Tales of The Long Poached Weiner
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Well, good day. It is time once again for the Jan Arden podcast and show. I'm here with Caitlin Green, Adam Karsh. I am in Toronto this week. We're close. I'm in Toronto. I can see this. I have a little condo downtown Toronto because I was in hotels so much for so many years here. And my mom used to say to me, well, you're just throwing money out the window. You're throwing money out the window. So she wasn't wrong.

My road manager, Chris, is with me. So imagine Chris and I in a hotel. We're going to be here 10 or 11 days. So two of us in a hotel. And I know we've talked about this before, but it's like, what, 300 bucks a night for a decent hotel in Toronto? Yeah. Oh, yeah.

So 10, don't do the math. Is it like 3,000 bucks or something like that? Yeah. For one person to be in a hotel. And that's not even factoring in the fact that you have to order every meal when you're in a hotel. You have to wake up and pay for breakfast out and it's just a hassle. Anyway, so I'm here. I'm so glad to be seeing you. I can see pigeons circling around. Listen, they're not the deer. I'm going to say right now, it's not like watching the deer, but the birds...

Out the window, balcony window, they just go all day long. Pigeons. So you guys got lots of pigeons here. We do. We have lots of flying rats, which is how I feel about them. I don't say that in a derogatory way. I don't dislike rats, but that's really how they feel. They're just kind of dirty. They're a little grubby.

You know what, it's actually kind of insulting to rats, which are incredibly intelligent, because pigeons aren't. They'll fly right into you. Rats are as smart as anything, so maybe that was a knock on rats, but either way. I just wanted to do a disclaimer that the opinions expressed by the people on this show are not necessarily shared by everybody on this show. Anyway, it's really great to be here. It rained and rained and rained last night, and when I went out this morning, the city got like a car wash. Oh yeah, it rained a lot yesterday. Oh yeah.

It smells great. All the urine has been washed off the brick siding in every alleyway. All the urine has been now put into the sewer systems where it belonged in the first place. That's right. Toronto needs a power wash occasionally, especially... And I used to love it because when I lived on Queen West...

which I know you're not far from, the good vibrations that would rustle through Queen West if you managed to get a heavy downpour on garbage day was incredible because all the garbage juice and the garbage smell would just be washed away. Yes, the garbage juice.

Oh, and it was like, it's a real, it's a real smell in this city. So also if anyone's noticing, I have a very bad cold. So I miss you in a, an apology on the quality of my voice, but I got non COVID sick, which is a weird thing to experience.

Well, you know, even with all the masking and the hand washing. So this is just a note to self. I think a lot of us can be quite judgmental when people do get COVID. You're like, what did they do? Like, you know, it is very possible. These are microscopic droplets. But, you know, Caitlin got a cold through no fault of her own. Wasn't like she went out. I'm going to get a cold. Caitlin is vaccinated and all these things. But this is...

I don't know. It's just a pause for reflection on how we treat each other. Because going forward, I'm feeling like this divide is getting bigger and deeper. Certainly in my province, we have a thousand people in ICU. Yeah. Yeah.

And I think that's kind of where it stems from is that people psychologically have been approaching illnesses and viruses very differently and behavior associated with the possibility of getting sick and getting other people sick. And so the messaging around protect yourself and it protects others was so important and

so needed in the beginning and still is now, but then you're going to have these regular cold and flus that come up. They're still around. I went in for a COVID test just to be safe. And when I went in, the nurse who did my little swab told me that she got really sick in August and she's fully vaccinated. She was sick for two weeks, had a really bad cough and it wasn't COVID. And she said, you know, this is going to be the thing everyone has to train themselves to

with all over again is people are going to get sick. It's not going to be quote unquote their fault. And that, that you have to be wary of that because as much as everyone was trying to kind of use the social pressure to stay indoors and to stay away from people initially to save lives, you cross over that line to judgment really quickly. And I can feel it because I felt shame and guilt when I got sick.

And I was like, this isn't, I'm doing everything I can. I shouldn't feel that way. And I would, I would hope that nobody else feels that way if they get sick, because especially with back to school, like people are going to get sick again. Oh, for sure. I mean, none of these things have gone away. And I think there was that old adage that we always heard over and over. There's no cure for the common cold. There is no cure for the common cold. So when you think about

a vaccine, not only one vaccine, but several vaccines that were created in a very seemingly small piece of time, which isn't so small because Caitlin, you and I have discussed the fact that they were working on a lot of

the technological scientific aspects of this during SARS and MERS. We're piggybacking for sure. mRNA vaccines are not new. So people are all, they developed this so quickly. I'm like, oh, science would disagree with you. But anyways, mRNA vaccines have been around for a while. That's right. And people forget it was, it only took them two weeks to do it.

Do you like how I make people sound on the show all the time? I do. The voices, Jan. Thank you. Thank you. It's quite, it's enjoyable. I get so much enjoyment out of it. But yeah, it's all these things are, like I was saying, the fact that they did create a vaccine for COVID-19 because there's no cure for the common cold. I don't, I mean, they actually found something that will help the human body, right?

combat that and keep you from dire circumstances. Yeah, it's true. And so, but it's psychologically when you first get sick and you get, I'm calling my non COVID COVID cause I have a really bad cough. That's just the way my cold presents. Every time I get sick, I sound like this. And it's,

It's just bizarre. And this is supposed to be, this was supposed to be my first week back on the chum morning show that I work on. And so we had to delay my start by a week. And so it's just very strange to be homesick. It's so weird. I'm sleeping in the guest bedroom. My husband has a guy's weekend and now that we, and coming up and I don't, we don't want him to get sick. And, but now that you have these like new quote unquote tools at your disposal and you know, at all of our

all of your friends who maybe live over in, you know, Japan or South Korea or anywhere in Asia are laughing at us going like, you guys just figured out that masking when you're sick helps other people. Like, lol, they've known, they've known this forever. We've seen it forever too. How many times have you seen people traveling in airports? I mean, people from, you know, countries where they know, can you believe we're still dealing with human hygiene after, you know,

You know, 2000 years ago with plagues and things that happened to humanity because of poor hygiene, we're still dealing with it. We're still learning those lessons. And look, sometimes you're going to get sick anyways. Like I'm sick anyways, and I'm asking and doing all those things. Sometimes you're going to get sick anyways. Don't be hard on yourself. You're going to be able to outsmart viruses. Nope. You can't always, but it's, it's, it's that invisible enemy and you're right. And gosh, I haven't had a cold for two years and I, I know I'm going to get a cold.

I know I will. I just want to make sure that I stay calm and that I'm not freaked out. And I just, I know there's rapid testing little kits that you can get in drugstores now. And folks, I'm going to say they're not 100%. If you really feel like you have COVID or anything, make sure you get tested properly. But that is a little piece of mind, I think, getting those tests. Have you seen those? So I did one. Okay, tell me about that.

I did one on Saturday night. I have rapid tests at home already. And so I did one and it's like you put your little swab up your nose and then you, you twirl the swab around in a solution and then you drop the solution onto this little, it looks like a little pregnancy test and you drop it on there and you wait for the line and the line will tell, you know, in the case of the test that I have, one line means negative, two lines means positive.

So false negatives with the home test kits are common. And it's just because maybe at the time that you do the test, you have a low viral load, maybe because you're double vaxxed, you're going to naturally have a lower viral load in your system. So false negatives are common, false positives though, very uncommon. So it's interesting because if you get, if you do the test at home and it tells you, Oh, you're positive, it's probably right. If it tells you that you're negative,

and you still have symptoms and you still feel like crap, you may want to go get a PCR test anyways, just to be sure. And that's a very depends on your life type of thing. I had recently seen people and I want to be able to see people again and not worry about my husband. So I opted to do the negative test at home. And then I went into women's college hospital, which has a great and very fast and efficient testing center here in Toronto. And I did that. And that came back in less than 24 hours negative also. So now I can breathe a sigh of relief.

But like if I wanted to go see like I had to go see my doctor today to talk to her about maybe getting some nose spray, all that. You need that negative PCR test to kind of go out and live your life again if you're regular sick. So that's why I wanted to do it. But the home test kits are good. Like they're good and they serve a purpose. And I think they're only going to get better, especially if you have kids. Well, I was I was just going to say, if your kids were going to have a play date.

Like outside. I mean, we're coming now into a new season where we're going to be dealing with inclement weather. So the kids aren't going to be playing outside when it's five below. They're just not. Although my mother kicked us out when it was 40 below and she just put like nine coats on us. We went out looking like marshmallows and we actually had no clothes.

We had no functionality. We couldn't, we had no, we couldn't, we were like in spacesuits. We couldn't pick up a snowball if our lives depended on it. Yeah. I mean, that's one approach. Oh yeah. She just was like, you're, you're out of here. You're, you're out of the house. I don't want you in here. What, um, what I'm excited about today, folks, and I will, this is a little bit of a sidebar, not a sidebar, but I want to talk about our guest.

Yeah, Mary Berg is going to be joining us in the latter half of this show. I love Mary. I love her energy. I love her positivity. I love her creativity. You might know her from MasterChef Canada. She was a winner a few years ago, I think one of the first or second or third seasons of MasterChef Canada.

Yeah, it was one of the early seasons. She was a breakout star for sure. She was. You knew she had that certain something when she was on TV. She has a wonderful look and she has a very, as you've already said, effervescent personality. That gorgeous red hair, her kind of charming glasses. Her glasses are great.

Um, and she had, then she had a lot of success with Mary's kitchen crush and she just is one of those people. And I remember her doing press for her shows when she, when I was on chum and she would come by in the morning when everyone normally needs a pump up, you hope that PR has given them enough coffee and she never needed that. She is in at six 30 in the morning and she is on and yeah, you just, you just like her. She's, she's very warm and she's fun to watch. I'm so happy we have her today.

Well, stay tuned for that. We're going to talk about a few interesting things when we come back, one of them being a COVID party. I'm going to tell you more about that when we come back. You're listening to the Jan Arden Podcast.

Welcome back to the Jan Arden Podcast. I'm here with Caitlin and Adam. And as promised, a COVID party. What is a COVID party, you ask? Well, in a rural town in Alberta, of all places...

a group of individuals thought it would be great to have a rather large

of individuals to try and contract COVID, therefore creating the very elusive herd immunity that they've read about on Facebook and YouTube. So I just wanted to get your thoughts. This is an actual thing. It was on the news this morning. And this is the importance of understanding science and understanding how these things work. That is not anything

anything close to what a herd immunity is. Two or three of these individuals have now been hospitalized. They are in ICU and have gravely injured themselves. And it is absolutely heartbreaking. I'm so upset hearing this just because this to me says that they, they just think that because they don't know anyone who has died from COVID or had serious complications that it doesn't exist. And it tells me that they are probably incapable of empathy because they

If you look around and you see all the suffering that's happening on the news and health care providers doing interviews at the end of an 18 hour day just to try to get the word out to people that this is what they're seeing and that they are the person who is holding someone's hand alone in isolation in their final moments. You're just not listening to them and you think you know better. And it's such a marker of unintelligence to me to think that, you know, more than you know,

And to think that you're an expert on virology, to think that you're an expert on medicine. And I have friends who obviously prior to the vaccine, unfortunately working kind of frontline settings, they contracted COVID twice. You can get it multiple times. You get it once and you're immune. That's not how this works.

And so I think that that is just it underscores the way that social media has poisoned people's brains and created an echo chamber where if you want to seek out something that supports your very unfounded view, you can. And it's just going to reinforce this and harden it until your brain becomes like cement and you don't absorb any new information or alternate thoughts.

points of view from scientists, from, from doctors who do this, this is their job, but please trust them. You may not, you may have an inherent mistrust of politicians, which I certainly understand, but if you don't trust a doctor to, you know, tell you to have,

how to stay safe and avoid a virus, but you then go to a hospital to receive treatment in an emergency. Those two things, it's not congruent. It doesn't make sense. They can't go together. You don't, you know, you don't try to cure cancer by yourself by drinking a tincture and going to the woods and with a sound bath. So why would you think that you can outsmart this virus? Amen. It makes me upset. It's very upsetting, which is why we're going to move on to the Emmys.

Yes, my favorite day.

And there's normally 3,000 if that gives you an idea of why are they doing this? Everyone's getting together. Everyone was double vaxxed and everyone required a test that was done 36 hours before the event. So I just want you to know, dear listeners, that they did everything possible and still had behind the scenes people with masks.

camera man. Journalists were six feet away. When you saw the red carpet, people were very social distance. Anyways, it was exciting. It was exciting. I loved it. I love TV. So it was fun to watch everyone kind of in their best and all the different presenters. And there were some glitches. Did you guys notice that? There were some glitches because of how the show was handled, I guess, obviously, which I always get a kick out of when things go wrong. You think it's supposed to be

Well, just like delays or, you know, like a prompter cue was missing. And I get a kick out of these things. I don't know why.

Listen, everyone in a live show, their favorite parts is when we all forget our lyrics or, you know, a light drops from the sky or, you know, the piano starts on fire. People love, oh, it's not real. You know, Oz, the curtain has been moved and there the little man sits running the machinery. And I think when we see the Emmys, it's always everyone looks so perfect. But now we know because of Instagram and social media that, you know, someone like

Well, whoever, if it's Haley Berry or Jane Fonda, they have 10 people working on them. Yeah. And you see it now. You see that it takes a village to get a celebrity ready for an awards show. But I think that, you know, the Oscars is very, very proper. It's very serious. And we're artists. And they are. I'm not questioning that. But it has a very different vibe than the kind of fun and whimsical and all over the place land of TV.

And so you see, you know, you've got variety shows like Late Night with John Oliver, or Last Week with John Oliver. You've got all the late night shows together. So like Conan O'Brien's in the audience cracking jokes and stealing the moment. And it's just very funny. I find that the vibe is more irreverent and more interesting to watch, I think. And I just...

so many shows that I love. Like I love white Lotus this summer. That was such a great show. So you get to see some people who work on that show getting up and being nominated and winning. And, and also like Jean smart. I don't know if you guys have watched. So she was not Jean smart was nominated as supporting actress in

in um mayor of east town which is a fantastic uh cop thriller small town cop thrill you guys got to watch mayor of east town um and then she was nominated for best comedic actress in hacks you have to watch hacks it's about an aging comedian um and you know for all us women out there that are climbing up the ladder of aging i want to tell you that jean smart is 70 years old

She is so sexy. She is beautiful. She plays two so very different... Thank you for agreeing, Adam. I do. She's beautiful. She's beautiful. She is hot. Yeah. But that is good to know. She has never been more relevant and more popular and more in demand. And let's harken back to...

You know, when she was doing sitcoms in the 80s,

And here she is, you know, 45 years later. Anyway, that was very inspiring to see. And the playing field has changed so much. Netflix, Amazon, you know, even something like Disney Plus, Hulu, all these people are getting nominations. It used to be the three networks in the States. It was ABC, CBS, and NBC. And they dominated, you know, daytime television. And now...

It's so weird to see these nominations and it's coming from Apple TV. Yeah, I think it's changed a lot. I think a lot more television is being made. A lot more projects are greenlit just because they either have the budgets or the platform for it. So there's a lot more content out there than there used to be. And I think that's why almost in a way, the Emmys feels like it's now neck and neck with the Oscars.

And in a time of COVID, when everyone's watching TV and people really aren't going to theaters and movies have changed, I think temporarily it's kind of surpassed in terms of public interest because people really are more interested in their favorite TV shows than they are in their favorite movies. And that's a big difference. Will people head back to the theaters? Because I tell you what, I was sitting in a movie theater four nights ago, four afternoons ago. I was kind of blue. I'm not going to lie. I didn't know what to do with myself.

I went and I picked up, you know, a few little groceries and whatnot. And I went to a theater and I was the only one in there. I was the, I have never been in a theater by myself. I saw the worst movie in the world. Sherry Vanstone, I'm coming for you. Because she recommended it on her Instagram feed. It was called Malignant. It was a horror. Oh, yes. Oh, my God. Why did you guys see this? I don't know. I...

I just thought, I'll tell you exactly why Caitlin green. Cause it was at 1250 in the afternoon. It was the only one. Everything else was three 3410. Um,

And I sat in there thinking, and here's me punching in my seat number. Like when I got the ticket, I'm like, I'll go see 14. All right, see 14. And I'm thinking, there's really no other seats chosen. Like, do I really need to sit in C14? I'll tell you that I know that I'm not a I like I like a scary movie. I mean, I do enjoy them. And I think that

there are good ones out there I know that that was from like the director of Saw or the creator of Saw so the second I saw that it was very clever but was it clever like I would never have in a million years guessed what the premise was but it stayed with me I live alone in the dark trees and in the middle of the afternoon what was that what was that

What was that? Well, I will definitely be going back to, going back to a movie theater for sure. I really, I can't wait to see Bond. That's what I'm going to be doing. The second Bond comes out, I'm going in. I don't know if we'll have time to talk to Mary Berg about movies. Probably not. We're going to be talking about food. Thank you so much for staying with us. You're listening to the Jan Arden podcast. We're going to be right back with the fabulous, beautiful, talented, creative, partly vegan, Mary Berg.

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Sandwiches are beautiful, sandwiches are fine. I like sandwiches, I eat them all the time. I eat them for my supper and I eat them for my lunch. If I had a hundred sandwiches, I'd eat them all at once. Welcome back to the Jan Arden Podcast and Show. We actually hit record this time. We just did a

Three-hour segment that will be forever lost in time. And man, was it ever interesting. As promised, we have the one, the only, very inspirational, beautiful, red-headed goddess, cooking extraordinaire woman warrior of Canada and the world, no doubt. Mary Berg joins us today. And everybody, when you hear the name Mary Berg, I'm sure you go back a few years to the excitement and

of the hit runaway, massive hit show, MasterChef, that Mary won the hearts of millions and millions of Canadians and dazzled us with her culinary prowess and her ability to make magic out of weirdos

weirdest ingredients known to man. And there's a bit of a backstory too, that I'm going to pick Mary's brain about, um, about the ingredients that she was given and the stuff that she was using to cook. Mary Berg, welcome to the podcast. We're so thrilled to have you. Jan, thank you so much for having me. I'm, uh, I'm genuinely thrilled seeing your little faces. Yeah.

Well, we all showered for you. We're like, oh my God, guys, we have a guest today. Let's work on our backgrounds. Let's try and sit in front of a painting and things like that. So not that anyone's going to see us, but damn it, it makes a big difference to us. I'm the same. I also washed my hair today. So good job, everybody. We did it. Yeah.

You have such an amazing branding. And I would imagine because of the success of MasterChef and, of course, the career that has followed your unbelievable cooking show on CTV and the new show that's about to begin, which is called...

Mary makes it easy. And she does. Thank God you make it easy. So you have been like really busy this last two years. You have not been sitting on your hands like cookbooks, the television show. And, you know, just continuing filming that through the pandemic had to be a little bit challenging to say the least.

Completely. I mean, you probably also completely understand how much production changed, but then also how quickly it kind of felt

Like old hat, I feel like. I personally was really worried because with my show, with Mary Makes It Easy, I sat kind of in a bubble. I wrote 99 recipes on my own. And then you have to go in front of a crew. And I equate what I do to being the world's worst stand-up comedian who also has to make chicken or white chocolate.

Cause you're talking to a room and all the mics are hot. So you can't, no one's allowed to make noise cause you're trying to catch all the sounds of everything. So it's kind of, um, a definite ego check and the weirdest thing in the world. But I would not, I,

I love everything about it. I love every single day I come to set and I just want to also be wearing like all black so I can be on the crew because it's, it's so fascinating getting to work with people who are so good at what they do and make you look like, you know what you're doing more than you maybe do. Well, you're right about it. I mean, you just follow the protocols and everyone's washing their hands like mad and everyone's got their masks on. And, you know, at least you got less people nibbling on your food with the masks and a set, you know, perhaps it's,

I would imagine like craft services on a cooking show, maybe jump up to a whole new level. Am I right? No, honestly, we all go hard kindergarten snack. Everybody just wants like cheese cubes and, and cookies and juice boxes. It turns into like, we're four years old again. And when snack time comes, it's just,

very, very basic snacks because all we're doing all day is cooking really good food. And typically, yeah, people can snack on things and we kind of share it around and we make enough that basically everybody could take things home at the end of the day. But with COVID, we weren't necessarily able to share things in that same way. So it was a lot different this time. It was very, it felt very mean. Like I would be making,

Tons of cookies. And they'll be like, well, I'm going to bring these only to my house afterwards.

Well, Caitlin and Adam and I talk about food a lot on the show. And we've asked several guests over the past year about what was in their lunchboxes when they were kids. I went to a rural school, so there was no end to the things my mother tried with me. The famous wiener in the thermos comes to mind, which is not a great idea. It absorbs all the hot water. But what did you have...

Did you have a lunch kit? Like, did you go to school where you stayed for lunch at school or did you go back home? Yeah, I went to a small school and it was further away from my house. So I also had a packed lunch. My mom also did the wiener in the thermos situation. Did she? What is going on? I mean, do the math.

Honestly, it's just like long poached wiener and it's not what anybody wants. Welcome to the podcast, everybody. You have hit the magic phrase, Mary Bird, you just want a car by a long poached wiener. We've been waiting for that sentence for three years. Yes.

No, it was... I mean, my mom also, she also tried everything. Because I'm a bit of a creature of habit, especially when it comes to lunch. Like, peanut butter and banana, always a good thing. It is. Then I went, when I was really little, was a lot of like, this is bad, but like, bologna, ketchup, white bread. Because it's all just kind of the same texture. Oh, God. I know. And it was just what I was into. And I am not...

I don't miss those days because also anytime you pack a lunch, it tastes like the inside of your lunchbox. So I think it's something that you got to be a little creative. But my mom hates cooking. Like she always hated cooking. Even assembling a sandwich is not a thing for her. So lunch was a struggle. I took that over as quickly as I could. I'm going to share something with you that is a very painful childhood memory.

My cousin, I'm not going to name them because I may not live to tell another tale. You know when you could buy blocks of bologna, Mary? Like it didn't come sliced. You go to the co-op or whatever and it was a little bit cheaper to get no name block of bologna. God help us all. My cousin...

When I would go to their house, which was quite often put the bologna in a blender like we were only like 13 years old so the block of bologna went into a blender and Because the ketchup thing and the you you prompted me to tell the story and then the the ketchup would go in Like other things that I'm thinking I can't remember exactly maybe parsley or something nothing fancy salt salt and pepper

Extra salt. Extra salt. And then it would go on to those Ravita toast breads. Sorry, Ravita, you probably will never sponsor our show. So the bologna would just be in kind of this pate-ish blob of red. It looked like a car accident in a blender. Yeah.

I was going to say it sounds like a very, very childlike pate. So any weird, do you have any weird memories like that of food that

people would just be like, I can't believe you ate that. Honestly, I still, I still have that. So I, I don't, I don't eat. I know you're, you're vegan. I don't eat beef, poultry, pork, lamb, anything like that. But I do, I do still eat fish. And I like the thing, a thing that I call feet rice, which is white rice with a can of tuna on it and soy sauce. And it is delicious, but it does not smell good.

So the can of tuna, you just sort of drain the water out or the oil, whatever you're dealing with. And you put that on white rice and then soy sauce on top. People probably always think that you're making gourmet for you and your husband all the time. And that to me reminds me of comforting. That would be a go-to.

Yes. And that's the thing. I think with food, I think we're all so nervous to be, to admit of these like things that we love that are actually kind of trashy. But food should never make you feel bad. It's just, it's delicious. It's there to comfort you. And if that means that you're eating like

spending $25 and ordering in movie theater popcorn for dinner, I'm fine with that. Like if that is what you want tonight to make you, life is hard. It's so true. And just eat what you want to eat. One of my go-to things when I was sort of in college age, so just early 20s,

was just a can of tomato soup. I never had milk in the fridge. I was one of those people that's just like, I don't have milk. I'm just going to put water because milk was a treat in our house to have milk and tomato soup. So I would put the water in, but I would open, oh man, am I going to say this out loud? I would open a can of those mini shrimps and I would throw them into the tomato soup. Yes.

We can call that a bisque now. We'll call it a tomato bisque. There you go. I'm telling you, Mary, it was awesome. Okay, we're talking to Mary Berg. This is so exciting. I'm actually going to talk to her about her book and about her new show. When we come back, don't go away. Jane's podcast is coming at ya! Hot dog! Oh no!

Welcome back to the Jan Arden Podcast. I'm here, as always, with Caitlin Green and Adam Karsh, and of course, our very special guest. Mary Berg has a brand new show on CTV called Mary Makes It Easy. And man, don't we need to have cooking made easy. And you do make it look so easy. And you're fun to watch. Tell us about the show. Tell us about when it's on. Tell us about some of the things you're going to be cooking and how it's different from your first season. Totally. Yeah. I mean...

You're right. I think over the past 18 months, two years, I've even changed the way I cook. I feel like we just need a bit of a break. And again, food should just be comforting and it should be enjoyable from start to finish. So with this show, with Mary Makes It Easy, I just wanted to give you recipes that'll be like maximum 20% effort, 80% payoff.

Right. Like you need, and in every episode, there's also, there's swaps for people like me who don't eat certain types of meat. There's swaps for vegan recipes. There's, there's recipes, whole recipes that are just vegan because I want it to kind of apply to everybody and anybody's kind of cooking style and what they like to eat, whether you have allergies. And what's available to them too, what they have in their fridge. A hundred percent. I hate,

I personally don't love recipes where you go in and you, you have to go get this very specific thing and the jar is only a huge jar and then you use it and it sits in your fridge for a year. I want to be able to use those things up. Um, so that's what the show is kind of all about. It's about you and me in the kitchen.

getting it done, learning how to cook together. Whereas my first show, Mary's Kitchen Crush, was more about like the event, who's coming over. It's about having people in and kind of the like big to-do. This show is totally just you and me in the kitchen. Like Jan, we're going to make delicious vegan crumble bars with coconut oil and cherry jam. And it's going to be amazing. Damn it. Yes. Yes.

But that's, it's on, it's on CTV Life on Mondays at eight. And then it also is on CTV on Saturdays. But it's just, again, I just want my whole goal. I just want people to get in the kitchen and enjoy it the way I do. I have a very loud, busy mind. I've got a lot of anxiety. And when I'm in the kitchen, it all kind of quiets down and gets calm, as calm as I can be. And it gives me a creative outlet, which is like,

I'm not a singer. I'm not an artist. I'm not anything like that. Well, you are an artist, so I beg to differ there. I think food very much has...

We've seen this thing happen over the last decade, Mary, that you would agree with me. You know, there's food stars. There's entire networks dedicated to food, how we approach it, how we consume it. And, of course, Adam and Caitlin and I have spoken about this ad nauseum about the importance of what food has meant to us. I mean, for the first two months, flour was like the new cocaine. Yeah.

You got flour? Hey, psst. Hey, you. You got any instant yeast? Yes. Meet me. I think I've got a line on instant yeast. Yeah. Meet me on Bluer and Lula. Yeah. It's true. And even like flour started to be sold. Yes. Like you could call grocery stores were getting a big bag and dividing it up. So it was a very hot commodity. How do you go about...

Going through that process, you know, Mary makes it easy. You've got, you know, so many episodes you want to cover. Do you have people coming in going, we really want you to do this, this and this? Are you just left with your notepad, your own devices? This is what I'm going to make over the course of this season. It's to be honest, it's pretty much that. But with this show, too, I wanted it to be as widely applicable as possible.

So I did kind of go into my social media and go into my different experiences with people when when people would come up to me on the street before obviously COVID and everything and ask me questions like, oh, gosh, my husband doesn't eat this or my kid refuses to eat that.

And how to take those ideas or those issues that people have and make food that'll work for them, whether you're terrified and have no idea how to cook. They stop you on the street to ask you what to make for their husbands and their kids? Yes, which I honestly love. Like you're in the bank and it's like, I know that you're Mary Berg because I know who you are because of your glasses and your hair and your beautiful face. How do I make a pancake? Yeah.

That is very weird. It is, but to be honest, it's, it's, I don't find it that odd because my, my husband always jokes that like, I've always been like a light bulb. And people just, if you were lost in a crowd, even before I started doing this, when I was in university or working in an office or anything like that, I was the person you'd come to ask direction. Even if there were a hundred people around me, they'd be like, she's the one who's going to help.

Um, so it kind of feels the greatest though, because you, it's an energy that you put out into the world. I mean, you're, you're very likable. And I think there's some really angry, unlikable chefs on television these days. I mean, there's a man, Gordon Ramsey has made a career out of being an A H. Yes. An A H. And, um,

I think we all know what that means. Yeah. But he's made a career out of being frightening. Like if you don't toast your bread right, you're going to get reamed out. Like he really is intimidating. I remember working at a golf course when I was 16, 17, 18. And the chef was a guy from Switzerland. And his name was Wolfgang. And he was 5'6 with a goatee.

And he scared the hell out of all of us. Yeah. Like, if we didn't pick up plates, if we moved the plate where the, you know, something slid to the side. Like, he'd literally ping us back in the day when you didn't get sued for stuff like that. Take his index finger and whack us in between the eyebrows. You don't do that to my food. Okay.

Thank God you're not like that. I mean, I can. I jokingly, I think I sang a song to my husband yesterday because I was like, it's the people you live with that you're always the biggest, uh, uh,

Me need to when you're stressed or whatever. But I am I think that's right. I think food is taken so seriously and arguably it shouldn't. Like it is it is something that is supposed to make you feel full, good. All the things about food are just supposed to make you feel better. And they should. And sometimes that means that.

making cookies and eating a dozen cookies because that's just the day you're having. But sometimes I'm like, oh, I really need a salad and just listening and figuring out what you want and making it and sharing it. Like I'm very kindergarten in the way that I do things. Like it's sharing is caring. And that's when I stop.

I like how you encourage people to swap out ingredients. I think a lot of times when people open up a recipe book, and I was a little bit guilty of that early on. It's like, oh, I don't have that, and I don't have pumpkin seeds, and what do I use instead of that? I mean, now we know if you don't have eggs in the house...

As a vegan, I know I can swap that out with five or six or seven different things to give me that lift in a cookie or in a meatloaf or in a whatever. I know that now. And you, I'm really, I'm very proud of you because, you know, to step out of the line in life where it's that status quo thing for you to go out and

talk about plant-based foods. I mean, that's something that's important to me, but I'm sure you're asked all the time, how do we make a difference? How do we start down that road? How do I, you know, my kids will only eat chicken and I can't. So how have you approached that? Because I know it was a bit of a moment for you in MasterChef when you took that on, knowing your diet, knowing how you kind of navigated your own personal life of the ingredients that you were going to be given to cook.

Yeah. I mean, I'm odd because I do cook meat because people in my life eat meat. And I love making it for the people in my life, but I don't eat it. And I find, especially lately, in the last like...

three, two, three years, the amount of, of products that have come out that are like amazing swap swap-ins, whether it's a plant-based beef or there's chicken now that actually is chickeny. And it doesn't, there's nothing that makes you miss it. It's not just shaped like chicken. It's like chicken. And I think that's so amazing. And I think being able to make those swaps and having the products and the ability to get those things,

is really, really great. I also love, yeah, like you said, I think I love writing recipes. If I didn't love writing recipes, I don't think I'd be doing any of this. But like you said, thinking about what that egg is supposed to do in those cookies or that meatloaf, is it binding? Is it giving lift? Is it giving browning? And figuring out what else you could use to make that happen is so fascinating. You're a scientist.

Science, exactly. It's science you get to eat and then be like, I'm a wizard and it's great. Well, I just want you to know you're really inspiring. I think your positivity is...

is this indelible thing and the way you make your way through the world, just from where I stand, I see you from afar. I see you doing media junkets. I see you doing interviews. And I'm telling you, Mary, your attitude, your positivity, your willingness to be open-minded, you're just kind. You just exude kindness and

And people want to cheer you on. And what a great place to find yourself in. Thank you for doing our podcast today. Thanks for being freaking great. Congratulations on Mary Makes It Easy and everything that you're doing in your life. We just love you. And we hope you'll come back and talk to us about

poached wieners poached long honestly thank you Jan so much I am and I'm so excited for your new season thank you I'm obsessed so pumped yay it's I appreciate it you've been listening to the Jan Arden podcast with Caitlin Adam Mary Burke and me totally deep this podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network find out more at womeninmedia.network