Julie Van Rosendaal: For the Love of Food
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Hello. Welcome, everyone, to the Jan Arden Podcast and Show. I'm Jan Arden. I'm with Sarah Burke. I am in Springbank, Alberta. Sarah Burke is in Toronto, Ontario. And Julie... Oh, I'm going to put on my Do Not Disturb before we even... This is real life, folks, here. This is... Julie, I'm so sorry that it... Did you guys hear that name? We didn't even hear it. It just bleeped out my name. And...

Our very special guest back from a long hiatus. And Julie and I are glad to be back into the realm of podcasting together, Julie Van Rosendahl. Let me tell you a little bit about her. Hello. Hi, Julie. I'll let you say hello first. Hello. Just for some quick background on Julie, in case you are living under a

Truck that has, forget it. Okay. Just for some quick background, if you weren't with us for her last appearance, which was probably over a year ago, she is a food journalist, a broadcaster, an author of 13 bestselling cookbooks. Do we have that right? 13. You probably don't even freaking know. Yeah, it sounds wrong, but I keep going over it and it's right. Yep. 13 bestselling cookbooks. Yeah.

She is the columnist behind the Calgary Eye Opener on CBC. She is actually a regular contributor with CBC for the last 17 years, which is almost as long as I've been living in my house out here in Springbank.

But you may also be familiar with her work in The Globe and Mail. She's a terrific writer, the Chatelaine magazine, and probably a lot of other stuff. Anyway, Julie, let's just hit right to it. How have you been? What's been happening? Your son just turned 18 years old. He's an adult. I have an adult living in my house. Yeah. I mean, when I started CBC, as you were saying, 17 years, I remember...

Like breastfeeding him and then running to the studio and then coming back. So he's like my marker for everything. How long have I been doing this? How old is Willem? Yeah, he turned 18. I successfully ushered a human to adulthood. Yes. And we are so grateful for really great young humans to be coming into this world today.

I know that your son shares a joy of cooking too, because lately, like the last little while, Willem's down there. He's doing the stuff. He's making, this is what my son's making today. I'm like, wow, I was barely making like

a bowl of cereal when I was his age. Like, I didn't cook at all. I don't know where he got it from. I've been cooking since I could push a chair up to the counter. So, you know, ever since he was little, I've just encouraged him to be in the kitchen with me, even if he's not cooking, even if he's doing his homework, even if he's not cooking.

even if he's just sort of absorbing through osmosis what I'm doing in the kitchen. And I think that's how you nurture a love of cooking. Nature nurture. What is it? What do you got into cooking? Had he not seen you cooking or, you know, that's the, yeah. I mean, who knows? The DNA, right? The DNA part of things. Yeah. Well, I don't know if that, if DNA had anything to do with it, I would be a gastroenterologist. I would be in the concrete business. I don't know. I guess it's for

it's related right gums to bums is how my dad puts it so like your whole digestive yeah so maybe you know I kind of it's always been my thing and it's nice that it's his thing he was he was going to apply at SAIT for culinary arts but he didn't get around to applying so he's taking a gap year I want

to take a gap year. Can I take a gap year? I want to take a, I would like to take also a gap year. Let's do that. The three of us should be taking a gap year. How'd you guys meet? You guys got to fill me in. I know that our listeners might know you, but how did you two meet quickly? It goes back quite a long time. I'm going to say at least 10 years because I think, I mean, I knew of Julie obviously, cause I had heard her on CBC. I was familiar with her cookbooks and

And I think I have four or five of your cookbooks, Julie. Wow. What? Yeah, so I'm thinking I need to find the other eight. I digress. We were up in Jasper when I actually physically met Julie. We did such a fun –

I don't know what would you call it like a weekend a bunch of women that were in their pajamas at Jasper Park yeah you tell it was the girl uh girlfriend's weekend I think they called it and Jan was the special guest one year I often went as sort of the culinary something rather guru what I did one year one year with Molly Ringwald which is a whole other story and one year with Jan and I I had

had forgotten about that. I came across photos of us cooking together. We did some sort of crazy like onstage dessert show together. So fun. Little snippets of memories about it. But I do remember your talk. People were just, people just loved it. It was. What was the talk about? I don't know.

know, just stuff, just life. She's good at that. You know, just, she's so good at it. Well, you talk a lot just about kismet really. I mean, it changes. People are always kind of probably very concerned when they hire me to do speaking engagements because they're like, do you have a PowerPoint? Do you have notes? Do you need a podium? No, just if you've got a wireless mic, you

Good to go. I'm just going to wander around. Let her loose. Off we go. Let her go. Is there a clock that I can look at to make sure that I don't do nine hours? A cane will come out and like a gong. Do you remember the gong show? Do you remember the gong show? The, the, the, uh,

the guy with the paper bag on his head, the unknown comic? Mm-hmm. He used to come out and get gonged all the time. I really miss that show. Chuck Berris. Oh, well done. Yeah, we're going way back in time. I have some great questions that Sarah put together. Actually, Sarah, I'm going to let you ask...

You sent me so many great questions because I was on a film set yesterday and I wanted to be prepared because although you are a very dear friend to me and we know each other, I also wanted to let people in on not just the personal side of it, but like all the cool stuff you do. And Sarah doesn't know you from a cookbook. So, well...

Expect some in the mail, Sarah. Oh my gosh, I'm excited. We'll correct that. Okay, well let me start with this. There's been a lot of changes to humans in all types of ways over the last three years, right? But I think two very trendy but also important things are accessibility and sustainability right now. So in all the like television stuff, columns, whatever you're doing, where do you start with like sustainability and accessibility? Yeah.

Of food? I'm assuming. Yes, of food. Yeah, this is a big topic. I'm diving right in. How much time do we have? We got time. Five hours? Do we have five hours? I know. We've got time. This is a big question and it has changed over the last, I mean, it's changed over the years and the decades and the millenniums. But during the pandemic, we had a situation where people who had never been faced with food insecurity were

had limited access to food, right? We're, we're financially struggling where, I mean, just accessing the grocery store was a challenge during the pandemic. We, we saw schools closed, right? And so that was a big trigger point for me. My sister is a principal at a school for kids with complex needs. And so her school never closed during the pandemic. But I just, I know how many kids are,

access food at school as their main source of food. So for example, sorry, this is a big question. I'm trying to grasp onto it somewhere. Julie, honestly, take your time. Okay. So I was born...

Going way back. We're going to take a quick break. I've never had to worry about where my next meal came from, you know? And so, so this is a, this is a key interest for me is, is a focus on, on food security and food access. And, and so, so during the pandemic, one of my main concerns was all these kids who were displaced from, from school, this disconnect, right? And then accessing those kids.

It's tricky. The hunger organizations don't have access to these kids in the way that schools did, right? So, you know, so for example, the Alberta government had all this millions of dollars earmarked for the breakfast and lunch programs, and they distributed it to the food bank and to the agencies and said, okay, feed the kids,

Who are at home and they're like, great, where are they? And they're like, well, we can't tell you. So, you know, so we launched these pop-up lunch stations at 13 points across the city. And just, I think the key is doing what you can with what you have in your community, right? And everyone wants to do something to help, but when the problem is so big,

It's hard to know. You feel helpless. It's hard to know what to do. But the little things do make a difference, don't they? The little things. So I think when people do throw their hands up in the air and they think it's such a big problem, I can't possibly make a difference. And Julie, it was so inspiring to see...

restaurant kitchens being utilized to cook food. People had to switch gears very quickly because they didn't have 60 people sitting in their restaurant. But those lunch programs, we did see people that, you know, normally tens of thousands of Calgarian kids, Edmonton kids, kids all across the country that weren't getting their lunch and probably a snack during the day.

at school because they were being forced to stay home. Yeah. And their parents didn't have food in the cupboards to give them at home because they really relied on the school food programs to feed them. So we really saw the breakdown. COVID did a lot of good things as though they were really hard lessons. We learned about where those fault lines were in our society. Food, yes, those huge gaps. So definitely you saw food. It was very inspiring watching you

kind of navigate that, get people organized, inspire people to do a little bit. You know, even when you're packing a hundred bags and people come by to pick them up, that's a hundred people. Yeah. It's, it's not 50,000, but it's a hundred. So the gaps, I feed one kid. Yeah. It's worth it. So yeah. Part two of your question, Sarah, cause I know there was part two. It is kind of like how, how do we educate the next generation on these things and keep it moving forward? Yeah.

I think we lead by example. You know, so many people get stuck in the, well, what if? What if I plant a community garden and people steal the food? Well, that's kind of the point. You know, what if we start? Yeah. Right. Like for years. My carrots are gone. Okay. I guess that was the point. Right. Right.

Like all these things we thought we couldn't do. Oh, you can't drink in the park. Well, turns out you can. You can't order booze with your food. Turns out you can. But so many people get stuck on the community pantries. People tried to start community pantries for years and there were all these like...

you know, concerns about... Expiry dates. Yeah. And, you know, who's responsible if someone gets... Just all these what if, what if that held people up. Now, during the pandemic, people just did it, right? People just did it. And that's...

what I think, you know, to a, to a degree, just, just do it. Just learn as you go. Don't let not knowing how to proceed, stop you. You have a kitchen, you have, you know, you have all this displaced food, you have community halls, you have, you know, just do it, just do it. Reach out and be aware of, of what the need is in, in your community. And kids see that, right? Kids, kids learn at

having them participate in whatever way they can, I think is great. And just sort of as a, as a daily, as a part of their thought process, right? How do, how do we consider. You inspired me. You, you absolutely inspired me. Oh, thanks. Just to do things like food bank. I, I always, because of you, Julie,

I do not go through Safeway or wherever I'm going without doing a couple of bags for the food bag every time I go. And some people say, okay, Jen, not everyone can do that. Well, I can do that. Exactly. So when we're talking about things we can do, I can afford it and I need to do better. Exactly. So I always do a couple of those bags regularly.

Every single time. And that's because I just thought, why aren't I doing that? I didn't think about it. I didn't think about it because I had my head up my butt and I didn't realize I hear about it. And I think, well, I have to start pitching in too. So that makes a difference. I love seeing those bins filled up. And my sister, thanks you. My sister works at the Mississauga Food Bank and

here in Ontario. So yeah, like it feels like a never ending battle for the food banks, of course. It is. So, and I have always been a supporter of the food bank. I think it's very necessary. And, and I do a lot of events to raise money for the food banks. There's a caveat here. During the pandemic, it's, it's, this is a tough thing to talk about, but I think it's important because a lot of the smaller organizations are

don't have access to the same funding and the same grants and the same, they don't have full-time, you know, fundraisers. They don't have full-time grant writers. There are a lot of smaller organizations that are struggling and individual schools are struggling too. Um,

So over the course of the pandemic, the Canadian government sent out over $300 million in emergency funds to food banks, to community food centers, Canada, to Second Harvest, to Solidarity Kitchen in Quebec. There are five recipients. And a lot of them have surpluses as a result. And

So I think when you're considering where to donate to, if you Google financial statements, not community impact reports, financial statements, you can kind of see, get an idea of where people are. So I worry that there is, I hear from so many teachers who are having to fundraise for food supports for their schools, which is ridiculous, that

that they don't want to access the food banks because there's this perception of need. But in Calgary, there is enough food. There is enough food. There is enough money that people shouldn't be hesitant to access the food banks. Okay.

Would you be referring to things like the mustard seed, the smaller down the tier organizations that depend really on their community to give them financial support money because they don't access those big centers. They don't have anything to do with those big centers. What about the people that are literally feeding hot meals on the street every day? Is that sort of what you're referring to? Those people don't have access to that.

I love that. Yeah, the sort of grassroots organizations. I like to support the schools for a while. Years ago, I started this snack bank at schools. Right now, I'm trying to work with the CBE and the food bank and some other organizations to get food pantries in schools. Teachers, educators should not be fundraising. They should not have to worry about food access. I've had principals...

call me and say, like, my number one priority is getting these teenagers fed, like getting these teens fed in a dignified way. Like I could talk about this for hours. And so we're running up with walls from the CBE. There's a new person taking over. Please tell everyone what the CBE is, Julie. Oh, sorry, sorry. Calgary Board of Education. Yeah. So, I mean, there are different boards of education across the province and across the country. So they all deal with things differently. Isn't that kind of ridiculous that –

School boards, even much before the pandemic, were really struggling to feed their students and realizing that they had kids coming to school that were sitting there. So many kids. Tired. Lunchtime came. Billy didn't have a bag to open or a lunch kit to open and was kind of just sitting there. Yeah. And it's amazing. Like I said, COVID-19.

Really shone a light on so many of these things. I want to switch gears here just for a minute because there's so many things that I want to get to. Good idea. No, no, no, not at all. And if you're listening to this and if you're hearing what Julie's message was, which is very passionate...

and you know of a local organization or someone in your community that is doing that, phone them and ask them what they need. Can't hurt. Say I marched. Can I take you 10 jars of peanut butter? Like, I don't know. Just phone and ask. Don't wait for somebody to tell you what to do. Take action. Anyway, switch gears. So in my mind's eye, I was thinking about this a couple of weeks ago when your name was rolling around in my head. I'm like, oh, we got to get Julie on the show and we'll figure out a time.

Now you girls tell me what you think of this. I would love to start a supper club, but hear me out. I would like to do eight people because I think 10's too, too many to have a conversation, but I would like to do complete strangers. I love this. Like I, so yeah, I, I mean, obviously you worry about vetting people or things like that, but you'd want to get like-minded people that would sign up

Um, you would do it in a public restaurant. You don't do it in homes. Of course. There's no personal homes. So you're not at risk at somebody carousing, perusing, whatever the word is, your home going through your, you know what I mean? You meet at a restaurant, eight people, you've pine the date and you just sit there. Everybody pays for their own meal. Mm-hmm.

And you have a conversation. You just like, hi, I'm... It's not dating. And I really mean that. This is not dating. It's not looking for a hookup. Although that could certainly be the collateral damage of a dinner. A side effect. Notice how I said collateral damage, not even a perk. But what do you think of that? Like, is there something out there? I even kind of went online and I was sort of looking...

uh, like stranger dinner clubs. And I found some really kind of weird, random thing, but it wasn't really what was in my mind.

How would I, how would we go about doing that? I'm so down. Food is love, right? Sharing food is love. Okay. So I have, I have so many thoughts. I have so many thoughts. I'm just like, I'm just waiting to jump in. You're the guest, go. And it's so funny because I was actually thinking about this this morning. Stop it. I was literally thinking about this this morning. So years ago, I, uh, I was talking to a friend about doing dinner parties where you invite guests

You invite, say, if there's 10 people, you invite five people and get each of them to bring somebody who is interesting, who you don't know. And there's the vetting process. You mix them up so they can't sit together at dinner. It can't be a partner.

It has to be someone different and then mix them up. And I can't remember the name. We had like this great name. And then COVID hit, of course. Similarly, I was in a taxi or an Uber or something out in London, Ontario, I think, somewhere in Ontario. And the driver was a

a new arrival. He lived in Windsor, which is where a lot of my family is. I swear this is relevant, I promise. And so he was telling me about, you know, he had arrived with his wife and small children about a year before from Syria. And it just really hit me how hard it must be to arrive in a new country and not have any connections. You know, nothing's familiar, but those connections that we take for granted, right? No family, no

The community sort of have to start from scratch. My cousins live in Windsor. His industry was related to my granddad's and my uncle's industry. And his kids were the same age as my

my cousin's kids. And so I connected them, you know, and, and it was so happy to, to sort of be able to make that connection because we have been talking. But when I got back, I reached out to the center for newcomers and we, and said, why, how can we have present the opportunity for people in Calgary to invite newcomers to dinner? Like, how do you, how do we, you know, we have our bubbles. There's lots of support. There's lots of support from,

You know, for newcomers, but just how do we how do we break out and reach people who have just arrived and create those connections? And a lot of the systems and support are so like it's like rigid and government and process. Right. So like a connection that's different.

Exactly. Exactly. I want to get to know people. So, and then again, the pandemic hit. So we started having these potlucks. Wow. Yeah. We had one every December, not during the pandemic, but we just had, had one this past December again at their new facility and which is where the old Ikea was in Calgary. And, and so that, that's just something that I've really been ruminating on as well. And it popped

had this morning. Well, it's so interesting because I was, as I'm reading the news, I was trying to wake up this morning, you know, just, you kind of stay in bed that extra 20 minutes and just kind of look at social media and okay, what happened overnight when I was sleeping? God knows. It's always amazing what can happen in 10 hours. But anyway, this one article is interesting because it talked about, it was an op-ed piece about

The importance of talking to strangers. And they listed quite a few examples of, you know, the dinner party certainly is one example of sitting across from somebody and discussing things, whether it's something that you agree with or not. But just even on a bus, people taking the time to A, acknowledge someone.

Sometimes you catch eye contact with someone and you feel like you've committed this mortal sin that, oh, I looked them in the eye and I caught their eye. And you kind of smile. And when someone doesn't smile back, you feel somewhat betrayed and you feel kind of let down. And sometimes you feel a little bit embarrassed that you took the time to make that little spark of, hey, I'm another person walking down the street. But the article was interesting. And the guy talked about

how much more people used to go to a diner, have a piece of pie by themselves before work or after work or have a coffee. Like even in coffee shops now, I will go into a mom and pop shop, not just Starbucks, but some of the great ones. Julie and I, Julie took me to a really great coffee shop in Britannia and I just loved it and sitting there. And it seemed like the ones that I've seen, I don't see everyone with their computers open because they're taking advantage of the free Wi-Fi.

And they're not really talking to each other. Where this guy was saying even 10 years ago, so even in 2013, there was like 45% more engagement. I don't know who does these studies. I have no idea. But what do you guys think of that? Like just what's keeping us from... I try and talk to people...

Sometimes. Some of my favorite travels have been when I just go park at the bar by myself and see who I'm going to talk to that night. Yeah. Well, and even the, you know, I did a story for the Globe years ago when online shopping was starting to become a thing and pre-pandemic. But, and the story, the focus of the story was these small connections that we make when we go to the grocery store, right? And they're so important for our mental health and our physical health.

So, you know, just talking to people at the checkout, talking to people in the aisle. And I read recently about a grocery store somewhere in Europe where they have a slow line. You know, they have the fast line, but they have a slow line. I read that as well. For elderly people and for elderly people to talk to the checkout person. I love it. I love that. And you can pick up on people. You know, that's one thing that I tried to pay attention to is, you know, when usually an elderly person

sort of sparks a conversation in the grocery store, pick up on that and just, you know, take a few minutes to talk to them because it's so important. Human connection. Yeah. You're exactly right. Human connection. Julie, I think we should figure out, we can try it once, maybe find four people that

We don't really know. It starts with six people. I don't even know how or if there's people you've always wanted to meet. You and I should do an experiment. I wish Cher was in Calgary, but maybe we should just try once getting people that we don't really know, that we know of and say, do you guys want to meet me and Jan? Yeah.

Yeah. Blah, blah, blah for a bite to eat. Yeah. For an hour. And it's a great way. Try it. It's a great way to support restaurants too, that have had a hard few years, you know? Well, we're going to talk after we, we finished the podcast today. I know, but.

But when you guys are in Ontario, you guys will both be in Ontario at some point. I will expect my invite then. Yeah. Well, we could reach out on social media and say, Hey, I follow you on social media. It's me. You can look at me up if you want to. Julie and I are looking for, you know, for people to go and have dinner in Calgary. Obviously we'd have to do it here. I don't want people to travel in, but I would love as just a social experiment to sit down and

See what comes of it. I'd love to hear about it after. I have some people in mind. And I think that to reach out to people who wouldn't necessarily...

be able to afford a dinner in a restaurant would be amazing. Okay. Well, listen, I'll foot the bill for this first dinner. It's on me. We'll split it. We'll split it. Yeah. Seriously. Okay. We'll take that off the table. Split it. Now at the other end of the pool, here's my next kind of horrific story that I stumbled across.

I believe it's in Australia. It's a, it's, it's a, I don't know if it's a crime or a really, really bad luck story, but four relatives came to lunch. Three died with symptoms of death cap mushroom poisoning. So as you know, out there, so it's just, it's so nutty. I don't know if they're still trying to get to the bottom of it. If this woman that had her relatives over died,

knew what she was doing. Her and her daughter had different meals. They didn't eat the death cap. They're called death cap mushrooms, which is your first clue of not to eat them. Yeah.

Unfortunately, they don't have labels with their name on them. This is the problem with mushrooms, right? But homicide is involved. Well, listen, if everyone is wondering about why you get high from mushrooms, it's because of the amount of poison you're putting into your body. So think about that for a second. But you can say the same thing about alcohol. Alcohol, that feeling of, oh, I feel so great. Well, it's a poison that your body can

manage to certain degrees. But yeah, the mushroom, so homicide people are involved. Yeah, a 70-year-old died. Her sister of 66 died. And one of their husbands, a 70-year-old man died.

And then there's a reverend that's still clinging to life who's 68. But the woman that hosted the lunch, I don't know why I'm laughing. I'm just kind of appalled. Her and her daughter are alive. Yeah, her and her daughter are alive. You know they're going to make a movie out of this. Yeah, that's brutal. Well, she's denied any wrongdoing. I haven't seen the story. Could she have...

Could she have gone to pick mushrooms? For God's sakes, don't anyone go... I have mushrooms growing all over my yard right now. Like I have giant ones. I have ones growing out the side of trees. And I love mushrooms. Me too. I make mushrooms for myself. I have mushrooms on toast probably once a week. Yeah. Really? Me too. Mushrooms on toast. Oh, my God. The best. With shallot and like vegan butter on a piece of sour bread toast. Oh.

Okay. Piled up fresh garlic. You can do all kinds of things. You can do fresh herbs and oregano, make them kind of Italian-y. You can put a splash of balsamic in there. Anyway. Best. I will try and follow along with this story to let you guys know. Keep us posted. But if you wanted to get rid of people, there's no end to the diabolical

that you can come up with. Let's hope she made a mistake, but I have a feeling she did it on purpose. Why would you and your kid eat a separate meal? Yeah, that sounds... And I want to know what... That is not a dinner club that we are going to be having, ladies and gentlemen. This is a Netflix special. Yeah. If there is anyone in this world that we can dive into food trends with, it is the guest that we have on our show today, Julie Van Rosendahl. Don't go away. We're going to talk about some food trends, if Julie can remember. ♪

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What's going on in food these days? What's the big thing? I feel like ramen hit here and never let us down. Ramen, ramen, ramen. Everyone was doing ramen. What are some other things that people are...

or restaurants are cashing in on or, because it was avocado toast for a hundred years. Oh, so long. Avocado toast, avocado toast. The new thing is grocery prices, but let's not go down that road. I have, I have theories. I have theories. Um,

Um, but yeah, what's going on in food? Most of the food trends honestly are, are driven by like Tik TOK and Instagram, you know, isn't that insanity? It is insanity. So the, you know, like the cottage cheese ice cream and the, okay, what's that? Oh, it's ice cream made with cottage cheese. So it's high protein and you blend it. And so it's,

supposed to be higher. Well, I mean, it is higher in protein than traditional ice cream. So cottage cheese in a blender, you chuck your fruit in, you put it in a

plastic container. I tried to make it, but I forgot to blend it and it was not good. Oh no! Sarah! Blending is key with cottage cheese ice cream. Rookie mistake. Rookie mistake. I'm trying to think of the other... I just did a whole show on TikTok food trends and I've just jettisoned them all from my mind. There's like this...

Sweet potato toast where you slice it and you put it in the toaster. What? I mean, there are all these different... The idea of food hacks...

that the word really annoys me, right? These hacks. And they're all these, these tips, these kitchen tricks. That's true. Usually if you're a hack, you're, you're someone who's not doing a great job at anything. Exactly. You're a hack, right? Or you're cheating, right? It's not cheating. It's just a method that might be faster than other methods. I don't know. But, uh,

What was my point? I had a point. Well, just that the trends have gone out the window in TikTok. I know for a while, a lot of people were putting a bunch of tomatoes in a frying pan with a block of either feta cheese or vegan feta, like whatever you think. And then you would...

Cook that, melt everything down and then throw in your cooked pasta. And this was the big thing. Yeah. So there was a few of those, which doesn't sound like the worst thing in the world to me. No. And I did try it with the Veolife vegan feta and it was...

so delicious. And I also tried it with a boursin cheese has a plant based boursin. I tried it with boursin, a couple of fresh garlic cloves and a bunch of tomatoes. It's so good. That was delicious as well. But yeah, food trends. I'm always, well, I guess it is driven by social media. It is driven by, I mean, there are different kinds of trends and this is something I often address in the globe, right? So there are these sort of

sort of longer term, slower growing food trends. And I don't like calling them trends because it sounds like

unicorn frappuccinos or like the charcoal activated everything. Just these little blips that sort of pop up on social media that are short-term and then these longer-term trends like, you know, the trend toward more plant-based eating, people being more aware of the environmental footprint that our food choices make. You know, we see there are more...

non-dairy milks on the market than ever right and growing and growing so there are those trends and then there are these little you know the the feta the the tiktok feta and the tiktok salad and the

You know, that's how people get their information these days, right? Rather than going to food magazines or to, and food magazines or the, the, the kitchens, the, the, the shadow lane and the, and the Canadian living test kitchens don't exist anymore, you know, which is so sad. And I love a test kitchen. Me too. That was my dream. When I was a kid, I was going to be Elizabeth Baird. I was going to be the food editor of Canadian living, and I was going to run the test kitchen. This is me in grade four. Yeah.

And, and so my point was, that's where people are getting information. It's in our feeds, right? So we see these little 20 second ideas. They're not recipes per se, but these ideas and, and people see them food is very visual and think, you know, oh, I could do that. And that's how we

That's how we share ideas nowadays. What's one of those trends or hacks or any of those online social feed things that you hate, that you want to debunk? Oh my gosh. Even in the process of a way you do something like melting the feta in the pan is not the way to do it because this, this and this happens to the, you know. Well, you know, this is something that I tell kids when I teach kids to cook is

There is not one right way and a whole bunch of wrong ways to do something. There are a lot of ways to do something, right? Talk a little bit about you. You started teaching kids online, and I know that was part of the pandemic thing, too. You don't charge. You don't charge for this. So this is not something that parents have to sign up and spend $9.99 on.

And I was, we were having a conversation once and I was, and I'm in my mind's eye. I'm thinking, yeah, it's a zoom cooking class. Cool. And I pictured kind of 16 little faces on the screen that you could see everyone. Julie's like, no, there's like a thousand kids. I'm like, excuse me.

So did that surprise you at all at the response of kids wanting to learn to make snickerdoodles or s'mores or simple bread or pizza dough? I'm making this stuff up, but the things that you taught them that were fun to cook, you had like hundreds of kids on doing these courses. Well, the first week it was 2021, I suppose, January when they announced that schools would be closed for another week in January and

And it was like minus 100 in Alberta. And I just, I felt for those parents, you know, my son was 14 when the pandemic started. He excels at social distancing. And he, he's fine, right? But the parents of the young kids, I just like, oh, so I just put out on social media, if anyone wants to join me, we'll do a cooking class every morning at 10 for that week, we ended up doing

And the first class, I upped my Zoom account to 1,000. And people couldn't get in. So that surprised me. What?

Yeah. Yeah, I know. It's crazy. I was picturing like, I was picturing 10 kids with glasses with a few zits. Same. Cooking brand muffins. And she's like, oh no, I had to change my Zoom account because there wasn't enough bandwidth. You had to become pro. It was amazing. It was so great. And I love seeing the teenagers. I love it.

seeing the teenagers in there. A lot of them have their cameras off. So we still do it because they're so into it. I did make it free cameras off because I don't want it to be, I don't want accessibility to be an issue, right? I don't want people to have to ask to get it for free if they can't afford it. No, it's just free. It's just free. And I love doing it. I love it. So, so we, we went every day that week, the Saturday, we did a full day croissant class. And it's, you know, it's funny because people often ask me, are you going to do a kid's cookbook?

you know, and I say all cookbooks are kids' cookbooks. What does that mean? There's this idea that... Well, it's probably a fucking chicken nugget. Pizza. And fries. I mean, Jesus Christ. Kids are so much more... Like, dear restaurant owners out there in the world, please, please,

Reimagine your children's menu. They're not assholes. They know food. They have a very good, they are on Tik TOK. They are, they know what's going on. Stop making them chicken nuggets.

that are killing billions of chickens for God's sakes, rethink it. Yeah. Like honestly, do some braised cabbage. The things that they ask to do, like sushi. Kids love braised cabbage. Yeah. That was a bad example. My kid does not love braised cabbage. I'm like, yeah, really selling it. I love braised cabbage, but anyway. I know.

You're on an island there. They don't want Brussels sprouts, but come on. But some of them do. They all have different tastes, right? They all have different tastes. They all grew up in different cultures. They all have different tastes. My friend's two-year-old loves avocado sushi rolls. She loves seaweed. Loves seaweed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So funny. Yeah, just let them explore. Let them like what they like. And it's this, we tend to sort of,

plant these ideas in their mind. Oh, it's the same everywhere. Go to any restaurant, Julie, go to any restaurant. It's mac and cheese, a grilled cheese,

Chicken nuggets. Oh, God. I know. I know. I know. I know. Sobo and Tofino has an amazing, amazing menu. Lisa, the owner, I think her kids developed the menu. Oh, that's so cool. It's wonderful. Yeah. But yeah, all food is kid food, right? And they are capable of so much more than what we tend to...

Parents are like, my kid made this pan au chocolat. Yeah. Well, if you've got an air fryer in your kitchen, you'd be surprised what your kid would like in the air fryer too. Just saying. My kid loves the air fryer. I would eat a shoe out of an air fryer. Okay. Can we just clarify? Because I cannot not jump up on my soapbox right now and say an air fryer is a tiny convection oven. Frying. Frying. Nope. I...

Frying, by definition, is cooking in hot oil. Air frying is baking. It's still a great thing. I have an air fryer. My son uses it. It's a tiny convection oven. You can make two biscuits in it. You don't have to preheat your oven. Well, I pictured little nodules of oil spraying around in there. Now you've wrecked it. It's the marketing that really gets to me, right? That idea that we're getting away with something, right? And frying has been...

a cooking method for, you know, millennia, right? Like around the world, frying in oil. If you, so I did a test. What a great idea. I promise I'll stop in 30 seconds. No, no, keep going. I actually did a test because I got on the soapbox on CBC as well and talked about it. And I made fries in the air fryer, tossing the potatoes with oil, canola oil, vegetable oil, whatever. Yeah. And

And I did another batch on my stovetop using the cold fry method, which I love. So cold fry method is you put your potatoes in your pot, you cover it with oil, you bring it up to a boil. And it sounds like the fries or the potatoes are going to absorb a ton of oil. They don't. They kind of cook slowly and then they finish off and they're nice and crisp. They're just like, you know, restaurant twice cooked fries. I cooled the oil and measured it.

I used slightly less oil on the stovetop than in the air fryer. Interesting. So this notion that it's healthier than deep, it plays on our perception of the stigma around deep fried food, right? Well, yeah.

The whole thing comes down to weight loss, weight management, how not to get fat. The whole thing's connected to that. Period. Full stop. An air fryer is geared towards people who think that if they eat this, they're going to get fat. And that's all it is. That's what's drilled into us from the...

the time we open our eyes. That's, that's what, and men are getting it now too. They're getting it in droves. So it's everywhere. You just found your debunk. You just, you just found your debunk. That is a debunk. Yeah, you're right. There you go. We just learned something. I love that. I bet you didn't expect to learn things here today about deep, you know, your, your air fryer. You know what I use my air fryer for? Oddly enough,

I love to reheat stuff in there. I love reheating food in there. Yes. Because then it's not soggy. I feel like it's a little more crispier than the microwave. And I do grill cheeses in the air fryer a lot. Oh, so good. Nice. Like I just spray a little thing on the pan and I just... I'm hungry now. I do that in the air fryer. Yeah. There's a whole bunch of like vegan fun foods. I love doing the mini little vegan quiches and phyllo pastries that come from...

President's Choice or whatever. They're so fun to throw in there. It's really a tiny one. It really is made for a single, lonely person like myself. I'm with you. It's fun to do. And you're right. I've heard the whole convection thing. I have...

I have a convection oven. So my giant Viking has a convection oven setting. So can you explain to me in all your infinite wisdom, Julie, what the hell is that? Like it seems so big. Like would that work the same way if I threw some potatoes in there to convection of them? Yeah. Convection them? Convectionize them? Convex them. Yeah. It's just it utilizes a fan to circulate the air. So it's more –

effective at distributing the heat it kind of dries the surface of your food so it gets a more crispy exterior things food can't get really crispy in the presence of moisture and you can't get you know the that sort of dark color the mayor reaction occurs at temperatures higher than boiling water so if you have something that's wet or if you have your veggies that are all sort of

close together on your pan and they're steaming. They're not going to really brown. They're like boiling almost. Yeah, yeah. So the air helps kind of dry the surface of whatever it is you're cooking. Okay. So it would have the same effect, but it's so much bigger, right? I mean, the great thing about the air fryer is

I always shudder a little bit when I use that. The great thing about the tiny convection oven, it's like an easy bake oven for adults, right? The big button. That's why we like it. That's why we like it so much. Didn't the easy bake oven cook with a light bulb? A light bulb and the little tiny pan, the little tiny pan with a little tiny cake mix. I was not allowed to have one. My mom said, if you want to bake, you can use the regular oven. This makes so much sense. Right? But I borrowed my friend's.

I think we traded or something. It was so fun. My friend had an easy bake oven. Oh God. My friend in school, the strawberry, the strawberry pie, little cakes, the little, and you'd, you'd eat them in your friend's bedroom. Yeah. Like you'd mix it in a little bowl with water and you'd pour it in. It was so fun. Those were the days. I hid, I hid my friends under my bed and it got moldy. And then my mom was like, what's that smell? Yeah.

It's the easy bake oven I have hidden under my bed. But you can do in air-fired little tarts, little cakes, little like one cookie, right? One biscuit, which is great if you have one or two people at home. Before we say goodbye to you, I want you to walk me through one more thing. Goodbye? When we were talking about, well, you know, we do like a 50-minute podcast. It's terrible, but... The cane is going to come out and pull me off stage. I get it. No, no. The mug...

cake, the microwave mug cake. Now I've seen a million versions of these for people who are on the move, I guess, and don't want a whole cake and have their coffee mug. And I've seen them like two tablespoons of flour, two tablespoons or whatever of your favorite plant milk. Obviously normal people out there that aren't vegan would use an egg. I use a flax egg. I tried one. Mm-hmm.

Like a month ago. And it was not terrible. It's a desperation cake. Yeah. But it's, it's like a little bit of baking soda and,

It's so bizarre. And some cocoa and some sugar. It was kind of, I thought my mug was going to blow up because I thought, Oh my God, the mug's going to blow up in there. How long do you have to cook it for? I did it three, three minutes is the little recipe that I had. Yeah. It's a short time. My grandma in the eighties when microwaves were new, took a cake, a baking class, came home and did a full bunt cake in the microwave and it looked wet. So she kept putting it in for like five more minutes, five more minutes and

Finally seemed cooked. She frosted it, left it on the table. And my granddad came home, could not even penetrate it. It was so hard.

They gave it to the dog. The dog licked off all the icing and played with it for a week. But the mug cake, we finally figured out how to bake in the microwave. And that's about that's about it. The mug cake. It's I think, you know, desperation, late night cravings make everything taste better. I haven't made one for ages, but a little bit of baking soda. It's the egg that trips people up. Right. Like a whole egg volume wise is too much for a mug cake.

serving of cakes but you don't need it you don't need it in regular cakes protein protein a little flax works just fine folks totally anyways if you do want to try that it is kind of fun and i did go there and i did a banana version of it which consisted of a mashed up banana some flour there's a bunch out there that don't require you can just use banana cocoa baking soda and

Plant milk. There's no, there's no flower. And I don't know. Banana is so magical. You can make fricking fudge out of banana for God's sakes. Like banana is banana is the new gay. That's all I'm saying. I don't know what that means. Bananas are bananas. Yeah.

You can make the great and dates. You can make the greatest caramel with dates in a food processor. You can put it, glom it on. Oh my God. Anyway. I just saw on TikTok or Instagram or somewhere, someone mashed up Oreo cookies in milk, plant milk. I would use oat milk. Oat milk is best for baking. Soaked them, mashed them up and then baked it. And it made like a cake texture. Saw that. Yeah. I haven't tried it. Two ingredients mashed up.

Oreo cookies, which are vegan by mistake or just by some beautiful turn of events in the world. That worked out well for you. Yeah, she crushed them up and added oat milk and zapped it in the microwave and it came out as a cake. And a lot of people are doing that too. I don't know how good that is for you folks. We're not talking health food right now. But I have to give a plug to my favorite...

These guys, Cove Soda. We are not sponsored by Cove Soda, although we would certainly accept your money and your business. This is so good. Cove Soda. It's Canadian. It's naturally sweetened. There's, I think, three flavors. And these guys are hitting it out of the park. This is the best soda I've ever had in my life. Sorry, Michael Bublé. Cove. Awkward. Awkward.

Cove. No, this blows it out of the water. Some people don't like a sweet drink, but this is barely sweet. It's soda. It's so limey. It's different from Buble, right? Yeah. Before we let Julie go, we have to ask her about her new column in the Golden Mail this fall. Tell us everything or what you can tell us. Yeah, yeah. It's called How We Eat. And it's a weekly look at...

How we eat, how Canadians are eating, how we're dealing with food prices, how the first one, I don't know if I am allowed to say this. The first one's about, so it's the international year of the millets. And millets are great for drought situations, which is something that we really need to consider. It's not a haircut. Yeah.

Not a mullet. It's not the year of the mullets. It's the year of the millets. Millets. Plural. I didn't know millet was plural, that there are multiple millets, but there are. So, yeah. Sometimes I'll talk about sort of shorter-lived food trends. I want to talk about mushrooms as a meat substitute and how people are boiling them and doing all different kinds of things with them. They can be super meaty. Super meaty.

Mushrooms are so good. There's some guys doing things that are making like mushroom steaks, the way they're, they're boiling it, marinating it, braising it, grilling it. Like,

taking a brick and sticking it on their cast iron. Oh my God. It just, they cut it open and it's just like red inside. It's so crazy, but there's so many of those going on right now too. Yeah. Well, there's, there's a never ending thing to talk about. Food is always going to be endlessly comforting, interesting. It's always going to be trendy, some form or another. Yeah. It's, we're very, very lucky in Canada to have the kind of access that we do

to food. And there's not a moment in my life where I don't step into any establishment selling food, groceries, the like, and look around me at the abundance. And people, you know, get pissed off. Oh my God, they didn't have any lemongrass.

Okay. Try something new. Just take it easy. So when you actually have an attitude like that and you get used to that way of thinking where you can literally turn your nose up, oh God, their oranges were terrible. People, think it through. If someone a hundred years ago had an orange in their hand in this country, that thing traveled a million miles and was a lot of

love and labor to get it there. So just think about the people who are picking the food, putting it in boxes, driving it, flying it, moving it, washing it, processing it. Those people are giving up

a lot of life and wellness so that you can have a fucking orange. And a huge display of them, you know, we don't want one or two. And 10 kinds. And 10 kinds. Yeah. Well, thanks for coming today, Julie, and hanging out. We'll touch base with you soon. I'm going to talk to you today about this dinner get together to see if we can get

I mean, you and I will know each other, but it'd be really great to get four people that don't know each other and that don't know us. And yeah, let's give it a whirl and we'll report back to Sarah. Yeah. Yes. And Sarah, maybe you can try a similar gathering in your hood. Yeah. We'll still call it Jan's Supper Club. You just won't be at that one. Okay. Right.

They'll be like, wait, Jan's not here. Wait a second. Just get like a mask, a Jan mask and wear it. Or a head. Yeah. Oh, I've got a bunch of Jan masks here in the house. I'll send them out to you. Well, look after yourselves, you guys. Enjoy the rest of summer. It's going by fast. Hopefully September will still be lovely. Hopefully, you know, there'll still be a few golf games going on in October. We can squeeze those in.

But yeah, the race is on. I'm not going to say how many days it is to Christmas, although I could ask Alexa, but I'm not going to. Look after yourselves and we'll talk soon. Julie, don't go anywhere today that I can't find you on your cellular device to get our dinner club going. Impossible. This goes everywhere with me. Me too. Well, as usual, we're running out of time. This goes by so fast week after week. And

one more thing, if it wasn't enough already, before we leave you today. Next week, after a year of raising a small human, Caitlin Green is going to rejoin our show. And we're so excited just to hear all about what she's been doing. And it's going to be really nice to have her back in the fold. So you'll want to stay tuned for that.

Don't forget to hit that subscribe button. Makes it easier to find us week after week. You can stream us on all your favorite places where you like to stream music. I heart radio. Thank you so much for being with us. We love you guys. Take care of yourselves. Toodly-doo. This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.