Here We Are, One Year Later
45:52 Share

Hello everyone and welcome to the Jam Art Podcast. I feel like I haven't been here for about a year. Today I'm of course with one of my sidekicks, Adam Karsh, and our other part-time sidekick, Julie Van Rosendahl, and we're so happy to have you guys here today. I think it's been, we've got lots to talk about today. We're gonna be revisiting

A year into the new frontier and what that looks like for all of us and what change. I have got a list of questions for my comrades here. That's about as long as my leg. And I went to bed thinking about

Being excited to hear what you guys have been up to, what you're thinking about, what's the same, what's not the same, how kids are doing, what's it like having kids at home. Julie's got a teenager. Adam's got two young girls. Food, fun, entertaining ourselves, driving around, maintaining friendships. Anyway, we've got a whole bunch of stuff.

But first of all, there's something that we all want to talk about on the show that we've kind of been holding in our back pocket for a while. And a lot of you may already know

about our dear, dear darling friend, Caitlin Green, the producer of our show, my sidekick for sure on the show. We have talked extensively this past eight or nine months about Caitlin's pregnancy. And we had lots of fun going along with her on her journey.

I've never had kids myself. Adam has two little girls, as I mentioned, and Caitlin and her husband, Kyle were, you know, kind of letting us in on their journey with her pregnancy. And anyway, long story short, the ending is nothing like what any of us could have possibly have imagined, but Caitlin and Kyle lost their little boy, Sam. And, and,

In Caitlin's, how beautifully she put it, she said she has far more questions than answers, but it would be considered a stillbirth. I really don't have any of the medical details to share with you. Caitlin was a week overdue and she was induced in a Toronto hospital. She was surrounded with wonderful experts, the finest care in Canada, doctors,

to no fault of certainly anybody's but uh their little boy who they named sam um they were unable to um bring him around so you can imagine uh how tragic it has been for caitlin kyle and their families their friends their workmates uh everyone is at a complete loss as to what to say um

And you guys, I certainly want you to have your own comments. But I had found out just the day after. And of course, I was waiting to hear from Caitlin. I said, let me know how it goes. And, you know, in the evening on Sunday, and I knew she'd been induced on Saturday, I just thought, oh, maybe they're too busy. But then I, of course, found out. Anyway, I want to share with you before I go over to Adam and Julie, a link to

I should probably read this statement from Caitlin, which would really help, I think, bring her voice into this conversation. This was Caitlin's Twitter post of six days ago. So I'll just read this quickly. We wish more than anything in the world that we were sharing a photo announcing the arrival of our baby boy, Sam Green Bonarchuk. Instead, we are announcing the passing of our angel, Sam. He was born and left us on March 14th.

We have more questions than answers right now, more pain than we could have ever imagined possible. We also have the love and support of many kind people and the knowledge that Sam was so very deeply loved by us and will forever be by our side. I will be taking some time away to recover from this tragic loss and ask that you keep our Sam safe.

and your thoughts, prayers, and most importantly, in your hearts. We will never forget the exceptional care, expertise, and support we received from the staff at the Mount Sinai Hospital. A donation page has been established in Sam's name with proceeds supporting the Francis Bloomberg Center for the Women's and Infants Health at Mount Sinai. I'm going to give you that link now.

It's support Sinai. So S-U-P-P-O-R-T-S-I-N-A-I dot C-A slash for Sam, all one word, F-O-R-S-A-M, period. There is an active link in this bio as well that I'm going to share with you guys. Caitlin and her husband continue to say we are also being supported by

by the Pail Network and encourage any parent who is suffering to reach out and know that you are not alone. You can support their important work here. And I know this link's kind of long, but you can certainly go on to Caitlin Green on Twitter, Caitlin Green on Instagram and find the links. But I will tell you this now in case you have a pen or something to jot it down.

it's donate.sunnybrook.ca slash P-A-I-L. So you can find those links. So that's the update on our dear Caitlin and her husband, Kyle, and not the outcome anyone could ever possibly imagine or expect. And we just want you to know, and this is definitely from Caitlin and Kyle. If you are in any way,

going through a similar situation with anything, with a parent loss, grieving, make sure that you reach out, make sure that you, you get the help you need. There's lots of resources out there. So we hope to have Caitlin back. As you can all understand, she certainly needs time to, to just get her feet under her, but she's got beautiful,

family and and their husband kyle and and they have a very extensive support system anyway over to you guys i know it's been hard certainly on you adam and and julie all of us as caitlin's friends have just you don't know what to say do you know when when you told me and i i you know jan you and i knew before it was public news but when you told me i was in such a

shock, such disbelief. And that whole day I was not productive and I was just in a daze. And that night I had a complete breakdown. I was so distraught and it took me to like, even now I'm sad and upset and I still think about it, but I was in a daze and a fog for two weeks. I was so devastated and we were along the ride for the journey. We talked about it every week. So I felt like we were

you know, in her circle, in her pregnancy journey. So to hear that news, I was not expecting to hear that. Oh, gosh, no. It couldn't have been farther from anything I could have fathomed. And so you can imagine with Caitlin and Kyle, you know, experiencing that in real time. But this is a real thing out there. And I think to have this opportunity to speak to this and for Caitlin to be so transparent. And, of course, they took some time just with their own family, but...

incredibly brave, very generous. And yeah, it's this, there's just no, it's very difficult for all of us to address grief. When you say Julie, just how do you go about approaching someone? How do you talk to them? How do you have a conversation? Exactly. What do you say? What do they need? What, what can you do? And I can't, I can't fathom this kind of grief.

Yeah. You know, I'm just, I've been thinking about Caitlin and, and Kyle and Sam, you know, since before just anticipating his arrival and yes. And I'm just so heartbroken for, for all of them. Yeah. It's, it's, it's a tough thing to process and there's, you know, I think when it comes to grief, the only way through it is through it, but how do you help somebody through it?

Well, I think it begs the question of when you know someone, you know, when you have someone in your life that suffers an incredible loss, I don't think we're very well equipped in our culture and not very well taught, not very well educated in how to correspond in any way with people. You know, we send sympathy cards. Thank heavens they have cards that say, I'm sorry for your loss because it's much easier to send a card than to speak to them. But

I am. They also are real people with real lives that want to know what's going on. They want to hear the news. They want to know what your kids are doing. And they, I think in for, for, for me, my friendship with Caitlin, especially I've, I've told her kind of things that are going on on the set and,

And right away, I kept in correspondence with her. And I just said, I'm thinking about you. I don't know what to say. Yeah. But I'm telling you, you're freaking strong and you're going to get through this. So don't ever be reluctant to stand in a room or to not reach out to people. Don't feel like you can't reach out or even make a phone call. Leave a voicemail. Do it. People might not pick up.

They might not get back to you, but I'm telling you, they will appreciate your thoughtfulness, your words. Don't stand there and do nothing. Exactly. Exactly. And check in further down the road because I feel like, you know, grief sort of comes in waves and it's not going to, you know, get better anytime soon. So,

checking in regularly. And like you said, just say, I'm here, I'm here. I'm thinking about you. If there's anything I can do, if I lived closer to her, I would bring food. But just those gestures, just letting people know. I think you're right. A lot of people are afraid to, they don't know what to say. They don't want to say the right thing and they end up not

saying anything. Exactly. Well, in my very humble opinion, don't be afraid to leave that voicemail. Don't be afraid, especially even if you're standing in a room with someone six or eight months later, I think the tendency is to go, I'm not going to say anything. I don't pretend it never happened. And I think it's almost like someone that has a spaghetti noodle hanging across their eyebrow.

You can stand there and kind of look up at it and look down and look up at it and be like, should I say something about the spaghetti noodle? Should I? And I think...

I think just say something. Say, I love you. I know what, I heard what happened. And you know what they're going to say? Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. And then you can get on with the conversation. You're listening to the Jan Arden podcast. And this, of course, is dedicated to Caitlin and Kyle and their beautiful son, Sam, who is traveling the universe. And we'll find them again. Groups of souls travel together. Stay with us. We've got lots to talk about. ♪

We are so excited to welcome another new sponsor, our friends at Cove Soda. Have I pestered Cove enough to come and join us here at the Jan Arden podcast? I love them so much. They are Canadian, first of all. They are a natural, certified organic, zero sugar soda, which includes, get this, one big

I kind of sounded like Dr. Evil there, didn't I? But seriously, you can get 80% of your daily vitamin C in just one can. Cove Soda is on a mission to promote gut health for all, and you still get to have a delicious treat...

while putting a gut-friendly, guilt-free drink in your body. Cove Soda is available in 12 delicious flavors all over North America. So for our American friends, you can find it. They've got this fruity lineup that's fantastic. I drink those all the time. They've got the classic lineup if you like

A cola or a cream soda, root beer, yes indeedy. And they've got their limited edition summer flavor, which will take you right back to the second grade. You gotta try the ice pop one. Head to janardenpod.com to find out where the closest place to you is where you can go and buy Cove. Go right now.

Welcome back to the Jan Arden podcast. I am with Adam Karsh, as always, and my very special guest and friend, Julie Van Rosendahl. We are here. Julie is also in her home in Calgary, at her headquarters.

She's been doing her CBC stuff. You've been teaching classes from home. Virtual, yeah. Virtual cooking classes. I'm going to talk to both you guys about working from home. Here we are a year into this. A little more than a year. In some parts of the world, we're inching into, what was it, November of 2019? So we're coming in the year and a half mark. Julie, I'll start with you. What...

What's the same? What has changed? Did you ever think you'd be working from home to the extent that you are? And what are some positive things about that situation? I'm looking at your microphone setup, your spit guard. I'm looking at your headphones. Yeah, I'm all set up.

So it hasn't really changed a whole lot for me. I mean, the live events, you know, the live classes, the traveling, the, you know, all the in-person stuff has changed for sure, has stopped completely, but

But I've worked from home for a long time. So I'm used to working on my laptop in bed, in my chair, in my office, at the dining room table, in my kitchen, you know, because so much of my work revolves around food. Having my kitchen close by is important. I shoot my food, take pictures in the kitchen. I've often thought I should have an office that I go to, but I

I do most of my work from home. I wouldn't, you know, I would, I would do it from home anyway. So it, that part hasn't changed a lot. But yeah, all the traveling to the studio or being, I really wonder if that's going to ever go back to the way it was. I agree. Studio to do their segments, you know, it's just so much faster to set up, have the lights, have the, you know, the video on,

live stream and do the TV and radio. I've been doing my segments on CBC every week from my dining room table for over a year. And I don't know when that's going to change, go back. I wish I was the person that invented ring lights. Right? Oh, yeah. We've all got these glam setups now. Everybody I know has...

I'm sorry about these stupid dings on my phone. I hear them every podcast and I don't know how to turn the tone off. So if someone can write me and tell me how to stop the dinging on my messages, but it's on my computer. It's on my computer. It's the alert. Anyway, Adam, you often talk about working from home and that you never, ever want to go back to the way it was. Yes, I do love working from home. And I think,

Because of technology, and we've addressed this before, like, look, I started in radio in the late 90s. Well, I couldn't have worked from home in the late 90s unless you installed a $10,000 reel-to-reel machine, a broadcast antenna, and a satellite dish on my house in order to do what we do. But with the technology available to us, all I need is a laptop.

an internet connection, headphones, and I can do all of this. Like, look, look what we're doing now. This is a marvel of technology. We couldn't have done this even 10 years ago. Totally. It's amazing. Well, all the companies, all the companies that said, we can't have work from, we can't have four day work weeks with people working at home one day a week. And now it's, it's the polar opposite. They have a skeleton crew in these giant office buildings that basically sit emptying. I know here in Calgary,

you know, the downtown core is slowly kind of coming back. I think the warm weather will get people onto the streets a little more, but it is a ghost town down there. Those buildings are empty. They're trying to figure out what to do with so much of the space that they have with no bodies in them. You know, they have someone going in that normally has 250 people sitting at their desks and now they have like 32. Yeah. Yeah. And people have figured out how to, how to communicate that way. I

Companies are saving a ton on travel expenses, you know, people not traveling to meetings, not flying across the country and getting rid of their office space. But you're right. What's going to happen to all those office towers? Well, is this the beginning of how cities assemble themselves? Is this the beginning of what happens?

What does a modern city look like? Is it the skyscraper going forward? I mean, people are probably laughing at me saying this. I mean, you look at places like Singapore that is

at the height and the prestige of some of the best architecture the planet has ever seen, these beautiful buildings that are awe-inspiring. But is that how people are going to live? Are we going to be able to find people to put in them? I'm sure we'll get back to it. People are so resilient, but...

Looking at it now, there was an exodus from Manhattan. There's been hundreds of thousands of people move to upstate New York, to Connecticut, to places where they know they can work from home and they're like, screw it. I'm not going to be in downtown Manhattan anymore with all this stuff. You know, they were hit with 9-11. That kind of scared a lot of people off. And then COVID, I mean, if you guys have ever been to New York,

Uh, it was like the perfect storm going to those delis with the flimsy glass shield between you and 89 hot items that you're like, has this broccoli been here for six weeks or am I just, you know, but you know, New Yorkers, they, they didn't miss a beat. They'd have their styrofoam things, their lids flipped open and they were going to take dinner home though. That's over.

That will never come. I don't think the buffet will ever come back. The all you can eat. No. We've talked about this. Julie, you weigh in on that. You're the food person. Well, all you can eat will never go away.

It'll just be brought to the table. I take all you can eat as a personal challenge. The sneeze guards, I feel like, are not sufficient for buffets. But yeah, buffets. What are going to happen to buffets? What about sharing plates? Restaurants used to be built on sharing plates.

We bring stuff for the table. Exactly. But, you know, I have friends even in, you know, in Toronto and larger centres, Vancouver, moving out, moving away from the expense of real estate and

so that, you know, they can afford to live since they're working at home anyway. But I feel like, you know, the restaurants and the office buildings, that's where so many of those small daily interactions happen. You know, seeing people saying hi, you know, chatting about your meeting or your idea or your, you know, this little, even at the grocery store, those little personal interactions. And, you know, when I see people

seniors, especially out on the street at the grocery store, I always try and make an effort to make eye contact, say something because I feel like those little, those little interactions, you know, getting in the elevator, going up the elevator with a few people, seeing them on the street, seeing them in line for coffee. I think that those, it contributes a lot to our health, our mental and our physical health to have those little

social interactions. Oh, it's, it's, it's, it's very important. And humanity is based on that connection. It's based on sharing. It's based on this idea of shared responsibilities, you know, the way people, you know, getting back to the whole food thing, sharing things that they caught, sharing crops that they grew. Everyone did the work and everyone benefited from it. So we have been a little bit displaced from each other for sure.

But, you know, we're also seeing, you know, how people have used technology in such a fascinating and effective way. I have to kind of go to the kids learning at home. I mean, who would have thought that computers that were kind of the scourge of every parent, like put that away, put your phone away, put your lap down. Get your computer, get your computer out, put it on the table. That that was...

You know, something really important to be able to look at their teacher and to be teaching them home. I know it's not the same. No. But the fact that we can do it, you know, and my son, my son is 15. I feel like, I feel like girls in general tend to need to be around their friends in real life more. We can't go to the bathroom alone. To generalize, but...

But Willem, my son, most of his social interactions are on video games. He's got his headphones on and the microphone and they're talking to each other and they're laughing and their characters are like shooting each other, like defending each other on screen. And so I want to say, no more screen time, get out. But that's where he's getting, he's an only child, right? That's his social interaction with other kids. So.

So he's spending a lot of time on screen between school and between video games. Well, I think, you know, there's always that thing. Things will change when he meets the girl or the guy or whoever he meets that, you know, stirs up his...

his, you know, imagination and gets his heart pounding. And, you know, I think that gets all young people kind of into a different realm. You know, they want to take a walk in the park or go for a bite to eat or get a shake somewhere. It doesn't matter how long people are going to be on this planet. I still think young love and the meeting of new people will change the geography of how they've kind of been living their lives. Our pals are going to be like, you're no fun anymore. You're always with Sheila. Yeah.

Anyway, you're listening to the Jan Arden podcast. I'm with Julie Van Rosendahl and Adam Karsh. We'll be right back. Welcome back to the Jan Arden podcast. This is the, what are we, 13 months, 14 months into what we thought was

would be a couple of weeks, three weeks, four weeks. I remember March the 7th, my last flight coming back from a corporate job in the Bahamas. Few people had masks on. There was rumblings about this thing that was coming. Very weird to think about to it now. But anyway, I had a booking for a rental property in Palm Springs. I was going to meet a couple of friends down there on the 16th of April. And I'm like, oh, this will be

We don't have to cancel that reservation. My friend was saying to me, do you think we'll be able to go? I'm like, oh God, yeah. I just think they just have to sort of figure out what it was. It's laughable now. I still have that credit. I think it's VRBO that I have the credit on for a house rental, but I don't think I could have seen this being what it is. And I really know from my perspective in the music business, we're pretty sure we've got another year and a bit to go.

to hack through before we're seeing large gatherings of people seeing music. But I'm kind of proud of myself for just being able to adapt to, you know, be out here in the trees with my dog and to have kind of kept my wits about me. And I've been trying to keep busy and, and you know, cause our incomes are just almost cut off completely. And you're like, I have to rethink myself. I have to rethink how I'm going to make myself through the world. So.

Julie, I mean, you talk about just being at home, but you've done lots of stuff. You were just on the heels of your beautifully successful book, Dirty Food.

Oh, yeah. You were just coming off of the incredible success of your book and probably were going to be doing book tours and all kinds of things that you had planned and it ended. It ended, yeah. And all the cookbook authors who are releasing books now are doing virtual tours, but people are cooking. People still have to eat. People are cooking at home more than they ever have in their lives. The dishes are unreal. Yeah.

People are cooking breakfast, lunch, and dinner and snacks and getting fatigue, I think, from it all. But yeah, so in my area of work, you know, people are still eating, thankfully.

Tell me about your relationship or what your general consensus is with how our relationship with food has been affected by this pandemic. And I also want you to address a little bit, because you are on the ground zero of this in many ways, is food insecurity important?

not only globally, but I think people were very surprised to see the food insecurity in Canada. We always think, oh, Canada, land of opportunity and abundance. But there's a lot of people here that go week to week, if not day to day,

with trying to feed themselves. Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, we have enough food, we just need to make sure people have access to it, can afford it. With the CERB for a while, I think that was a huge help for a lot of people who were living with food insecurity. And I worked closely with a lot of food relief agencies early in the pandemic,

tried to recognize gaps because obviously, you know, a lot of these organizations that rely on volunteer groups to come through and, and prepare meals that wasn't happening anymore. With schools closed last year, of course, that cut kids off from, from,

you know, for a lot of them, school was their main source of food between the breakfast and lunch programs that schools had. And, uh, and so I mean, the pandemic has brought so much to light about how we could be doing things better, how we need to pay more attention to the people in our communities and, and being home, I think has, has helped that a lot. You know, people have realized, uh,

the impact that they can have on small businesses, supporting independent businesses, local businesses, you know, not just...

ordering everything on Amazon, making an effort to support local, to look around their communities and see how people are doing, how they need the support of the people around them. And that's so important. I mean, we can, when it's so big, when these situations are so big, people tend to get frustrated because how do you tackle this? But I think the answer is looking around you. And if we all paid more attention to the people around us and did what we could,

Asked, what do you need? You know, it's hard to ask for help, but it's not hard to ask if people need help. That, we could take care of each other, right? Yeah. My 89-year-old Marianne Seeley, who lives in Saskatoon,

She inspires me every day. She, before the pandemic was in lots of church group, her chop and chat, which always makes me laugh. They got together to prepare community meals from their church and serve as to, you know, a really actually huge part of their community in Saskatoon. A lot of people benefited from the meals they made, but anyway, when it all came to an end and they weren't sure about the food, Marianne continued baking from her home.

even she used to say to me, she's very much alive. I just mean, she would tell me early days that

Oh, my daughter found me flour. My son found me, you know, 10 pounds of flour. And she was making banana breads and carrot cakes because she loved to make them. They were easy. And she sent me pictures of her with a big rope, her lowering these bags of carrot cakes and banana breads to a woman at the church from her chop and chat so that they could take them, you know, to people that needed them. So, you know, human ingenuity,

And I think we've seen so much of that this last year of to try and we are so desperate for that connection. But food was a huge connector, Julie, don't you agree of how we did share those meals and how people in apartment buildings left cupcakes on somebody's door with a note that said, enjoy, we made extra, you know, things that you would never have seen happen a year ago.

Totally. I mean, food is a way that we support each other. You know, food is social. Food is nourishing. It's a way that we connect with each other and we show that we care. And it's something that most of us can do. All of us can relate to it. But yeah, over the holidays, I swear, every time I came home from a walk, there was a pile, a bag, there's preserves, there's cookies. There's like, it was awesome. Yeah.

And I love that. Just the gesture of cooking for people. I want to hear more about Chop and Chat.

So they got together. I think it's the very atypical church basement with the kitchen down there and the black and white tiled floor and the little plastic chairs stacked in the corner and the giant vat coffee maker that could do 89 gallons of black crappy coffee. And they would sit down there and just talk to each other, a bunch of women, which is very...

You know, that gathering, I guess, you know, going back in time, that tribal idea of, you know, sitting and women sitting around and preparing things. But they just loved it. And Marianne really missed that aspect of it. I know she's still going to church virtually. She says it's not the same.

You know, her pastor, the pastor's on there and, but she's, she's on there. It's really saved her. And she's so good on the computer. Marianne, like 89 years old. She is anyway. Yeah. Chop and chat. Cooking for your community, providing for your community, bringing food in, making stuff for people. I love it.

that normally, you know, there's a lot of people out there that don't cook. Oh yeah. And I think, have you seen a change? We've got a couple minutes left in this segment of people that have taught themselves to cook or been forced to cook. Tons. Well, Adam, you were saying too, that you are cooking way more. People are forced to cook and they're learning more. In the last year, I have really upped my cooking game. I've, I've,

New recipes, new techniques. I'm a gadget guy. I like the toys. I'm like looking at gadgets and kitchen things that are like way out of my price range. I'm like, Risa, that's my wife. Risa, we should get an outdoor pizza oven. You could make one. Go to Rona or go to Home Depot. And we're open to sponsorship, either Rona or Home Depot. And go online.

Go online, Adam. I bet you any money you could get the do-it-yourself instructions of making a pizza oven. Why don't you try it? We can talk about that in a few weeks. We have a pizza stone, right? Like one of those, like you put in the oven, you use a pizza stone. That's pretty good. That's your meager beginning. You can build everything around that damn pizza stone. Yeah. I feel like pizza ovens are going to be, I mean, cooking outside for sure, since gathering outside is our kind of only option and limited at that.

is going to be a thing. Fire pits, barbecues, pizza ovens outside. Well, we're going to talk more about food and more about, you know, things that are the same, things that have changed. You're listening to the Jan Arden podcasting show. We'll be right back. Cooking in the kitchen is so much fun. We're cooking dinner for everyone. We're

In the kitchen, baking a cake So many yummy things we can make Hello, this is Jan Arvey. This is the final segment of today's podcast. I'm with Julie Van Rosendahl, Adam Karsh is in Toronto, Julie's in downtown Calgary, and I'm in Rocky View County, Alberta. I guess it's known as Springbank. Some people call it Sperm Bank, just to be naughty nottersons.

So we've been talking about coming up or presently in the kind of one year mark of COVID. And I'm wondering, I'm wondering so many things about what you guys said. We've been talking about food a little bit and how people's relationship with food has been accelerated exponentially to very high heights of Adam was talking about cooking at home.

and how much his skill set has improved with his white wine and fresh pea risotto with parmesan cheese. Risotto is not an easy thing to make. No. Yeah, it is. No, it's easy. You just need to be standing over this. Well, that's nothing I'm prepared to do, Adam. I must have said it and forget it and kind of cook. Ha ha!

No, I mean, the one-pot pastas have been really interesting to me. And that is not pre-cooking your noodles, but rather having a cast iron frying pan, putting your tomato sauce in, a bunch of vegetables, dropping hard, you know, uncooked pasta sideways in your frying pan, breaking the end off if you have to, to fit it in, putting a lid on it and coming back to it 15 minutes later and having a

So you skip the water and you skip all that. I just thought it was impossible that it would work, but it does. But anyway, yeah, just, we all went through the bread making thing. Yeah. I mean, the pictures of bread on the internet were absolutely fantastic. A lot of first time sourdough people. Julie had a sourdough starter.

That I believe was well over a hundred years old. The origin of it. You want to talk to us a little bit about that? Sure. How does that even happen? A chef in the Yukon, Chef Kat sent it to me. So she's got this 1898 sourdough starter that has been going. So she, she, she dries it. It's actually in the sourdough museum in Belgium and Belgium. They have a sourdough museum and they,

I don't know how many starters they have in this museum, but it's a sourdough museum. People walk through there to look at jars filled with dough? I would. I would. Could you imagine the smell in there? It would be tangy.

So, so she sent me some dehydrated, she dehydrates it and grinds it up. You can grind it up in a, in a, you know, spice mill coffee grinder and, and sent some to me. And so I revived it, shared it with some bakers with her permission. Revived it doing what? How? With, with water, flour and water.

flour and water. That's so you're, you're, you're capturing the wild yeasts in the air. I take my sourdough starters for a walk. People laugh, but you're exposing it to different air. You know, if you're, can you just speak to that? I cannot not ask you about yeast being in the air without, I wouldn't be able to sleep tonight.

So you're capturing these wild yeast in the air with your mixture of flour and water. It's like a paste that you sit on your kitchen counter. Okay. And so the more you expose it to different environments, the more you could potentially, you know, like I should really just take it up to my teenager's bedroom and put it on his desk and see what...

see what funkiness comes from that. So is there actual yeast in the air? Oh yes. And on our skin and on the surface of things and fruit and everywhere it's everywhere. So, so bakers who make sourdough regularly, they've actually tested the, the, the skin, their hands for, for yeast and they have more yeast on their hands and than other non bakers. But

I live right in between cold garden and dandy. So I took mine for a walk. I actually went down to dandy into their, their big tanking fermenting room and asked if I could just walk through with my open jar of sourdough starter. This is before I got the 1898 stuff, but yeah, I've got a bunch. I've got a bunch in my freezer put away. I've got some in the back of my fridge getting hungry. It's got a nice layer of hooch on top, but because my oven isn't working very well,

well at all fully probably blew it up trying to make pizzas right probably made too many pizzas actually that's where I first realized there was something going going on the bottom element of my oven is not working so at Christmas time I'm have you still not got this fixed yet do we know to appeal okay what kind of oven do you have who do we need to to find out there in whoever's listening to this podcast Julie's oven is a what it's a lacornu

It's French. It's very fancy. I believe the company has changed hands and it's now owned by Viking, I believe. So what are you needing? The parts don't exist. What's going on with Le Cornu? The part has to come from France. It's on its way, apparently, but it's been three months and no one in Calgary. I found one person who will work on it, but technically it's not really supposed to, but he knows how. No one will work on these ovens in Calgary. I will work on it.

Come over and fix this down on them. If we can't, I bet you we can find something on YouTube. You and I can do it. Look, Corne, bottom element. I bet you there's 25 nerdy weirdos that have like, if your bottom element goes out in your look, Corne, here's how to fix it.

We'll find it. I'm going to go online and find it. We could just rig it up with some tinfoil, you know, maybe some dental floss. There is 1890 yeast. So the bread thing we've gone through, there's been lots of stages with people making things. I would be remiss to not talk about what has happened with vegan food in the last year.

And how it has exploded onto the scene. Now, I chalk it up to a lot of different things. We know that the coronavirus has shone a light on a lot of marginalized, weak cracks in our social systems.

Homelessness, long care home, seniors in long care homes, food insecurity. Where our food comes from, animal welfare, animal cruelty. A lot of slaughterhouses went down because of the massive amount of hardworking people who were not looked after well enough. And I think sometimes there was too much

300 people that all had coronavirus and they had to shut these places down. Anyway, and I think the internet has lent itself to people seeing

how all that stuff. Anyway, so many great vegan products. I know, Julie, that you highlight different things from time to time. Yeah. People are making stuff, you know, Meatless Mondays are really catching on. People are really stepping up to having one or two plant-based meals a week, which is fantastic. Totally. Like how, for the environment, for so many different reasons, it's been really exciting to watch that unfold. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I think you're right. People are, are making their, their eating decisions based, you know, on environmental factors and ethical issues and, and realizing how much you can do with, with vegetables and beans pulses. I mean, I'm a huge bean fan and,

And, you know, they're great for farmers. They're good for crop rotation. They're inexpensive. They're affordable. They're shelf stable. They're in cuisines all around the world, right? Yeah. And in Canada, we're intimidated by the idea of soaking a bean, right? Like, what? What do I put? What do I soak it? You don't even have to soak it. We could do a whole segment on beans. You don't even have to soak your beans.

But yeah, they're very meaty. I mean, texturally, they're so meaty. And I think people are a little afraid of firm tofu as well. I'm telling you, I could have you over to my house. The things I can make with tofu, I can make

a fried chicken sandwich with tofu. Give me a firm, extra firm tofu. Give me some cornstarch. Give me some spices and give me a damn, uh, an inch of any kind of canola, olive oil, whatever kind of oil you want to give me in a, in a frying pan. And I can make you the crispiest damn fried,

great chicken sandwich with mayonnaise and lettuce and tomato slices and a great bun. You would be mind boggled how satisfying it is. In our last minute here, I want to thank you guys so much for joining us today. I want to thank all our listeners at Spotify,

A new partner of ours. If you're listening to our podcast, you can hit subscribe to the Jan Arden podcast and you don't even have to be looking for us every week. You can just be reminded and we'll pop up in your thing. Julie van Rosendahl, as always, I'm going to be talking to you over the next couple of weeks, which is exciting. And let's talk more about soaking a bean. Don't be afraid to soak your beans. My gosh, if you can, if you can make toast, you can soak a bean.

It's true. This is true. It's even easier, I think, to soak a bean. And once again, just to send so much love, so much support.

A huge hug from all of us at the team here at our podcast. Everyone, of course, that Caitlin works with, friends, family, and to all the people that Kyle and Caitlin and Sam have never even met all across this country and everyone listening to the podcast who have all followed along with us, with Caitlin and Kyle. We just want to remind you one more time that

about, uh, going, go to Caitlin green. It's C A I T L I N green. Caitlin green is her Twitter handle. And that's easier for me to tell you that to go on. And there's a link so you can donate to Sunnybrook. You, there's a link, uh, for you. You can support Sam and raise money for all these things. These, these unanswered questions in, um,

you know, sudden infant death that there's, there's so many things that they need to figure out and to help other families avoid this. Thank you for listening. Look after yourselves. We are getting there. Stay positive, stay focused, stay safe, wear a mask, still practice your social distancing. We've gone this far. We can make it through.

And we're thinking about all of you and, and please write us at the Jan Arden podcast on Twitter. Let us know if you have any questions and next week we'll be back with more informative things. We'll talk more about food. We'll talk more about, I can't believe there were so many things I wanted to ask you about friendships. And anyways, Adam's winding me up, not winding me up. He's giving me the old twiddly. Okay. We're a minute over now. We're a minute late. Okay. Okay. We love you guys. Talk to you soon. Okay.

This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.