also artists. It is the food that they are putting on the plate. It is the care with which they are putting there.It is the farmer who's growing his heirloom seed to get that tomato to bring to you to make that perfect. Yeah. Salad. And artists as a class tend to be fairly sensitive people. They have a lot of empathy, a lot of emotional capacity, and it is just crushing sometimes. Similar happening. Yeah.Tim Niver:Yeah. You know, going back just a bit toward the last piece about Joy, a story. I got reminded of something after I said my bit last week. Earlier last week, like, Tuesday, before anything happened with Alex Preddy, I was at the door. A father and son walked in the door, and I'm at the host stand, and I see that they have a birthday designation. And I'm like, hey, you know, welcome in. I see one of you is having a birthday today. And they both kind of stopped in their tracks.And I said, hey, hey. I didn't. You know, I don't mean to get, you know, too personal. Whatever. I just see it listed here, and they're like, well, my wife, his mother, she died 30 days ago, and today's her birthday. Oh, that's why we have to be here.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah, that's.Tim Niver:That's what we have to preserve, and that's what people should. Should still celebrate.Stephanie Hansen:Sorry.Tim Niver:Thanks.Stephanie Hansen:No, it's. It. It's interesting because I'm one of those weirdos that gets together with friends in January and does tarot card readings.Tim Niver:Oh, I love it.Stephanie Hansen:And my, you know, you can pick, like, career adventure. And I picked joy as my, like, category, and I've been feeling kind of joyless. And you really hit something on the head when you talked about joy, which is something I'm working on, but it's recent, so I'm not doing well at it yet. But it's hard that, you know, I really. I was working on a project that wrapped up at the end of the year, and I pushed myself so hard. By the time I got done, I Just was an empty, depleted cup. I had nothing left. And I had this trip planned, and I was gonna go on this trip, and I was gonna rest and read, and I was gonna get my joy back and re.Energize. And on that trip, all this thing, these things were happening at home, and I haven't been sleeping, and it's been just constant cortisol rushing.Tim Niver:Yeah.Stephanie Hansen:And I didn't get that joy in that way that I felt. And. And what my tarot cards said was exactly what you said, which is. It's not a huge wave. It's the moments within the wave. And you have to intentionally seek them out, look for them, create opportunities for them to happen.Tim Niver:Yeah.Stephanie Hansen:And for me, as a person who loves restaurants, it does happen a lot in restaurants.Tim Niver:Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's not a manufactured feeling, you know, either. When you come in here, there's a genuine desire to uphold whatever you're there to be doing in whatever form. You know, whether it's a funeral or, you know, an anniversary or a birth. You know, we want to be able. When you walk in the door, we want to be able to make sure we're taken care of. Wherever you are, be compassionate to that moment.And that's why memories are made in restaurants. It's where people get together, you hear other voices, and you don't have to listen to them. You know, it's a din. It kind of makes you feel comfortable, like there's an outside world that's not affecting you. And there's a lot of beauty in finding a place that gives you that sort of peace for a little while and visiting it.Stephanie Hansen:Oh, and I just. I think about Town Talk Diner, which was one of your original spots, and so many people still talk about that place and Nick Kosevich and you, and just this idea of what that place meant to so many people. And you've had a number of places like that because then you had Saint Dinette. And I'm trying to think of the. I'm trying. A total blank of your place.Tim Niver:Strip club up on the hill.Stephanie Hansen:Thank you.Tim Niver:Strip club. It's all good. It's a lot of years.Stephanie Hansen:It's a lot of years, like, so many of these places that have meant so much to people as we move forward, because we're really in it right now. We're sort of stuck. What would you like to see moving forward? And how can people listening to this podcast be supportive of restaurants in general if you're their spokesperson?Tim Niver:Yeah, if I was a spokesperson and. And I. And I kind of am sometimes, you know, I don't try not to speak for the whole industry at large, but I would just say, you know, mind, mind what you are spending on and what you aren't spending on and a business is doing the same. And I'm just looking for moments of unity between everybody that we can to kind of find some sort of momentum back into pushing towards joy. But for business folks right now, we understand we have a little bit of more time to consider that this might be happening. So to those business folks, I'd say consider your austerity. Now. What keeps you there for your community? What keeps you there for your employees? What keeps you there for the right reasons? But also, you know, folks, I know that they're in general acting so generously and putting emotion on things, but I would say, you know, to preserve that joy, make a reservation somewhere and go out and eat, do whatever you can.Tim Niver:It doesn't have to be a full blown meal. It could be a short visit. It could be go in and have a drink and hug the person you really like there. But I think you have to kind of get everybody working in the space that yes, there may be some time here for operators, but also for folks that are out there feeling a lot of different ways that there is a lot to be said for visiting and being out in your community and it's not a feelful place all the time. And restaurants and businesses, we need you to continue to visit. It's really that important. And that's all there is. You know, it's a business that's in service of others and without them it's hard to continue.Stephanie Hansen:And it feels so much better to, you know, after ruminating in my house for days. Then today I went to two coffee shops and I sat down with a friend who's turns out starting a business. She's an immigrant herself and scared and trying to figure out what the way forward is. Just spending time hearing her, hearing her concerns.Tim Niver:Yes.Stephanie Hansen:Introducing her to some new people that maybe she hadn't thought about that might be resources. Yes, I just.Tim Niver:Expanding your community and, and yeah, expanding your community and bringing people in, bringing people in, you know, and we have.Stephanie Hansen:So many young people like, I mean, we've been around the block. We're sage and oh no, the young.Tim Niver:The youngs are, are really strong here. You can see it in their dedication to their craft. You can see it in the dedication to their employees. You can see it in their dedication. In whatever way they were able to show solidarity during a day of Strike. It's. It's really insanely cool. Group of people were hoping for, rooting for desirous of their success.Tim Niver:I mean, that's what we want.Stephanie Hansen:We do, because we had the, you know, the Phil Roberts and we had our. Everyone's mentor, Tim McKee. But we have this new group of really committed and passionate folks, and it's nice to be able to share wisdom with them, but also to create and be absorbed in their energy of how they want to move this industry forward. It's pretty neat.Tim Niver:During these times. During these times. Well, you know, you. You said it. And I feel that this industry has been nothing but supportive, if not led the way in a lot of ways. I'm proud to be a part of it. I would like to do just what I do, but I understand that times are different and we all need to stand up and in the way that we need to stand up, but we do need to stand up and show ourselves for everyone. Yeah.Stephanie Hansen:If all you can muster is to go to a new business and have a cup of coffee, then do that. If you have the time or the capacity to be a protester, do that. Like there's nothing. Everyone showing up in different ways. I just want people to hear that you show up. And even if you didn't vote for who I voted for or you voted for someone and that wasn't what you thought you got, it's past that.Tim Niver:We're just humanity, man.Stephanie Hansen:This is.Tim Niver:This is humanity. This is treating each other appropriately.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah. That's it.Tim Niver:Like basic stuff. And then respecting our rights.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah. And agreed. Well, I think, Tim, I'm gonna wrap it up. I really. I love spending time with you today.Tim Niver:Thanks.Stephanie Hansen:Farther away from the restaurant now, so I don't get in as often, but.Tim Niver:You know, we're here. Just we're here anyway, you know, we're here.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah.Tim Niver:You feel us? You feel us?Stephanie Hansen:I do. And I really appreciate the leadership, also the respect that you have garnished in this community and the leadership that you provide for other restaurant tours and just.Tim Niver:Trying to earn it. I'll keep trying to earn it.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah, you do. Every day. And just the ability to be able to hear your story and to help people understand what it feels like on the ground as a small business person who's just trying to keep their people employed, their family fed, and are moving. Yeah, exactly. Thanks, Tim.Tim Niver:Yeah, my pleasure. Always.Stephanie Hansen:Okay, we'll talk to you soon.Tim Niver:Thank you.Stephanie Hansen:Okay, bye. Bye. Bye.Stephanie Hansen's @StephaniesDish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

covid-19 land food minnesota italian owner george floyd restaurants ice minneapolis id strike similar podcast hosts thank god vietnamese salad ethiopian dish twin cities somali energize james beard weighted dishing beleaguered mucci moochie stephanie hansen mochis phil roberts stephanie march nick kosevich

Tim Niver owner of Mucci's restaurant and Podcast Host of Niver Niver Land

ai planning crafting academia semester kanban sustainable success phd life stephanie hansen

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 30, 2026 32:18

Hello, everybody. Welcome to Dishing with Stephanie's Dish, the podcast where we talk to people in the food space, cookbook writers, people that are obsessed with food. And I'm really delighted today to speak with Tim Niver. He is the host of the Niver Niverland podcast and also a restaurateur in St. Paul, our fine capital city. He owns Mochis, also is a friend. And I was just noticing in my calendar, we recorded about a year ago today.Subscribe to Niver Niver Land on YoutubeListen to the PodcastVisit Mucci's ItalianTim Niver:Yeah, well, I know we recorded before. I don't remember the, the date, but I'm glad to, I'm glad to be back on. It's, it's, it's a good time to talk about things.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah. And we. I'm going to release this podcast on Friday, so it'll be timely. I moving it up in my schedule because we have been under extreme stress as restaurateurs and people in the hospitality industry basically for the last two months. But really increasingly in the last two weeks as ICE agents, 3,000 of them have started roaming the streets of Both Minneapolis and St. Paul and our surrounding suburbs and towns, asking people for papers, going into restaurants, stopping cars on the road, doing traffic enforcement type stops, going to people's homes, taking children as little as 2 and 5 years old. And unfortunately, these actions have resulted in the shooting of Renee Good also over the weekend on Saturday, the shooting of Alex Pretty. And it is so interesting.As this podcast was being released, a relief fund for Minnesota restaurants was launched by Stephanie March with support from The Minneapolis Foundation. You can give here:Stephanie Hansen:I was on the air live with my radio partner Stephanie March on Saturday morning when the second shooting happened, which technically is the third shooting because there was another one where someone was shot in the leg in their house, defending themselves with a shovel and a broom. What I just am so wanting people to hear from Minneapolis and St. Paul and Minnesota in general is that the actions that are happening here, A, are not legal, B, are not law enforcement, and C, are creating so much harm to a community that has been trying to recover for the last five years since the COVID pandemic. And I'm so. It's always restaurants. We're the canary in the coal mine. Right.Tim Niver:I'm, I'm listening. And it's hard to refute anything you said. Number one, there's a, restaurants are involved in particular in moments of social change, were involved in helping support, care for the community at large. As a product of them supporting and caring for us at large, it's a debt that we want to owe to the community. But there's a lot of pressure to act and, and it's not always an easy decision because we're business people in this. In this state, business feels insignificant altogether. And then to continue to participate appropriately on whatever way you can is, I think, ultimately where we all need to be. Whatever we can do, whatever you feel like you want to do, that should be enough for people.But there's a lot of expectation.Stephanie Hansen:It's fascinating, too, because when I say that restaurants are the canary in the coal mine, I feel like when these situations happen or civil unrest happens or starts to unfold, we see it in the restaurant community because it is communal spaces. But then we also lean on the restaurateurs and people to provide food and community. And there's so much expectation not only for you to, hey, run your business and serve me my pizza in a timely fashion, but can you also donate and feed my whole community and show up? And it's so interesting because you guys do. Yes, you do. You can.Tim Niver:We do it despite being able to.Stephanie Hansen:Because you are hospitalitarians in your heart. Like, yeah, that is why you stay in this business. It is a level of service and leadership.Tim Niver:Yeah, yeah, it's. I just think it's a matter of care, which is what we innately provide. And when there's moments where care is especially needed. You've seen this community react in full. The restaurant community and the community at large, like, we've all reacted in full. We've been there for each other. It's inspiring.Stephanie Hansen:It is inspiring. And it's ongoing.Tim Niver:Yeah, it's ongoing. It's an economic occupation as well. Completely affects and dampens any kind of feelings of joy. The. The way you might want to express yourself on a birthday feels different. The way you want to express yourself on an anniversary might feel different. Things that we celebrate, that we, as restaurateurs, try to preserve. Now we're changing our language to It's really nice to have you here. Even the things we say prompting, you know, it's. It's not. It's discompassionate, perhaps, to ask somebody how they're doing right now. So. So we're talking to each other in a whole new language based on how. How things feel. It's pervasive on all levels. But we have to persist, right? We have to, as a business, even though it feels insignificant in the moment, you have to persist. You have to do the things through an, you know, austerity or what have you to understand clearly what you're able to support and give. And then on the Inside, you have to make the decision about folks who need every single hour of work that they get per week to stay afloat. Many restaurants are the same way. And so, you know, this kind of doubles down on a time that is not normally busy. It's a huge multiplier effect.Stephanie Hansen:It's like 20 below in January and has been for about a week in the Twin Cities with another potential week ahead.Tim Niver:Right. And, you know, it does keep people in the suburbs. That interaction between the inner parts of the city, it becomes a more of a bubble. So, you know, and understanding security. It's true. Like, I get it. You know, these are all real things. Overall, it's a big pill to swallow.Stephanie Hansen:And the weight is getting really heavy. The reason I think you're uniquely qualified to speak to me today is I want people to know that in 2025, you were the James Beard semifinalist for outstanding hospitality, and you are known in our community for providing great food, great service, but your whole being and your whole approach to care and hospitality within the confines of our restaurant's four walls is what you've really done your entire career. And you've mentioned that that looks like it's changed. It has to change. It has to be modernized in light of the times and the moments that we find ourselves in.Tim Niver:Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, we began to lean more, lead more with compassion after George Floyd and Covid, trying to understand, you know, there's also a lot of strengthened worker rights. A lot of things have been changing over the years, and in good fashion. But also, I guess the thing that we. We try to do is just stay with it. We've been through some of these similar feelings before. They're triggering.Stephanie Hansen:And thank you for saying that, because I. I do think that is a uniquely Minnesota thing in that five years ago, when the George Floyd murder happened, and, well, the lockdowns were first, and then the George Floyd murder. Like, when I hear a helicopter, I feel very anxious. I feel like a trauma of what is happening. I'm heightened. I'm scared. I'm looking around. I'm wondering if there's some breaking news.It's hard to describe that to people who haven't lived under that complete fear of what's next.Tim Niver:Yeah. And in many parts of the world, they live like that every day.Stephanie Hansen:And also true. Yeah. And. Oh, gosh.Tim Niver:But we certainly do gain a perspective that nobody else could have. It also provided ample levels of or already set types of organizations in times of need. People had done this before.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah. And it mobilized quick. How Fast people.Tim Niver:Well, you know, we're trying to. We're all trying to protect somebody here. We're all trying to protect somebody. So I really feel like having had experience like that, you have a new generation of restaurateurs and thinkers like Rectangle Pizza. They lead with love, but they'll fight for it. Just such heart and fearlessness. That's. That's fearlessness.I don't contain that. I don't contain that. Thank God they do. Thank God they do.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah.Tim Niver:And they're thrust into it too, like being where they are.Stephanie Hansen:To give some context, Wrecktangle Pizza put out a mutual aid fund and I think they raised at last count, over a hundred thousand dollars of. Oh, over two.Tim Niver:I believe it's over two through selling.Stephanie Hansen:Pizzas and collecting donations. And that money is going back into their communities. And we've seen a lot of that. These mutual aid funds that people have just started on their own.Tim Niver:Then they were visited the next, the following day after they did that by Ice2, perhaps recognizing that they were part of some resistance by helping take care of people and, you know, it just. How is that imaginable?Stephanie Hansen:What do you. I. It's hard to describe the. It's hard to describe the impact that the diverse population and immigrant population has had on the restaurant business as a whole. I think some people believe that everyone who works in a restaurant that is a black or a brown person is somehow an illegal person. And it's ignorant and I'm not sure people fully know, but there is this sort of idea too, like, well, these owners. These owners are employing these people without papers and we're just getting the bad guys. Can.You've been in this industry a long time. This industry is made up of a lot of people.Tim Niver:Yeah. You know, honestly, you hire somebody, you have to do the paperwork. That's the only way they can get paid. And I am not an ID expert. I do not run this through some sort of machine that tells me exactly where the documents are. We've. We've been very, very fortunate just for a matter of retention that we've done so little hiring. It made moochies in particular, but in general that, you know, it's just part of the first day packet, but you have to take care of it.Tim Niver:It's. It's immensely important to the infrastructure of a business to be organized in such a way and still mistakes can be made. But for me in particular, it's never a question. It's like, you have to have this to work. It's so easy. Either you do or you don't.And when you pay someone and give them a paycheck, there is an employment tax that's attached to that paycheck.Yeah. Oh, yeah. Their own. And then we match. Yeah, we. No, nobody gets around that. There's no way for them not to pay taxes unless somebody's doing something illegal. But everybody's got to do the same paperwork.They get the same i9 w4 and w2 at the end of the year. You know, it's all stated. That doesn't make somebody legal either. But in terms of when you hire somebody, you go through and you. You do what you can to do everything right. And hopefully they stay for a long time, whoever they are. Yeah, but we are made up of the community at large. Any city is going to be made up of a cast of characters and we certainly don't want them to be the same character over and over.The diversity speaks loudly to the depth of the culture that you exist in. So we benefit.Stephanie Hansen:It's also when we look at the diversity of the food culture that's offered in the Twin Cities. I mean, you're making Italian food.Tim Niver:Italian American. Yeah, yeah.Stephanie Hansen:Someone else is making Somali food, Ethiopian food, Vietnamese food. The irony is we have all these diverse cultures all coming together over this common tradition of breaking bread, of communally spending time in community together at our tables.Tim Niver:Yes.Stephanie Hansen:And it just saddens me that this is, this schism that is going to happen. It happens in restaurants first and then we're going to be the last ones to be able to pick up the pieces when all these creeps leave. And all of this is, you know, the bad guys and the murderers and the rapists and whatever excuse you want to use for this complete brutality that's happening to our community, then the restaurateurs will again pick it up. Food costs will probably increase. I would imagine none of these things that are happening are inexpensive. We have a somewhat broken food system nationally. You know, when you think about.Tim Niver:It's a rough year of tariffs. It was a rough year. Understanding the more in price increases, insurance costs, health care costs, whatever you're involved with, you know, I'm. My little business. You would be so shocked to know what we pay for insurance a year.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah, I just wrote my thousand dollar check for the month. Yeah, I'm a freelance person. No support.Tim Niver:A lot of money.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah, it is.Tim Niver:And those things have been ongoing. And then this obviously again is, like I said, a multiplying factor.Stephanie Hansen:So how do you keep. I mean, we've painted a Pretty gloomy picture. So how do you keep waking up every day and coming into your restaurant and finding joy? Because I think a couple of months in and two weeks of really acute persecution here, people are feeling really beleaguered.Tim Niver:Yeah, Weighted, I guess what I'd say. And I. And I haven't necessarily found it totally in myself, but we talk about preserving joy and pieces of it. You shouldn't think of joy being some all encompassing kind of a thing that just washes over you completely. You really have to parse it out and be deliberate with how you preserve your joy. Right now, that may be in a restaurant, I think I'm just starting to get my feet kind of how I feel personally. But the last few days kind of forced myself into tons of conversation. Even though that doesn't always feel comfortable.I feel like staying at home. So I think that conversation, there's. Maybe you're commiserating or whatever, but there is a unity when you don't hold up, when you don't sacrifice joy because of it feels wrong. In this time, I do believe, you know, my message to anybody would be is, and I am intent on this is just where you see joy, like stop and engage with it and. Or force it and make sure that you're trying anyway. Get out, go where you want to go. It doesn't have to be Moochie's. It doesn't.That that's not it, you know, but that. That's part of it too, you know, hey, we're giving a lot of money. Other, not just restaurants, people are giving a lot of money and resource to. To feeding people or staying safe or doing what they need to do right now. I mean, I understand dining out may not be your priority, but preserving a little bit of joy, if you could consider that. I think, I think there's a little tiny pot of gold. Right.Stephanie Hansen:I thought I would start out this year talking about, like, food trends, because I love to talk about food trends. It's like one of my favorite things to talk about. But, you know, that feels a little like we're not doing that today. How are your colleagues feeling? Like you have a unique ability because you have people on your podcast. You are behind the scenes in the hospitality business. How are your colleagues doing?Tim Niver:Beleaguered. Beleaguered. Same boat. You know, the tides are out. It's not in saying that is unattractive. You know, I get it. Like saying. Saying that things are hard is kind of an unattractive thing or unhospitable thing.But we're all feeling it. It's. It's kind of hard. Anyway, I'm empathic, so, like, I'm just, like, sponging energy, and I. It's. It's really hard to, like, you know, continue to hear it.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah. I. I also think something that has come to me over the years of working in this business is we think about artists and musicians as these very creative beings. Right. And their art is their song or their poem or their story. And what I have learned in this business is that my fellow hospitalitarity people are also artists. It is the food that they are putting on the plate. It is the care with which they are putting there.It is the farmer who's growing his heirloom seed to get that tomato to bring to you to make that perfect. Yeah. Salad. And artists as a class tend to be fairly sensitive people. They have a lot of empathy, a lot of emotional capacity, and it is just crushing sometimes. Similar happening. Yeah.Tim Niver:Yeah. You know, going back just a bit toward the last piece about Joy, a story. I got reminded of something after I said my bit last week. Earlier last week, like, Tuesday, before anything happened with Alex Preddy, I was at the door. A father and son walked in the door, and I'm at the host stand, and I see that they have a birthday designation. And I'm like, hey, you know, welcome in. I see one of you is having a birthday today. And they both kind of stopped in their tracks.And I said, hey, hey. I didn't. You know, I don't mean to get, you know, too personal. Whatever. I just see it listed here, and they're like, well, my wife, his mother, she died 30 days ago, and today's her birthday. Oh, that's why we have to be here.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah, that's.Tim Niver:That's what we have to preserve, and that's what people should. Should still celebrate.Stephanie Hansen:Sorry.Tim Niver:Thanks.Stephanie Hansen:No, it's. It. It's interesting because I'm one of those weirdos that gets together with friends in January and does tarot card readings.Tim Niver:Oh, I love it.Stephanie Hansen:And my, you know, you can pick, like, career adventure. And I picked joy as my, like, category, and I've been feeling kind of joyless. And you really hit something on the head when you talked about joy, which is something I'm working on, but it's recent, so I'm not doing well at it yet. But it's hard that, you know, I really. I was working on a project that wrapped up at the end of the year, and I pushed myself so hard. By the time I got done, I Just was an empty, depleted cup. I had nothing left. And I had this trip planned, and I was gonna go on this trip, and I was gonna rest and read, and I was gonna get my joy back and re.Energize. And on that trip, all this thing, these things were happening at home, and I haven't been sleeping, and it's been just constant cortisol rushing.Tim Niver:Yeah.Stephanie Hansen:And I didn't get that joy in that way that I felt. And. And what my tarot cards said was exactly what you said, which is. It's not a huge wave. It's the moments within the wave. And you have to intentionally seek them out, look for them, create opportunities for them to happen.Tim Niver:Yeah.Stephanie Hansen:And for me, as a person who loves restaurants, it does happen a lot in restaurants.Tim Niver:Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's not a manufactured feeling, you know, either. When you come in here, there's a genuine desire to uphold whatever you're there to be doing in whatever form. You know, whether it's a funeral or, you know, an anniversary or a birth. You know, we want to be able. When you walk in the door, we want to be able to make sure we're taken care of. Wherever you are, be compassionate to that moment.And that's why memories are made in restaurants. It's where people get together, you hear other voices, and you don't have to listen to them. You know, it's a din. It kind of makes you feel comfortable, like there's an outside world that's not affecting you. And there's a lot of beauty in finding a place that gives you that sort of peace for a little while and visiting it.Stephanie Hansen:Oh, and I just. I think about Town Talk Diner, which was one of your original spots, and so many people still talk about that place and Nick Kosevich and you, and just this idea of what that place meant to so many people. And you've had a number of places like that because then you had Saint Dinette. And I'm trying to think of the. I'm trying. A total blank of your place.Tim Niver:Strip club up on the hill.Stephanie Hansen:Thank you.Tim Niver:Strip club. It's all good. It's a lot of years.Stephanie Hansen:It's a lot of years, like, so many of these places that have meant so much to people as we move forward, because we're really in it right now. We're sort of stuck. What would you like to see moving forward? And how can people listening to this podcast be supportive of restaurants in general if you're their spokesperson?Tim Niver:Yeah, if I was a spokesperson and. And I. And I kind of am sometimes, you know, I don't try not to speak for the whole industry at large, but I would just say, you know, mind, mind what you are spending on and what you aren't spending on and a business is doing the same. And I'm just looking for moments of unity between everybody that we can to kind of find some sort of momentum back into pushing towards joy. But for business folks right now, we understand we have a little bit of more time to consider that this might be happening. So to those business folks, I'd say consider your austerity. Now. What keeps you there for your community? What keeps you there for your employees? What keeps you there for the right reasons? But also, you know, folks, I know that they're in general acting so generously and putting emotion on things, but I would say, you know, to preserve that joy, make a reservation somewhere and go out and eat, do whatever you can.Tim Niver:It doesn't have to be a full blown meal. It could be a short visit. It could be go in and have a drink and hug the person you really like there. But I think you have to kind of get everybody working in the space that yes, there may be some time here for operators, but also for folks that are out there feeling a lot of different ways that there is a lot to be said for visiting and being out in your community and it's not a feelful place all the time. And restaurants and businesses, we need you to continue to visit. It's really that important. And that's all there is. You know, it's a business that's in service of others and without them it's hard to continue.Stephanie Hansen:And it feels so much better to, you know, after ruminating in my house for days. Then today I went to two coffee shops and I sat down with a friend who's turns out starting a business. She's an immigrant herself and scared and trying to figure out what the way forward is. Just spending time hearing her, hearing her concerns.Tim Niver:Yes.Stephanie Hansen:Introducing her to some new people that maybe she hadn't thought about that might be resources. Yes, I just.Tim Niver:Expanding your community and, and yeah, expanding your community and bringing people in, bringing people in, you know, and we have.Stephanie Hansen:So many young people like, I mean, we've been around the block. We're sage and oh no, the young.Tim Niver:The youngs are, are really strong here. You can see it in their dedication to their craft. You can see it in the dedication to their employees. You can see it in their dedication. In whatever way they were able to show solidarity during a day of Strike. It's. It's really insanely cool. Group of people were hoping for, rooting for desirous of their success.Tim Niver:I mean, that's what we want.Stephanie Hansen:We do, because we had the, you know, the Phil Roberts and we had our. Everyone's mentor, Tim McKee. But we have this new group of really committed and passionate folks, and it's nice to be able to share wisdom with them, but also to create and be absorbed in their energy of how they want to move this industry forward. It's pretty neat.Tim Niver:During these times. During these times. Well, you know, you. You said it. And I feel that this industry has been nothing but supportive, if not led the way in a lot of ways. I'm proud to be a part of it. I would like to do just what I do, but I understand that times are different and we all need to stand up and in the way that we need to stand up, but we do need to stand up and show ourselves for everyone. Yeah.Stephanie Hansen:If all you can muster is to go to a new business and have a cup of coffee, then do that. If you have the time or the capacity to be a protester, do that. Like there's nothing. Everyone showing up in different ways. I just want people to hear that you show up. And even if you didn't vote for who I voted for or you voted for someone and that wasn't what you thought you got, it's past that.Tim Niver:We're just humanity, man.Stephanie Hansen:This is.Tim Niver:This is humanity. This is treating each other appropriately.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah. That's it.Tim Niver:Like basic stuff. And then respecting our rights.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah. And agreed. Well, I think, Tim, I'm gonna wrap it up. I really. I love spending time with you today.Tim Niver:Thanks.Stephanie Hansen:Farther away from the restaurant now, so I don't get in as often, but.Tim Niver:You know, we're here. Just we're here anyway, you know, we're here.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah.Tim Niver:You feel us? You feel us?Stephanie Hansen:I do. And I really appreciate the leadership, also the respect that you have garnished in this community and the leadership that you provide for other restaurant tours and just.Tim Niver:Trying to earn it. I'll keep trying to earn it.Stephanie Hansen:Yeah, you do. Every day. And just the ability to be able to hear your story and to help people understand what it feels like on the ground as a small business person who's just trying to keep their people employed, their family fed, and are moving. Yeah, exactly. Thanks, Tim.Tim Niver:Yeah, my pleasure. Always.Stephanie Hansen:Okay, we'll talk to you soon.Tim Niver:Thank you.Stephanie Hansen:Okay, bye. Bye. Bye.Stephanie Hansen's @StephaniesDish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

covid-19 land food minnesota italian owner george floyd restaurants ice minneapolis id strike similar podcast hosts thank god vietnamese salad ethiopian dish twin cities somali energize james beard weighted dishing beleaguered mucci moochie stephanie hansen mochis phil roberts stephanie march nick kosevich

Sustainable Success: Crafting Your Semester Systems

Mentoring Matters

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 18, 2026 28:42

Send us a textIn this solo episode of Mentoring Matters, Dr. Stephanie Hansen shares how she approaches the start of a new semester with plans that actually survive reality. Instead of chasing perfection, she focuses on building sustainable systems: protecting time for deep thinking work, stress-testing your calendar, and breaking big goals into small, repeatable processes.She also tackles common faculty pain points, from mentoring high-achieving grad students who struggle with perfectionism to setting realistic thesis and dissertation timelines before panic season hits. Along the way, she shares practical tools she uses to keep projects moving when the semester gets chaotic, including a Kanban approach and structured accountability.Finally, she talks attention and technology: reducing social media and phone distraction, and helping students become AI-capable without cognitively offloading their education. The goal isn't flawless performance — it's growth, resilience, and progress you can sustain.If you are interested in having Steph or Mary do a workshop on graduate mentoring at your institution please reach out to Steph at slhansen@iastate.eduFor actionable tips and strategies for mentoring please check out The Graduate Mentor's Trail Map available in paperback and ebook now! If you are enjoying this podcast please leave a rating or review, and join us over on Twitter to let us know what topics you'd like to hear more about.

I've stabbed him before with my fork

news fork stabbed stephanie hansen

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 16, 2025 14:40

Stephanie Hansen is a local food author, host and creator. She joins The Chad Hartman Show to review the year that was in food and restaurants.Chad asks which restaurant she would pick for the best of the year. They go into sharing food standards with significant others. Chad mentions that he is firmly anti- ranch. Chad asks Steph about a food trend she loved from this year. In their second segment, Stephanie gives her advice about finding celiac-friendly restaurant options. Chad speaks to the restaurant diversity across the city.

You're sticking your head in the snow bank

tv ai thanksgiving hansen meghan markle prince harry morning show birthday parties kris jenner jeff lewis stephanie hansen

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 16, 2025 36:11

Chad opens up the second hour of the show with a discussion about how things have played out with ICE on a local level yesterday and over the last few weeks. He talks about the conduct of the protestors and the necessity of decorum. Stephanie Hansen joins the show in the second half of the hour to talk about 2025 dining trends and the local food scene.

head news bank ice snow sticking stephanie hansen

Episode 15: Prince Harry & Meghan at Kris Jenner's Birthday Party, Jeff Lewis at BravoCon, and Steph Hansen's Thanksgiving Tips

Lori & Julia's Book Club

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 19, 2025 75:11

Stephanie Hansen is here to dish! We're talking Prince Harry and Meghan Markle at Kris Jenner's 70th birthday bash, Jeff Lewis at BravoCon, and Steph's take on The Morning Show—plus how AI secretly helps her on TV. The many uses for vodka, the real story behind Lori's “sexy cannoli” revelation, and Steph's top Thanksgiving tips!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Where Good Friends Meet

It's Baton Rouge: Out to Lunch

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 16, 2025 27:00

There are a lot of things to plan for when moving to a new city: renting a UHaul, forwarding personal mail, driving the most efficient route to a new job. But few people plan for or even consider what perhaps is the most important aspect to a successful transition to a new city: making friends. Making new friends is hard in any city but especially so in small towns and cities where friends have known each other since grade school, raised children together, or gone to the same church for decades. In communities like Baton Rouge, friends are built-in to a rich life often centered around family. Making friends is further complicated by our obsession with our digital devices. Go to most any place, including a restaurant or bar where you might expect to meet someone, and you’ll notice people’s heads bent towards their phones, scrolling past social media posts and videos. Today, “friends” are often people you’ve never met IRL. Still, there are reasons and even places where a newcomer can meet friends with whom to have an in-person conversation. Stephanie Hansen of Les Amis Bake Shoppe and James Hyfield of Red Stick Reads own two such businesses in Baton Rouge. Following in the footsteps of her aunt and grandmother and using family recipes, Stephanie Hansen opened Les Amis Bake Shoppe in August 2013 with the help and support of her mom. What started as a weekend operation baking and selling cupcakes has grown over the last ten years into a retail shop and a commercial supplier specializing in French macarons and made-to-order cakes, selling wholesale to restaurants, hotels and venues like L’Auberge Casino. Les Amis, which is French for "the friends" increases its own circle of friends and customers with a move from Coursey Boulevard to Downtown Baton Rouge where it welcomes locals, newcomers, and tourists alike with their slogan "Where Good Friends Meet." If, by no fault of your own, you find yourself downtown at Les Amis without company but in need of companionship, then what goes better with a slice of cake than a good book? After years of working in management in food service at Whole Foods, James Hyfield yearned for a different career. He had always enjoyed reading, so with his wife Tere, James started small with a pop-up at the Mid City Makers Market that combined his love for books and his experience in food service. Prior to Covid, James and Tere ran eight to nine pop-ups around the city before in 2019 they opened their Red Stick Reads brick and mortar store on Eugene St., now located in a renovated warehouse off Government Street, near the Baton Rouge Music Studios. Today, Red Stick Reads bills itself as a gift shop designed as a bookstore where you can meet book-loving friends at weekly storytime events, author talks, and poetry readings. Some of our most vivid childhood memories are of birthday parties with multi-tiered, frosted cake with candles, small gifts wrapped in bright paper, and a gaggle of our closest friends. If we’re lucky, those same friends have celebrated other, equally memorable milestones with us over many years. But, if not, businesses like Les Amis Bake Shoppe, Red Stick Reads, and even Out to Lunch offer opportunities to make new friends and create lasting memories. Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at Mansurs on the Boulevard. You can find photos from this show by Ian Ledo and Miranda Albarez at itsbatonrouge.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

covid-19 french lunch whole foods irl baton rouge good friends boulevard u haul tere les amis stephanie hansen

Stephanie Hansen talks local food news and how she's taking over the media world

media news local foods food news stephanie hansen

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 12, 2025 17:19

Stephanie Hansen joins Chad to relieve how they first met decades ago, talk about her rise to media dominance and share about some of the biggest stories from the local food scene today.

Susie Jones, the Northern Lights & Stephanie Hansen

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 12, 2025 35:26

Did you catch the Northern Lights last night? Susie Jones stops in to talk about how none of us saw the show in the skies. Plus, Chad's longtime friend Stephanie Hansen joins the show to talk about her meteoric rise to media superstardom and the hottest news from the local food scene.

news northern lights stephanie hansen susie jones

Full Show! Epstein emails, Rena Sarigianopoulos, Northern Lights, Stephanie Hansen, THC ban and more!

news epstein emails jeffrey epstein thc northern lights stephanie hansen

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 12, 2025 105:47

The full show today features visits with Rena Sarigianopoulos and Stephanie Hansen, talk about the release of Jeffrey Epstein emails from both sides of the political aisle today, a potential federal ban on THC products and much more!

From Emmy Awards to Cabin Cookbooks l Stephanie Hansen

Cabin Culture

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 5, 2025 53:29

Today we're welcoming Stephanie Hansen, a four-time Emmy Award-winning television host, longtime radio personality, and author of "The True North Cabin Cookbook" volumes one and two. But what makes Stephanie's story particularly compelling for our cabin community is her raw honesty about what cabin ownership really means—including the moment she admits that the family's island cabin in Ely, Minnesota is what kept her in her marriage during the hardest years. "I would always think in the depths of the marriage not being awesome, two things. One was I still really like this man. And the second thing was... I don't know if I can ever not have my cabin."This isn't a polished story about picture-perfect family weekends. Stephanie talks candidly about the tension between being "cabin people" and "non-cabin people," the sacrifices required when you commit to cabin life (like her daughter never being able to play summer sports), and how the cabin became the place where three generations learned to coexist—from her 92-year-old mother-in-law to their daughter who grew up to become a serious canoer and Arctic expedition guide. What started as a cocktail waitress meeting her new boss evolved into a 32-year marriage anchored by this historic family place. The conversation takes an unexpected turn into food and storytelling when Stephanie shares how she turned family recipes into two published cookbooks—not fancy chef recipes, but the kind of food that makes people say "this is what cabin tastes like." We talk about legendary potato salads, why she's "almost embarrassed" by how simple some recipes are, and how reading cookbooks in bed at night is her version of literature. She also reveals the essential cabin kitchen items every host should have (spoiler: you need a big wooden salad bowl and cast iron you're not afraid to let guests use). Beyond the recipes and nostalgia, Stephanie offers sharp observations about the changing dynamics of cabin culture—the tension between long-time cabin owners and short-term renters, the economic reality that cabin ownership usually requires money, and her plea for democratizing access to nature. She champions the idea that "cabin can be a tent, cabin can be a car" and encourages people to find their own version of getting outside, even if it's not the million-dollar lakefront property. Whether you're someone who grew up at a family cabin and feels that bone-deep connection, you're trying to figure out if cabin life is right for you, or you simply want to understand why food and place are so deeply intertwined in cabin culture, this conversation offers both the romance and the reality of what it means to truly be cabin people.Instagram: @stephaniesdish @tastebudswithstephanie @dishingwithstephaniesdish @weeklydishmnYouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@stephaniesdishWhere to Order her Cookbook: https://www.stephaniesdish.com/cookbooks/?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAacbwXwauAaf4uYWXso8PAwKMya-_L-LLjGziS_I_CIlOvZ8aGFlCi2ENhl17A_aem_KB0i4K-bs_tby2pEjnDpQwInstagram: @cozyrockcabin Cozy Rock Cabin: https://staycozycabin.holidayfuture.com/listings/311027Cozy Camp Sebec: https://staycozycabin.holidayfuture.com/listings/311051 Cozy Rock Website: http://www.staycozycabin.com YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_FgMwAgvORd1IwlH1nlC9g

minnesota emmy awards arctic cabin mother in law cookbook cookbooks ely stephanie hansen

Live with Stephanie Hansen

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 5, 2025 42:22

Thank you to everyone who tuned into my live video on Tuesday night! I had a good time making some of my favorite recipes from the “True North Cabin Cookbook Vol 2” If you missed it you can watch the video above!I'll be signing books at these locations if you want to pick up a signed copyHere are the recipes we made!Pomegranate Old Fashioned from the “True North Cabin Cookbook Vol 2”Pomegranate Old Fashioned Ingredients* 1 Tbsp Pomegranate seeds* 2 oz Pomegranate juice* ¼ teaspoon maple syrup* 2 ox Bourbon* 4 dashes orange butters* Orange slice for garnishInstructions* Muddle the pomegranate seeds with the pomegranate juice, maple syrup and orange bitters* Add bourbon and shake in a cocktail shaker to combine* Pour over rocks glass with ice and garnish with an orange sliceRoasted Brussels Sprouts:Ingredients* 3-4 Cups Brussels Sprouts, cut in half or quarters* Tbsp olive oil* Teaspoon kosher salt* 1/4 cup Fig Jam, or you can substitute Apricot Jam, Orange Marmalade, or other jam* 1 Tbsp Balsamic Vinegar or Pomegranate MolassesInstructions* Toss Brussels Sprouts in olive oil and salt and roast in a 400 degree oven for 30 minutes* Toss with the jam and the vinegar and roast for another 10 minutesInstant Pot 5 Minute RisottoGet the recipe here!Scallops With Oven-Baked RisottoIngredientsFor the Risotto* 1 1/2 cups Arborio Rice* 4 cups chicken stock* 1/2 cup diced onion* 1 large garlic cloves minced* 3 Tbsp butter diced into 6 chunks* 1 teaspoon black pepper* 1 teaspoon salt* Zest of one lemon* 3 Tbsp lemon juice* 1/3 cup Parmesan Cheese* 1 Tbsp chopped parsley* 3 Tbsp chopped DillFor the Scallops* ½ cup flour* 1 tsp paprika* ½ tsp. Lawry's seasoned salt* ½ tsp. pepper* pinch of sugar* 1/4 cup butter* 1/4 cup dry white wine* 4 Tbsp lemon juice* 16 large Day Boat Scallops patted dryInstructionsFor The Risotto* Preheat oven to 350* In a 10-inch oven safe skillet or pot with a lid, add the rice, stock, onion, garlic and butter* Cover the pot with tin foil and the lid of the pot and bake for 45 minutes* Remove the pot from the oven and start the broiler preheating for the Scallops* Add pepper, salt, lemon zest, lemon juice, and 1/3 cup parmesan cheese to the rice pot and vigorously stir for 3 minutes, combining all the ingredients and blending the risotto until creamy. If the mixture seems dry, you can add additional broth or cream a few Tbsp at a time until you get the consistency and creaminess you desire. Cover the pot and let rest until the scallops are done.* Right before serving and plating, stir fresh herbs into the riceFor The Scallops* Preheat the broiler* Mix all dry ingredients in a plastic bag.* Melt butter in a baking dish under the broiler. Add the wine and lemon juice.* Toss scallops in dry ingredients – shake until coated.* Put scallops in a buttered baking dish and spoon a teaspoon of butter over each scallop.* Broil for 4-6 minutes until no longer opaque and cooked through* Serve the scallops alongside the risotto with fresh lemon slices and the broiled butter spooned over both the scallops and drizzled over the risottoPecan Pie BarsGet the recipe hereThanks for cooking along! If you like these recipe please share and like by clicking the heart below.November 18 5-8 pM Fitgers DuluthAuthor Talk and Recipe Tasting collaborative event between The Bookstore at Fitger's, Duluth Kitchen & The Boat Club.The Boat Club, 600 E Superior Street, Duluth, MN 55802Get your ticketNovember 19, 6:30-8 PM Knife Sharpening and Book Signing Event VivrontA fall gathering for home cooks, flavor seekers, and anyone who knows the joy of a sharp knife and a good story.4948 France Ave S, Edina, MN 55410Get TicketsThanks for reading Stephanie's Dish Newsletter! This post is public so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

serve orange mix remove bourbon toss melt bookstores duluth pomegranate zest risotto edina tbsp scallops lawry teaspoon herethanks broil parmesan cheese boat club stephanie hansen

Live with Stephanie Hansen

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 5, 2025 42:22

Thank you to everyone who tuned into my live video on Tuesday night! I had a good time making some of my favorite recipes from the “True North Cabin Cookbook Vol 2” If you missed it you can watch the video above!I'll be signing books at these locations if you want to pick up a signed copyHere are the recipes we made!Pomegranate Old Fashioned from the “True North Cabin Cookbook Vol 2”Pomegranate Old Fashioned Ingredients* 1 Tbsp Pomegranate seeds* 2 oz Pomegranate juice* ¼ teaspoon maple syrup* 2 ox Bourbon* 4 dashes orange butters* Orange slice for garnishInstructions* Muddle the pomegranate seeds with the pomegranate juice, maple syrup and orange bitters* Add bourbon and shake in a cocktail shaker to combine* Pour over rocks glass with ice and garnish with an orange sliceRoasted Brussels Sprouts:Ingredients* 3-4 Cups Brussels Sprouts, cut in half or quarters* Tbsp olive oil* Teaspoon kosher salt* 1/4 cup Fig Jam, or you can substitute Apricot Jam, Orange Marmalade, or other jam* 1 Tbsp Balsamic Vinegar or Pomegranate MolassesInstructions* Toss Brussels Sprouts in olive oil and salt and roast in a 400 degree oven for 30 minutes* Toss with the jam and the vinegar and roast for another 10 minutesInstant Pot 5 Minute RisottoGet the recipe here!Scallops With Oven-Baked RisottoIngredientsFor the Risotto* 1 1/2 cups Arborio Rice* 4 cups chicken stock* 1/2 cup diced onion* 1 large garlic cloves minced* 3 Tbsp butter diced into 6 chunks* 1 teaspoon black pepper* 1 teaspoon salt* Zest of one lemon* 3 Tbsp lemon juice* 1/3 cup Parmesan Cheese* 1 Tbsp chopped parsley* 3 Tbsp chopped DillFor the Scallops* ½ cup flour* 1 tsp paprika* ½ tsp. Lawry's seasoned salt* ½ tsp. pepper* pinch of sugar* 1/4 cup butter* 1/4 cup dry white wine* 4 Tbsp lemon juice* 16 large Day Boat Scallops patted dryInstructionsFor The Risotto* Preheat oven to 350* In a 10-inch oven safe skillet or pot with a lid, add the rice, stock, onion, garlic and butter* Cover the pot with tin foil and the lid of the pot and bake for 45 minutes* Remove the pot from the oven and start the broiler preheating for the Scallops* Add pepper, salt, lemon zest, lemon juice, and 1/3 cup parmesan cheese to the rice pot and vigorously stir for 3 minutes, combining all the ingredients and blending the risotto until creamy. If the mixture seems dry, you can add additional broth or cream a few Tbsp at a time until you get the consistency and creaminess you desire. Cover the pot and let rest until the scallops are done.* Right before serving and plating, stir fresh herbs into the riceFor The Scallops* Preheat the broiler* Mix all dry ingredients in a plastic bag.* Melt butter in a baking dish under the broiler. Add the wine and lemon juice.* Toss scallops in dry ingredients – shake until coated.* Put scallops in a buttered baking dish and spoon a teaspoon of butter over each scallop.* Broil for 4-6 minutes until no longer opaque and cooked through* Serve the scallops alongside the risotto with fresh lemon slices and the broiled butter spooned over both the scallops and drizzled over the risottoPecan Pie BarsGet the recipe hereThanks for cooking along! If you like these recipe please share and like by clicking the heart below.November 18 5-8 pM Fitgers DuluthAuthor Talk and Recipe Tasting collaborative event between The Bookstore at Fitger's, Duluth Kitchen & The Boat Club.The Boat Club, 600 E Superior Street, Duluth, MN 55802Get your ticketNovember 19, 6:30-8 PM Knife Sharpening and Book Signing Event VivrontA fall gathering for home cooks, flavor seekers, and anyone who knows the joy of a sharp knife and a good story.4948 France Ave S, Edina, MN 55410Get TicketsThanks for reading Stephanie's Dish Newsletter! This post is public so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

serve orange mix remove bourbon toss melt bookstores duluth pomegranate zest risotto edina tbsp scallops lawry teaspoon herethanks broil parmesan cheese boat club stephanie hansen

Juicy Lucy Cheeseburger Tater Tot Hot Dish with Stephanie Hansen!

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 26, 2025 52:37

What a blast to have done a live video with my new friend and Substack Super Star Rebecca Blackwell and to help her experience her first Hot Dish from the Midwest! We made the Juicy Lucy Tator Tot Hot Dish from the “True North Cabin Cookbook Vol 2”To get the recipe, watch the video or grab the book. To find other tasty Midwest comfort food favorites, go to Stephaniesdish.com Here is a local newspaper article about the book with a few more recipes to try.Thank you Lori Olson White, Miss Shannan Paul, Jenn Sharp, Sue McElligott, and many others for tuning into my live video. Join me for my next live video in the app.Stephanie's Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

midwest cheeseburgers tater tots hot dish juicy lucy stephanie hansen miss shannan paul

Juicy Lucy Cheeseburger Tater Tot Hot Dish with Stephanie Hansen!

Best to the Nest with Margery & Elizabeth

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 26, 2025 52:37

What a blast to have done a live video with my new friend and Substack Super Star Rebecca Blackwell and to help her experience her first Hot Dish from the Midwest! We made the Juicy Lucy Tator Tot Hot Dish from the “True North Cabin Cookbook Vol 2”To get the recipe, watch the video or grab the book. To find other tasty Midwest comfort food favorites, go to Stephaniesdish.com Here is a local newspaper article about the book with a few more recipes to try.Thank you Lori Olson White, Miss Shannan Paul, Jenn Sharp, Sue McElligott, and many others for tuning into my live video. Join me for my next live video in the app.Stephanie's Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

midwest cheeseburgers tater tots hot dish juicy lucy stephanie hansen miss shannan paul

Episode 368: True North Cabin Cookbook with Stephanie Hansen

Cookbook Love Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 25, 2025 65:27

Welcome to another episode of the Cookbook Love Podcast. Today I'm excited to have an interview with Stephanie Hansen. Stephanie is the host of the Emmy-award-winning TV show “Taste Buds with Stephanie”, blogger at Stephanie's Dish, and radio host of The Weekly Dish and author of True North Cabin Cookbook Volume Two: Seasonal Recipes From a Cozy Kitchen. Stephanie hails from Minnesota and spends her summers entertaining in her cabin on True North Island in Minnesota. Today on the show, we talk all about cabin cooking and entertaining, Stephanie's seasonal favorite recipes to welcome guests and feed people the foods of the Midwest and Minnesota. Things We Mention in This Episode: Stephanie's Dish website blog True North Cabin Cookbook: Volume Two

tv books food minnesota cooking midwest cabin baking dish cookbook true north illustrations cookbooks taste buds cookery stephanie hansen weekly dish

S3 - Episode 13 - Stephanie Hansen

DeRusha Eats

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 19, 2025 37:23

When Stephanie Hansen sold her Twin Cities printing and direct marketing business - she faced a crisis. Who was she? What did she want to do? A decade later, she's just published her second cookbook, and her Emmy-award winning TV show "Taste Buds with Stephanie" is syndicated all over the United States. Stephanie talks with Jason DeRusha about finding her lane from the perspective of an eater and a home cook. The "True North Cabin Cookbook - Vol. 2" is in bookstores everywhere

united states tv arts twin cities taste buds stephanie hansen jason derusha

EP. 448 Best to the Nest: True North with Stephanie Hansen

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 22, 2025 62:55

Stephanie Hansen is an Emmy Award-winning television host, radio host, cookbook author, writer, and friend. She has a new cookbook coming out in September that celebrates legacy recipes and family gatherings. You can find all the information about the True North Cabin Cookbook Volume 1 and 2 at Stephaniesdish.com. You can also find more information about Taste Buds and Weekly Dish there as well. Connect with Us!Our Website: https://www.besttothenest.com/On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/besttothenest?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==Our Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1088997968155776/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

emmy awards nest true north taste buds stephanie hansen weekly dish

Live Dinner Party Prep with Stephanie Hansen

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 18, 2025 54:13

I popped on today to plan, prep, and cook for my gal pal's dinner party. Of course, I wasn't prepared, and my mini chopper would not work, but… We prepped some great dishes for my ladies' dinner party.The Menu* Bootleggers - the Minnesota Cocktail* Miso Glazed Salmon (exclusive Substack recipe here)* Roasted Potatoes with a garlic scape, basil pesto drizzle on a bed of yogurt cream (1/3 cup cottage cheese - 1/3 cup whole fat Greek yogurt- 1/4 cup chopped pickles - 1/4 cup feta cheese, 3 Tbsp Feta brine, one teaspoon kosher salt, blended until smooth) * Roasted Pepper and white bean salad with basil and balsamic (exclusive Substack recipe here)* Green salad with hard-boiled eggs and lemon vinaigrette* Zukes and Squash gratin (Recipe from True North Cabin Cookbook Vol. 1)* Plum Fruit BuckleMiso Glazed SalmonIngredients:* 8 (4-6-ounce) skin-on salmon fillets, about 1-inch thick* 2 teaspoons Kosher salt* Freshly ground black pepper* 3 Tbsp honey* 1/4 cup Hikari minute miso* 3 Tbsp rice wine vinegar* 3 teaspoons soy sauce* 1 garlic clove, grated on a microplane* 1 teaspoon ground gingerInstructions:Preheat oven to BroilIn a small bowl, whisk together the salt, pepper, honey, miso, vinegar, soy, garlic, and ginger.Arrange the salmon skin side down on a sheet pan.Brush the mixture over the salmon. Let marinate for 20 minutes while the oven comes to temperature.Broil until the salmon is opaque and cooked through and the glaze is toasted, about 6 minutes. Internal temperature should be about 135-140Roasted Pepper and White Bean Salad with Basil and BalsamicIngredients:4 peppers2 cans of cannellini beans, drained1/3 cup Basil leaves torn into pieces1/3 cup olive oil3 Tbsp Balsamic vinegar2 Tbsp lemon juice2 teaspoons lemon zest2 teaspoons salt1 teaspoon cracked black pepperInstructions:Roast 4 peppers -Heat the oven to 425 degrees. Place 4 whole bell peppers (any color) on a sheet pan, drizzle with olive oil, and roast for 35 to 40 minutes, rotating halfway through, until the peppers are blackened and collapsed. Remove the peppers from the oven and let them cool. Carefully peel away the skins and discard the core and seeds. Pull into 1/4 inch stripsDrain beans and add to peppers in a large bowlTear Basil and add to bowlMix the vinaigrette and add to the beansLet sit for 30 minutes at room temperature, marinating before servingVariations to consider:* Adding feta or small mozzarella balls* Subbing oregano for Basil leavesHere is how the dishes came outThese were the flowers I added from my Home Garden.Thank you to everyone who tuned in to my live video! I will plan for more live videos if you enjoyed 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. 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

green greek heat prep recipes internal substack remove brush basil dinner parties squash kosher arrange tbsp hikari subbing home garden broil stephanie hansen zukes

Live Dinner Party Prep with Stephanie Hansen

news care foods admit minnesota state fair stephanie hansen

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 18, 2025 54:13

I popped on today to plan, prep, and cook for my gal pal's dinner party. Of course, I wasn't prepared, and my mini chopper would not work, but… We prepped some great dishes for my ladies' dinner party.The Menu* Bootleggers - the Minnesota Cocktail* Miso Glazed Salmon (exclusive Substack recipe here)* Roasted Potatoes with a garlic scape, basil pesto drizzle on a bed of yogurt cream (1/3 cup cottage cheese - 1/3 cup whole fat Greek yogurt- 1/4 cup chopped pickles - 1/4 cup feta cheese, 3 Tbsp Feta brine, one teaspoon kosher salt, blended until smooth) * Roasted Pepper and white bean salad with basil and balsamic (exclusive Substack recipe here)* Green salad with hard-boiled eggs and lemon vinaigrette* Zukes and Squash gratin (Recipe from True North Cabin Cookbook Vol. 1)* Plum Fruit BuckleMiso Glazed SalmonIngredients:* 8 (4-6-ounce) skin-on salmon fillets, about 1-inch thick* 2 teaspoons Kosher salt* Freshly ground black pepper* 3 Tbsp honey* 1/4 cup Hikari minute miso* 3 Tbsp rice wine vinegar* 3 teaspoons soy sauce* 1 garlic clove, grated on a microplane* 1 teaspoon ground gingerInstructions:Preheat oven to BroilIn a small bowl, whisk together the salt, pepper, honey, miso, vinegar, soy, garlic, and ginger.Arrange the salmon skin side down on a sheet pan.Brush the mixture over the salmon. Let marinate for 20 minutes while the oven comes to temperature.Broil until the salmon is opaque and cooked through and the glaze is toasted, about 6 minutes. Internal temperature should be about 135-140Roasted Pepper and White Bean Salad with Basil and BalsamicIngredients:4 peppers2 cans of cannellini beans, drained1/3 cup Basil leaves torn into pieces1/3 cup olive oil3 Tbsp Balsamic vinegar2 Tbsp lemon juice2 teaspoons lemon zest2 teaspoons salt1 teaspoon cracked black pepperInstructions:Roast 4 peppers -Heat the oven to 425 degrees. Place 4 whole bell peppers (any color) on a sheet pan, drizzle with olive oil, and roast for 35 to 40 minutes, rotating halfway through, until the peppers are blackened and collapsed. Remove the peppers from the oven and let them cool. Carefully peel away the skins and discard the core and seeds. Pull into 1/4 inch stripsDrain beans and add to peppers in a large bowlTear Basil and add to bowlMix the vinaigrette and add to the beansLet sit for 30 minutes at room temperature, marinating before servingVariations to consider:* Adding feta or small mozzarella balls* Subbing oregano for Basil leavesHere is how the dishes came outThese were the flowers I added from my Home Garden.Thank you to everyone who tuned in to my live video! I will plan for more live videos if you enjoyed 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. 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

green greek heat prep recipes internal substack remove brush basil dinner parties squash kosher arrange tbsp hikari subbing home garden broil stephanie hansen zukes

Admit It - You Do Not Care About the New Foods!

Adam and Jordana

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 9, 2025 19:55

As of Wednesday morning, the Minnesota State Fair has released its new foods list and we just have to say - we do not care and neither do you. We also hear from one of the most notable food (and Fair) experts Stephanie Hansen who calls in to respond to Adam.

Beth Le Manach has the delightful new cookbook "Entertaining 101"

Play Episode Listen Later May 30, 2025 26:24

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

Beth Le Manach has the delightful new cookbook "Entertaining 101"

Play Episode Listen Later May 30, 2025 26:24

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

Jenna Helwig's Cookbookery Collective is a community for cookbook lovers on Substack

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 18, 2025 23:44

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

Jenna Helwig's Cookbookery Collective is a community for cookbook lovers on Substack

music washington dc maryland ice senate delaware delegates ocean city stephanie hansen

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 18, 2025 23:44

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

I Hate the News Apr 1

I Hate Politics Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 1, 2025 28:31

The weekly news analysis from I Hate Politics: Maryland House of Delegates passes the 2026 budget amidst pushback and now the state Senate debates. Maryland reconsiders how local police interact with ICE. Delaware pushes through new law to restore its reputation as the corporate registration capital of the US. Also from Delaware, why Senator Stephanie Hansen is upset with Ocean City, Maryland? And more. Music by Washington DC area composer Anna Rubin.

Live with Stephanie Hansen

recipes substack jumbo live video crackers tbsp stephanie hansen

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 9, 2025 13:19

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

Live with Stephanie Hansen