Kitchen Table Chats #42 – NT Read-Along, Eating Everything On Your Plate & ‘Handling’ Nay-Sayers
These are the show notes for a podcast episode recorded especially for patrons of my main show (Ancestral Kitchen Podcast). These patrons pay a monthly subscription to be part of the podcast community and in return receive monthly exclusive recordings (like this private podcast) along with lots of extra resources. You can get access to the recording and see how the community works by visiting www.patreon.com/ancestralkitchenpodcast.
What we cover:
- Cooking Liver
- Nourishing Traditions read along happening this year (you can hear more on the KTC live from February)
- Alison’s anti anti-nutrient hummus
- Do you eat everything on your plate? Do you under-serve and go back for more?
- Over-eating in humans v. animals
- Brianna’s question: How do you handle nay-sayers? How do you stand your ground when people attack your lifestyle and say it’s crazy/wrong?
- What we ate at the UK supporter meet up!!
Resources:
Transcript:
Andrea:
[0:01] Hello allison good afternoon hello
Alison:
[0:05] Good morning good sunny morning here good sunny afternoon.
Andrea:
[0:10] Love it yes
Alison:
[0:11] It’s very nice how are you.
Andrea:
[0:13] I’m good i’m actually warm gary’s on graves which means when he’s home which he’s not home right now then he’s um running the fire overnight so and we wake up to a warm house which is nice luxury lovely phenomenon yeah
Alison:
[0:30] Definitely so have you managed to eat yet or not.
Andrea:
[0:34] No but i did have a delicious dinner and i’m gonna have some leftovers of it for breakfast so okay i made i’ve never made this before but have you ever made never had it either potato knish i
Alison:
[0:50] Don’t even know what.
Andrea:
[0:50] It is yeah i probably don’t know what it is either. But I had this big box of potatoes I told you I bought. And then there was an event at church. And after it was over, they looked at us because we have the most kids. And they’re like, do you want the leftover food? And I was like, sure. So it was butter, which was a nice grass-fed one, which is awesome. And cheese, which was a local cheese. That was awesome. And sour cream, which was not local or anything like that, but okay. It didn’t have any weird additives. So there’s that. So I cooked potatoes and I mixed in some of the aforementioned ingredients. And then I had found when I was cleaning out the freezer, a package of like a pastry dough. So I rolled it out and cut out little squares i do not know if i did this right the dough was kind of like dry and crumbly so i was doing the best with what i had and made these little knishes what
Alison:
[1:57] Are they like tarts or closed things.
Andrea:
[1:59] Yeah i think i
Alison:
[2:03] Don’t know which one.
Andrea:
[2:04] I was reading in the book and i was like i don’t understand what she’s saying about how to like is it k n k n i s h i think it’s jewish I think it’s a Jewish thing Because you schmaltz in it Or butter No lard or anything like
Alison:
[2:25] That And did you fold the pastry over Or did you leave it open.
Andrea:
[2:27] No Well, I, it didn’t, it was very crumbly. So I kind of like had a square and I put like a blob of potato in the middle of it. And then I sort of like scrunched the.
Alison:
[2:42] Oh, I see. Okay.
Andrea:
[2:43] Pastry dough up around the side. So like the top was open, like, like a little galette almost.
Alison:
[2:49] Yeah.
Andrea:
[2:50] So.
Alison:
[2:51] Sounds nice.
Andrea:
[2:52] Yeah, the kids loved them. They were like, you have to make this again.
Alison:
[2:56] Potato and cheese and cream together. I mean, come on.
Andrea:
[2:59] I mean, come on. Can you really go wrong? I know. And then with that, we had some leftover spaghetti because I made a really big batch two days ago because I had like two days of doing a whole bunch of stuff and I know I wouldn’t have time to make it. So I made like a vat of sauce. So homemade, some of our last of our home canned tomatoes plus some of the azure tomatoes and then tons of herbs and onions and peppers. And I cooked pork from our pig, and I cooked beef from our cow, and then simmered it all together, and then had that with pasta. So I had that. And then, because that’s not enough, I made the liver and onions from Nourishing Traditions.
Alison:
[3:51] Okay.
Andrea:
[3:52] That’s on page 307, if anybody’s looking for it. And it’s so good. It’s so delicious.
Alison:
[3:57] Which liver did you use?
Andrea:
[3:59] I use beef liver And when So when we Had the cow butchered I went The Like The same day Or the The morning after I forget And picked up all the organs from him Just because I didn’t want him to have to like Store them and package them and stuff And I brought the liver home And threw it on the table And just like Cut it up Into smaller pieces then I laid those on parchment paper on sheet pans and laid those pans in the freezer then once they froze I put those into packages and vacuum sealed them so that way I could take out you know one
Alison:
[4:40] At a time a beef.
Andrea:
[4:40] A beef liver is giant for anybody who’s yeah I remember I
Alison:
[4:44] Haven’t had one since we left Italy but we used to get them from Flavia all the time and I used to make pate with the entire lot I mean it was like oh.
Andrea:
[4:50] My gosh it
Alison:
[4:51] Was like a cooking all day Sunday Like a.
Andrea:
[4:54] Bathtub of… Yeah. No kidding. That’s insane.
Alison:
[4:58] You can see why last time we…
Andrea:
[4:59] That’s something I would do, Alison.
Alison:
[5:00] You can see why last time we talked about liver pate, I said to you, I’ve decided to scale down my liver pate ranking.
Andrea:
[5:07] You know, that comment is now making sense. Because when I make pate, I usually do it when Gary butchers, because I’m like, I’ve got 20 livers, I could freeze them, or I could just make a big batch. Not 20 cow livers, we’re talking 20 chicken livers. Yeah. And it’s enough that I can freeze maybe, like, four or five little jars and keep one in the fridge for me to eat. And, um… And I was like, well, it doesn’t take that much longer. But you’re talking about a beef liver, I understand.
Alison:
[5:37] They’re huge. Well, it sounds delicious. So you had a piece.
Andrea:
[5:40] The liver and onions was fantastic. Liver and onions. Yeah, no, it really was.
Alison:
[5:43] And did you soak the liver? Did you do the yogurt or the lemon juice thing on the liver?
Andrea:
[5:47] No, honestly, I did that the first time I made beef liver, and I’ve never done it since. Like, I’ve never done it again. No. And all the kids ate, like, it’s just liver chopped up. Liver chopped up into kind of like stew beef sizes. And I don’t do the recipe exactly the way Sally Fallon has it in the book. I cook the onions and butter in the pan first, and then I put the liver in. She has you cook the liver, then get another pan and cook the onions. And I’m like, no.
Alison:
[6:15] No, I wouldn’t do that. Why would you do that? The only problem is sometimes the liver leaves sort of gunk on the bottom of the pan.
Andrea:
[6:22] Oh, it definitely does, yeah.
Alison:
[6:24] Which you have to just be careful you use enough fat to make sure that that doesn’t go kind of dry and hard and into big sort of black blobbles. But I like the flavor of that in the onions. I had the big chunk of butter.
Andrea:
[6:35] See?
Alison:
[6:36] Yeah, well, there you go.
Andrea:
[6:37] The butter from the church thing. So I was like throwing butter in there recklessly. And all the kids ate it. Like, I think Jacob had two servings of it. You know, it was just chunks of liver. But honestly, it was like, it just tasted like beef. I can’t even say it tasted like liver at all.
Alison:
[6:53] Yeah.
Andrea:
[6:54] And cook it so it’s still pink inside. Don’t overcook it. That was what I did the first time I cooked liver was I just cooked the heck out of it. I think I was like afraid. I didn’t know what I was doing. And so if you cook liver the first time and you’re like, it’s so gritty and grainy. Well, it just means it’s overcooked. So you can do it again.
Alison:
[7:13] For a short amount of time. So do you want to talk about, as we’re talking about nourishing resistance, do you want to talk about the bookmark things or do you want to save that for later?
Andrea:
[7:24] Why don’t I find out what you ate first and then we can jump back to that.
Alison:
[7:27] Because there’s an aside on my eight things that might take some time.
Andrea:
[7:31] Oh, well, this would be an aside on mine that takes time. So I guess if we want to roll that way, we can.
Alison:
[7:37] Go on, you do the bookmarks and then we’ll come back. So just don’t forget to ask me what I ate because there’s a question I want to ask you about it later.
Andrea:
[7:45] Oh, yeah. Well, I need to know you. I will not forget. Okay. So we are doing a read-along of Nourishing Traditions for anybody who’s listening to this but is not in our Discord discussion group. You can certainly read along with us without being in the Discord group. You don’t have to be in the Discord if you don’t want to. But if you want to share your photos with us and discuss and ask questions, it’s shaping up to be quite nice to have other people doing it alongside you. I really like hearing what other people are doing. So, Allison, when we recorded the live call,
Alison:
[8:27] That people can go back and see.
Andrea:
[8:31] It went out at the end of February.
Alison:
[8:35] February’s live call.
Andrea:
[8:36] Yeah February’s live call yeah so that’s in the podcast player now if you’re listening to this right now it’s in the show notes there the link is in there okay
Andrea:
[8:48] And it’s a link to our website with the schedule of how we’re reading what we’re reading each month and there’s also an undated version of the same schedule. So if you wanted to start, you know, a year from now, but not have the months written on there, you could do that. And it’s actually a page that you could send to anybody, not just a patron, and they could read along with you. Like you want to send it to your mom or, you know, a friend and say, let’s read along together. They could download the calendar too and read along. But this is something I made. I made something a couple days ago, Allison, that’s just for the supporters of the podcast. So a little special extra thing that I wanted. And I made two different bookmarks for Nourishing Traditions. They’re big. Actually, the way I have it formatted, there’s only one on a page because it’s like big and in the middle of the page and goes all the way down. But one of the bookmarks is the schedule for the Nourishing Traditions read-along. So if you wanted to just have that on a schedule and tuck it in and check it off as you go, you could do that. And the other is a quick reference bookmark. So…
Andrea:
[10:13] I kind of went from the beginning of the book all the way through to the end, and I just pulled out a bunch of recipes that are sort of base to a lot of things that one would make.
Alison:
[10:28] Give me some examples.
Andrea:
[10:29] The liver and onions. The liver and onions is on here. Chicken stew, liver mousse, mayonnaise, stock and sauerkraut. Okay. Just the things that pop up. I didn’t put on kefir. This is not really a recipe.
Alison:
[10:48] Yeah, yeah.
Andrea:
[10:49] But, you know, it’s something one would make all the time. But, like, basic beans are in here because basic beans could turn up, like, every week. Yeah. So this is just a handy-dandy extra reference. And it was actually useful for me yesterday because I knew I was making the liver and onions. And I just glanced down
Alison:
[11:09] The reference page. pieces of paper stuck in my nourishing traditions like I know bookmark things envelopes that I just happen to have that I’ve wanted to put something in there and I think I could reach so a bookmark or frankly two or three or four would be I think very useful for nourishing traditions not only you know to save your place but also to when you open it up and you want some inspiration or you want some something to turn to to have those recipes listed on that one is really helpful. So where are you going to put them? You’re going to put them on the website?
Andrea:
[11:47] Yeah, they’ll go on the website. So same place you go to download everything else, I’ll just put them there. And I have, yes, Alison, I have four of them printed. Wow. Because just like you, I feel like I’m in so many multiple places at once. And because it’s kind of a bigger cookbook, sometimes you find a recipe and then you lose it, you know. You’re like, where did I see that? Like liver and onions, it’s in the main courses. It’s not in the awful section, you know. Oh, that’s confusing. And it’s not in the beef section. So you might be like, where did I see the liver and onions?
Alison:
[12:19] Well, and also some of the ones that I find, the ones that are kind of extras that she says, oh, you could do it like this, but you could also use this. Ah, yes. And you’re like, but it’s not in there. But then it’s one of those kind of things at the bottom that’s just a paragraph. And you’re like, oh, that’s where it is.
Andrea:
[12:34] She has so many little things like that that are, it’s a complete, like you’ve said, I think when we recorded the episode 103, I think you said something like, it’s a completely different recipe.
Alison:
[12:50] Yeah.
Andrea:
[12:51] And it’s like, that’s your staple, is that version. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, she has so many of those. It’s like there’s a million recipes in that book.
Alison:
[13:03] So if people listening want to just re-familiarize themselves, deepen their relationship with, or be inspired by nourishing traditions, they’re on Discord.
Andrea:
[13:16] Or just not lose your place.
Alison:
[13:18] Or not lose their place. If you’re on Discord, you can come to the thread that we’ve made in the books channel. and there’s a long discussion on the KTC Live to figure out where that is if you want to listen to that. If you’re not on Discord and you want to be, then get on Discord. It’s quite easy. Find the link that is in the welcome email you received as a supporter. And if you don’t want to be on Discord but you still want to do this, then go to the website and the download section. You will find the read-along at the very top of there at the moment. You can download that and then we will put the wonderful bookmarks that Andrea’s made in the supporter section. So you can go there and download the bookmarks and print as many as you want and put them in your nourishing traditions.
Andrea:
[14:07] Print them and hand them out like tracks.
Alison:
[14:11] Yeah, I think that explains all the technology.
Andrea:
[14:14] Have you met Liver? Do you know Liver?
Alison:
[14:19] Oh, you know, talking about those T-shirts on Discord, you know, the broth T-shirts with, like, memes on them or whatever. I don’t know what they’re called. Yeah. They just look so good, you know. I know. I think that one day we will have a range of T-shirts. I think Corey from, for nutrients sake, that’s her brand, she created a T-shirt, a couple of T-shirts with butter.
Andrea:
[14:44] Oh, did she really?
Alison:
[14:45] And she wore them at the Wester Price conference. No, I just think we should have a couple, you know, some broth ones, some liver ones. And really, they would, yeah, they’d just be so much fun. Oh, yeah, they would.
Andrea:
[15:00] Yeah, we’ll do it. We’ll figure it out eventually. After we figure out, you know, our normal problems.
Alison:
[15:07] Yeah. They never seem to end. When’s we going to get to the point where we’re all sorted out and all the problems have gone and then we can actually do something like that?
Andrea:
[15:16] I keep thinking that. I keep thinking that. You know, that’s like the… It’s because I congratulated us, Allison, on figuring, yes, I was like, wow, I really feel like we’re getting a handle on these audio things. And then that’s when I got the text from my friend, I love that you can hear the baby in the start of your episode. I was like, you can what? I was like, you can’t. No, I was like, my heart literally stopped. I was like, what is she talking about? So I rushed and got my phone in. And sure enough, on the introduction of one of the episodes, you can hear the baby.
Alison:
[15:54] Yeah, well, it’s odd. Not to, isn’t it? Yeah. Not to. Yeah.
Andrea:
[15:58] Well, what did you eat, Alison? I need to know now what you had.
Alison:
[16:02] Yeah, I’ve got a question.
Andrea:
[16:02] I’m also curious what the tangent is.
Alison:
[16:04] Yeah, after I was putting it away, I was just, oh, I’d like to ask Andrea that. So the boys have gone out to Gloucester to meet a friend of Gabriel’s who lives in Gloucester. And it’s a lovely sunny day so they’re going to be in the park which will be really nice anyway um so i’m here on my own and i walked them to the station i did um two hours of work on the book this morning yay and then walked into the station in the lovely sun came back and then i made lunch for myself last night i took out of the freezer the um little bit of the chickpea hummus thing that I made that we talked about on an episode somewhere in the last six weeks when did we talk about that.
Andrea:
[16:50] I know I remember it but
Alison:
[16:52] It’s really it’s it’s a nice hummus and it’s my kind of anti-anti-nutrient hummus trying to do everything I can to get nutrients the anti-nutrients out so anyway I thought well let’s freeze a bit see how it freezes so I got that out the freezer last night and then this morning I put some buckwheat flour in with some buttermilk and some water in the proofing box to just ferment a bit. And then I got back in from walking, turned on the cast iron pan.
Alison:
[17:20] Um lit the stove and back to the cast iron pan poured the buckwheat mixture in it um and then prepped a little bit of salad we have some carrots from ros at market and some a salad bag that she puts together of her kind of winter greens and a bit pepper so i chopped all that up put it on the plate and with some of nicole’s apple cider vinegar that she brought over um for everyone who went to the uk meeting um and some olive oil and then i literally just sat down with this big sort of bowl of it’s purple hummus because it’s got beetroot in it and a buckwheat pancake, and salad and the the hummus was amazing like i’m seriously i think it just gets better the older it is well like the third or fourth day we ate it i was like this is better than it was when we first made it and freezing it there’s absolutely no deterioration in it at all if anything unless I’d forgotten how good the first batch was it was even nicer it’s such wow a gentle gentle flavor it’s I the gentle is the only word that I can kind of put to it so I figured I’m going to write this up as a recipe sometime over the next six weeks and put it on my website because lovely it I mean and it’s one of those things where I just did it and it was lovely I just guessed everything, and it was lovely.
Alison:
[18:46] So, yeah, I just, I absolutely loved it. Purple, roasted beetroot hummus, which has been soaked, the chickpeas were soaked for two days, and then they were cooked in the Instapot to remove the lectins, and then sesame seeds were put in here. So I had that. It was really, really tasty. What I wanted to ask you, though, the tangent, was a question that really has been… I guess, not a question, a discussion with myself that has been part of my life for the last 30 years, really, and changed very much so, you know, from my different, the different me’s, you know, so the me who was overweight and ate very differently, which is when I put everything on my plate and I put too much on my plate. I put what I thought was the right amount, ended up being too much. I got to just about, I don’t know, three or four slices of pepper left, a little bit of the greens and a tiny bit of the buckwheat pancake and I thought I can’t, I’m full I don’t I don’t need to eat that and you know the hummus was in a container so I could have taken more but I just I was like right I’m I’m done and historically in my past I’ve been.
Alison:
[20:02] Rubbish at leaving food on my plate and not eating it even if I’m not hungry anymore, um you know you’ve got to take into account the fact that if you eat more slowly you’re more likely to be sated obviously right you eat quickly you’re going to think you’re not hungry but actually you’re probably full you know you’re going to think you’re still hungry right you might be full um and so what i did was i literally just found a small container and i put the, few bits of salad um and a few bits of pepper and a little bit of buckwheat pancake in a tiny little container and put it in the fridge i can eat it tonight or something but what i find really interesting and I’m sure that I’m not the only one, I’m sure that people listening have this discussion with themselves and have had and have seen it change. How you…
Alison:
[20:48] How manage or how you think about dishing up food do you put less on your plate do you put what you think is the right amount on do you put more on your plate do you then leave things often do you struggle with leaving things do you not leave things how do you know when you leave things you know when it’s the right time to leave things and how good are you at that and do you feel guilty when you don’t do it and how does it affect you I think it’s just a huge huge topic that women particularly you know even if it’s not like a cookie or an ice cream which is the obvious kind of cliche oh I can’t stop eating the ice cream when it when it’s tasty which the hummus was and if I could eat pancake was I was like yeah I know more’s gonna taste good but more’s not gonna feel good so I’m gonna stop in the past when particularly with foods I struggled with like with sugar, I could not stop myself. I guess that’s the definition of kind of addiction or having emotional eating problems.
Alison:
[21:46] That 10 years ago, 15 years ago, no, not 10 years ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago, 25 years ago, I was unable to stop myself. When it came to sugar, I’d just keep keep going keep going keep going and slowly I think through eating this way and through working through emotional issues in my life and and expressing myself in different ways my attitude to food is changing and has changed to the point now that I I don’t generally eat more than I feel that I need. And if the Alison from like 20 years ago had seen me doing this now, I think she’d just be bowled over that I could do that. But what’s also interesting is that Rob often puts… Less on his plate than he thinks he’s going to eat because he prefers to decide later and go back and get some more. Whereas I don’t like getting up towards the end of a meal and getting more because I think if I do that, I’m more likely to eat a little bit more than I know is comfortable, you know? And sometimes I struggle with the fact that he goes out and gets extra and I’m like, no, I don’t need any extra. I don’t want any extra. But that’s his habit compared to mine. And yeah, I just wondered how it sat with you and what you wanted to say about it. I was interested in hearing your take on that whole thing that I just said.
Andrea:
[23:13] I think it’s a really interesting, I like that you were thinking about it because I know both of us came from a background with like a binge restrict cycles. And I remember watching people eat and like they would have, you know, like two or three bites left on the side of their plate. Say you’re at a restaurant and the waiter comes over and be like, are you done? And they’d be like, oh yeah, yeah, you could take it. And I’d just be like, what? Yeah. How can you let them just take that away? What the heck? I just couldn’t comprehend it. And I tend to very much underserve plates now. So I think a part of that comes from having little kids. I always serve my kids way, way less. And I tell them, you can come back three times, four times. That’s fine. But it’s better to take less to start and not have as much waste. And I mean, this is why I should probably ask you this, Allison, too. I actually thought this is what you’re going to ask me. If you have like a little leftover soup, I’m like, just go put it back in the pot. Yeah. That’s if it’s just us. I don’t not do that if like there’s people coming over and I would not serve somebody food that like we put our leftovers back into.
Alison:
[24:32] Yeah, we do that too. Okay, good to know I’m not the only one. Yeah.
Andrea:
[24:36] Leah said they do it too. So I was like, okay, maybe it’s just not as weird as I thought. But I remember when somebody was at the house and I had served the kids oatmeal and then they dumped the leftover oatmeal in the trash. And I was like, I choked. I was like, what are you doing? Because, I mean, I know oatmeal is not that expensive, but I was like, we put in the good butter, we have the good cream. We always keep oatmeal.
Alison:
[24:59] Even if it’s only a spoonful, we keep it in the fridge. And sometimes Rob will have it as a snack or sometimes it goes on the evening plate. We always keep it.
Andrea:
[25:07] Yeah. Or sometimes you’re mixing like meat, like meatloaf or something. Like, I don’t know.
Alison:
[25:13] Oh, I’ll just put in that little bit of oatmeal.
Andrea:
[25:16] Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, so I always tell the kids, I’m like, you know, take less. You could go back as many times as you want, but it’s better than, you know. If there’s like a half a bite of something, it’s kind of awkward to deal with it. Yeah. As opposed to, that’s actually, you were saying, Allison, you know, how little was left on the plate, but you couldn’t finish it. That’s actually the hardest window for me. If like, I can’t eat half the food, I’m like, yeah, I cannot eat this. If there’s like two bites, I’m like, could I just try?
Alison:
[25:47] Yeah, I know that so well.
Andrea:
[25:52] But either one of the kids is sitting there looking at me and asking, are you going to eat that? Or, you know, I can just hand it to them. Yeah.
Alison:
[26:00] I often give it to Rob. I’m like, do you want this? Yeah. Do you want to eat this?
Andrea:
[26:04] My niece calls it Daddy Trash Can. Yeah. And she’ll be like, Daddy Trash Can, can you take this, please? I can’t eat it.
Andrea:
[26:14] Just cracks me up. Um, but, uh, yeah, I, I, I don’t like finishing it. If this is what I’ve, and I feel like I’m more and more conscious of this as I move away from like the, ah, you know, people have like how many days they’ve been sober. I don’t have like how many, I don’t have like a days since disordered eating, you know, cause it was like such a nonlinear finish for me. But like the farther away I get from that the more comfortable I feel yeah not not going past my point of like ease and I think there’s a there’s an aspect of food scarcity in my head that played a big part in the disordered eating like I have to eat all of this right now because like I might never eat again. And I’m telling just like, I have this sensation when I usually want to eat the first plate, which I, like I said, I always underserve them. I make them like smaller than I think. And after I eat it, I usually feel really good. I’m like, oh, I feel good. And then I think, oh, I could so eat another bite of that. It was so good. And, and I always just tell myself Like, not from a trying to eat less. In fact, I actually probably should be eating more than I am right now as far as producing milk goes.
Andrea:
[27:41] When I go back and I eat another piece is usually when I then feel actual discomfort. Like, oh, I just, I wish I hadn’t eaten that. Like, I felt really good and comfortable, and now I feel, like, full. And that is not a comfortable feeling for me. Yeah, I get that. And so, yeah, like, this is not, I’m in a nursing stage of life where I’m trying to get more calories in, typically in a day. Um so it’s not at all like i’m trying to restrict myself from a like a caloric intake type thing it’s just i am more and more conscious of like like if you had gone and eaten that last little bite you would have for me then say that i was going to go try to work on the book then i’d be like just feeling like heavy like i just feel like bleh from all that food so i don’t know
Alison:
[28:32] What I find thank you for sharing that I think we’re kind of similar what I am now two observations two observations that I wanted to make the first one was when I went to see when I went to the Western Price conference that came here to London and when I was pregnant with Gabriel I went to Sally Fallon’s talk and in that she talked about what she ate on a normal day and I was astounded she showed slides I was just like that’s not much food oh my gosh yeah much food wow um and then you.
Andrea:
[29:03] Said that was Sally
Alison:
[29:04] Sally yeah that was Sally um and then when I go to other people’s houses, and I’m served food I’m astounded by how much they put away I’m like I’m you know same with my sisters we’ve got jacket potatoes on the table you know there’s salad there’s hummus there’s you know, all these other things, salamis and, and I’m having like, you know, kind of a small jacket potato perhaps, and some of the salad and et cetera. And, and I just, I look at what the rest of them are eating. I’m like, how on earth are you managing to eat all that and still feel okay?
Andrea:
[29:40] But do they, do they actually eat it? Because I notice a lot of times people take huge servings and they throw away an insane amount of food. Like you think to yourself, wow, that is a lot of food but then you look at their plate when they stop eating and there’s like half the food is still on their
Alison:
[29:54] Plate yeah so maybe that I didn’t I don’t know if I remember looking at the plate when it was finished to know but um yeah it’s really interesting you kind of when you’ve been through disordered eating or when you’re working consciously with your food like you know listeners of the podcast star, It’s interesting to think about, you know, when’s that line? Yeah. Why are you doing it? What are you doing it for? You know, it takes, and, you know, during that journey of me moving from overeating to where I am now, it took sometimes an incredible force of will for me to go, I want more. I want more. Why do I want more when I’m full? I can feel that I don’t need more. Yes, yes. Where is this coming from? Oh, my gosh. To try and determine, that’s the hardest. Those moments are the hardest.
Andrea:
[30:49] I know. I would literally think to myself, that exact moment you described, I’d be like, am I a beagle? Was I a beagle in another life? I just can’t stop. I’ve heard of beagles and some types of dogs with that drive in them. Like our Pyrenees dogs you could leave a basin of food out and they they’ll eat what they want and then they’ll just wander away um but I remember my friend telling me yeah she said yeah one time um she like left the bag or the bag got ripped or something happened and her dog gorged himself until like his stomach was swollen and
Alison:
[31:27] He was like how does that happen now because all the pets are over overweight now right you you hear on places and you see like cats that are twice the size it should be and you think but in nature a cat won’t eat more than it needs I mean I’m sure all of us in our kind of you know um unencumbered states just eat what we need and then get on with the rest of our lives you know because we’ve got something sometimes sometimes it’s just simple as we’ve got something more interesting to do than just to sit at the table and carry on eating there’s things we’re excited about in our lives and yeah we want to feel good and get on with that.
Andrea:
[32:01] That’s a huge part of it.
Alison:
[32:02] And so I think that, you know, for these cats and dogs, why are they overeating? Are the owners doing like what my dad did, like feeding, you know, my cat brandy butter at Christmas and feeding it yogurt? My dad used to feed our cat yogurt.
Andrea:
[32:19] Cats can’t have alcohol?
Alison:
[32:20] No, I know. What? Well, they can in my dad’s world. We used to feed our cat like, you know, a strawberry yogurt from the carton. At dinner time you know so is it that the humans are forcing those cats and dogs to eat more food or are they feeding them the wrong type of food so those signals of i’ve had enough have gone or are the cats bored i don’t know what why why are cats and dogs getting overweight as well, i’m looking to you for the answer to this andrea.
Andrea:
[32:55] Well, Allison, I don’t have all the answers, but I will tell you something really, oh yeah, I know, disappointing. I will tell you something obnoxious that I saw that has just bothered me ever since I saw it was when we first got the dogs, we got some kind of like somebody gave us like a dog magazine or something. And there was like all these articles about different things. So I’m kind of reading through it and there’s an article about, you know, overweight, um, animals. And I was really struck by the article because they were saying, um, if you are not feeding, you know, your animal, like their species appropriate food and they’re not getting enough exercise and you’re feeding them too much because you love them and you want to give them little snacks and things. They said it’s not kind to your animal it’s really hard on the animal and it’s not good for them and they’re gonna have you know this list of diseases yeah and i thought to myself
Andrea:
[34:03] But in you are not allowed to say that about humans if you say that today they say it’s like it’s fat phobic and you and I both came out of like some fun times and
Andrea:
[34:27] Like we both know the price you pay like the cost and and I I’ve heard the saying like you know healthy at any size. And I think the saying beautiful at any size is true. I don’t think somebody has to be a certain size to be absolutely radiantly beautiful. What I argue with is telling people it’s okay to never try to get to the root and maybe solve maybe if there’s an emotional problem or maybe we’re just not eating food that our body likes or maybe our thyroid is struggling or, Or, you know, maybe we don’t have time in the day to care for ourselves or whatever it is, like to tell them, well, that doesn’t matter because you’re healthy anyways. So that’s not actually true. And that’s a very difficult and sensitive and painful situation. Topic. I mean, I think you and I have both had a fair amount of misery related to that topic. Yeah. Yeah. Trauma for sure. And then saying it to somebody, then there’s all, it’s like a, feels like a judgment or something. But what broke my heart was that you could say about animals, like, look, it’s really not good for the animal. They’re going to get heart disease. They’re not able to move around as much. They get tired. They can’t go on long walks. Like, It’s just not good.
Alison:
[35:54] And the article is so compassionate. I think the judgment thing is avoided so often because people who do struggle with their weight sometimes have tried so many things to recover from that. And it might be, like you said, that they’ve got a thyroid issue or they’re eating gluten and they shouldn’t be. or they’ve got a dairy problem or their gut biome is priming them to do this kind of transformation of their energy. Or they were fed.
Andrea:
[36:27] Corn syrup when they were a baby. Like there’s a lot of things that play in.
Alison:
[36:32] It’s not necessarily the person’s fault. I feel like people conflate fault with judgment. And therefore to avoid placing the blame on people, you can’t you know you’re not, the blame and judgment are kind of the same thing and that if we were to look at it and go well actually let’s see what we can do to fix this rather than saying it’s your fault then that would be a much more healthy way of addressing it.
Andrea:
[37:01] Yeah, I don’t know. It’s, I don’t know. It just, it’s always struck me, that dichotomy, that you could say it about animals, but you couldn’t say it about people.
Alison:
[37:14] But I don’t know whether it’s discussion. We started talking about the food on your plate, didn’t you? Yeah, hummus. Okay, so what else is on the list for today?
Andrea:
[37:23] Well, you said there was a question from Brianna. Tilsha, yeah, exactly. What’s the question?
Alison:
[37:28] Should I read it?
Andrea:
[37:29] Yeah, can you read it? Okay.
Alison:
[37:31] So, Brianna’s question is how to handle naysayers, things to respond with when people make not so nice comments or when people just act like it’s so crazy to even try to get away from industrial foods. How to handle those who also make straw man arguments such as, but so many people died, or basically commented on how people used to starve before the Industrial Revolution. When those people completely ignore the causes of the famines and ignore the fact that we have hindsight to prevent more famines and we also have technology to help such as weather apps communication so we can ask for help or research things so basically how to stand your ground when exploring explaining our lifestyle choices oh.
Andrea:
[38:15] That is a many-layered
Alison:
[38:18] Yeah i’m gonna i’m gonna push that over into your court i think first.
Andrea:
[38:22] Yeah that’s a challenging one because Because people, we speak out of our own ignorance on things. It’s just something we do. And we speak out of also the influences around us. So, and that doesn’t, none of us are able to avoid that really at all. And…
Andrea:
[38:50] I try with the same thing as I do with food. When people say, how do you make sure you’re getting the right nutrients? I try to get a very wide and diverse diet and just don’t fixate on one thing and just eat only that forever.
Andrea:
[39:08] And I feel like that’s the same with exposure to ideas and things. I’m always looking. Actually, Charlotte Mason says it’s like the mind is like an octopus. All the arms always reaching out, trying to pull in all the ideas, like weighing them and measuring them and putting them up against each other and seeing what fits and what doesn’t work. And so I feel like I try to avoid falling into, as much as I can, the deepest biases by always staying, you know, picking up a lot of information about history and reading a wide variety of things and talking to people in different life experiences so that I don’t get totally… I mean, I feel like as soon as I say this, I’m going to think of something where I’m super entrenched, but I just try to keep like a wide range of ideas before me at all times. And so I feel like that would help. I would try myself to fall less into the category of a person who would look at you and say, but why? Like you’re so dumb because you think differently than me. And yeah,
Andrea:
[40:24] Not everybody thinks like that, and so they’ll hear a news article that says, well, again, it’s not really any different than anything else, or they’ll hear an article that says, oh, everybody used to die before they had pharmaceuticals, so there’s really, you know, you have to take them. There’s no choice, you know, and, and that’s as far as their, you know, input, data input goes is just that, that influencing headline or something instead of trying to tease out, well, maybe I think that because that’s what I want to think. Like, maybe I’m wrong, you know? So if somebody doesn’t have a mindset to learn and isn’t interested in exchanging ideas, I don’t think there’s much you can do to help them, honestly.
Alison:
[41:15] I agree.
Andrea:
[41:16] Like, all you have to do is say, I mean, this is easier said than done, but like, all you can do sometimes is say, well, that is such an interesting perspective. I’m happy to hear your perspective I’m happy to agree to disagree And just walk away and try not to grind your teeth at night But I don’t know She’s shared before some of the people that she’s talked to Who just are really like heels dug in And not interested in hearing anyone else’s opinion And I’m guessing those people are like that on everything. It’s not just the food, you know, they don’t want to hear your opinion if you think differently from them on anything and your football team’s the wrong football team and, you know, those people are hard to work with.
Alison:
[42:11] I agree with you. I think… It’s, it’s not worth our efforts to try to convince people who aren’t ready to listen. And, you know, they would be probably the ones who come up with statements like that. We have limited energy in our lives to make the changes that we want to make. And it’s hard enough to change ourselves. But if you want, if we want to make a difference, in in the world trying to pummel energy into convincing people who aren’t willing to listen is not the way to do it we need to turn our attention away from those people and find the people who are on that edge and are ready to listen and use a different kind of energy to, engage with them you know um yeah I also um there’s something else I wanted to say let me bring it back to my mind um what was it let me look back at Tilsha’s question because I wrote it down because something in it kind of struck me yeah I feel like I can’t I can’t remember what it was now um.
Alison:
[43:35] Yeah, I can’t remember what it was now. But I think it’s not worth engaging with them. I think we should turn our attention to something that we can. Oh, I remember what it was now. It was that it’s really hard when you know you’re right.
Alison:
[43:54] To let other people just be wrong and not want to correct them. That’s something that I’ve struggled with in my life.
Alison:
[44:04] Um you know it’s not like I know I’m right because when I go for example to is it depends who you’re with when you when I go to a UK meetup which I did earlier in this month and met four amazing, supporters of the podcast and sit in a room with them over a weekend I have so much to learn you know and all of my opinions are open to be changed all of my opinions are open to questioning I am perfectly willing to come out of a situation, hoping to come out of a situation like that with some of my perspectives changed and some of my views and questions.
Alison:
[44:43] But when you’re with someone else who is not like that who is argumentative and and shut down in areas and not willing to have that discussion and just wants to tell you that they know better than you in that situation they’re the graceful path and the one that is least harmful to ourselves, is to just go okay you have your opinion and i have mine and you know to some extent we might think that we know better than them because we know that people didn’t die for example all the time okay some people did but it wasn’t like everyone said you know before this everyone died before vaccines everyone died before this yeah everyone died we might think we know better but there’s no point pushing it we’re only hurting ourselves by trying to um.
Alison:
[45:35] And let everyone know in the world what the truth is and you know particularly with my parents I’ve struggled with that because they’re just so closed to anything around health in any way shape or form they they think it’s the big finger you know it it could be you whether something happens to you or not and they’re your control they’re carrying on with their lifestyle with their cigarettes and they’re eating battery eggs and cooking in vegetable oil and then pouring it back in the thing when it’s gone cold, pouring it back in the pot and using it again the next day. And there is, you know, I gave up trying to talk to them and I exemplify everything. You know, I’m there and I’m cooking differently and they’re not interested at all. They’re just, they’re in the little box. And so for a while, I was open and then I realized it was just getting shoved back at me. And then so there’s no point me trying to say, but look at this truth. You know, if you look at this, you’ll find out, you’ll work out this, this and this happens. Or just try it and see how you feel. I can’t do any of that.
Alison:
[46:52] And dealing with the kind of frustration when it’s someone that I love, who’s hurting themselves, when it could be so different, all of those things are things that I need to process. I need to process the fact that that person’s talking to me and saying that, oh, people died, I know better than you. Well, okay, you know better than me. I need to process whatever emotions come up in my body to be able to handle the anger and frustration I feel. I have to deal with all the emotions coming up in my body when faced with my parents or faced with those naysayers. So it feels like internal work on our part and then to transform that energy into a direction where it’s actually going to make a difference. Because otherwise it’s just two people bashing their heads against each other and that is never going to produce anything good at all, I think.
Andrea:
[47:44] In a weird roundabout way, for you to keep pushing and prodding at your parents, it’s actually less loving. And that sounds weird for you and me because we’re like, yes, but the best thing you could do. But you can, you live your life. They can see you. They can see what you’re doing. and they could see the difference between you and maybe other family members or something. And…
Andrea:
[48:17] You’ve exposed them to it. You’ve maybe made some attempts. And then you kind of just have to move on and stop pushing them with it. Because, you know, like you were describing, you know, when you were with, you know, Nicole and Fiona and everybody, when you all got together, you know, everybody is speaking in such an open and interesting way. It’s like, I want to hear anything you have to say, and they’re willing to hear me, and if they disagree with me, they might say, well, you know, this is, I’m really interested you said that, because this is how I feel. And then I would be more receptive to their ideas, right? Absolutely. But then when you said if somebody else is just pushing and pushing, and you’re just like, oh, I don’t want to hear anything you have to say, like, just shut up, then you could become that to your parents, you know, just the clanging cymbals. And they don’t want to hear what you have to say anymore.
Alison:
[49:18] Yeah, and they’re not going to want to be with me at all.
Andrea:
[49:20] Yeah, they’re not going to want to be with you because you’re just going to lecture them about what they’re eating and then they’re going to feel guilty.
Alison:
[49:26] It’s a judgment of, okay, this is how far I go and then this is where I stop and this is where I accept this person as they are. And I’m still got my antenna up. So if any question comes up and it looks like there’s an open desire for me to talk, then fair enough. But otherwise, just not going there at all.
Andrea:
[49:50] And that’s actually exactly it, Alison, because – The day may come, and it might not, but the day may come when they hear something from somebody else or their doctor says something like, you know, you actually, you know, whenever medicine catches up to things, you know, sometimes they accidentally say the truth and they might want to come talk to you about it. But if you’ve been this irritation to them, they’re going to be like, well, because Allison eats lard, I literally don’t want to. You know, they just have this negative association with it. And that’s very hard to overcome too. So sometimes the most loving thing you can do is just not try and prove a point.
Alison:
[50:36] Accept and not try and prove a point.
Andrea:
[50:38] Let them have space to come to you later if they want to.
Alison:
[50:41] I think there are plenty of people in the world who do want to hear stuff. And that’s a positive thing. It’s just finding those people and connecting with them in the right moment, you know.
Andrea:
[50:51] That brings us to Discord. but really it’s true yeah absolutely absolutely but that’s yeah that’s that’s a big that that’s that that’s a big question that’s a really big question and
Alison:
[51:05] It’s hard just i’d say it’s hard.
Andrea:
[51:08] Yes it’s a little easier if it’s somebody on the internet or you know your parents who are a train ride away it’s harder when it’s somebody you live with in the house yeah and you have to hear it all the time. And you might need to say to them, let’s come to an agreement. I’m not going to rag on you about your stupid seed oils. I’m not going to rag on you and you’re not going to rag on me and we’re going to live in harmony. You know, just like might need to say something. If it’s somebody you live with and they’re just picking on you forever. So.
Alison:
[51:40] Yeah. It’s hard.
Andrea:
[51:43] That is hard though. I don’t, and it’s tough as far as somebody living in the house because I don’t have that problem, so I’m not 100% sure how I deal with it.
Alison:
[51:52] No, I think, yeah, well, I tend to just go, I’m getting out of here. That’s my habit. I don’t like this country. I’m going to another country.
Andrea:
[52:02] Fine, I will move.
Alison:
[52:05] It’s not the best way, though. I’m learning that staying in situ and addressing the issues in situ is also beneficial for one’s psyche.
Andrea:
[52:15] You’ll run out of countries after a while, Alison.
Alison:
[52:18] Yeah, exactly. Anyway. So I want to tell you what we ate at this meet-up. Oh my gosh.
Andrea:
[52:26] I wonder if
Alison:
[52:26] I can remember it. So for people who aren’t on Discord or haven’t noticed or don’t know, there was a European Patreon meet-up at Fiona, who’s a patron, at her place in Herefordshire, which is on the border between England and Wales, in the end of January, beginning of February. Hold on, how do you say that? Herefordshire. How do you say that? Is that the word?
Andrea:
[52:52] No, I always thought it was Herefordshire because we say Hereford for the cows.
Alison:
[52:57] Oh, okay. No, Hereford.
Andrea:
[52:58] We don’t pronounce it Hereford.
Alison:
[53:00] Yeah, Herefordshire. So if people want to look at it on the map, the nearest town is Kington. And her place is called Huntingdon Court. She has a B&B there with beautiful rooms. What? Just absolutely beautiful.
Andrea:
[53:14] Wait, she does?
Alison:
[53:16] Yeah, yeah. She doesn’t do it all the time, but she does it at certain times. And you can go on her website and see the rooms. They’re very amazingly pretty. She did all the decor herself. It just, it’s stunning. It’s absolutely stunning. And a farmhouse with beautiful stone. She’s got a little cottage on the side. There’s just land. She’s got chickens and sheep. And she’s had pigs. She hasn’t got pigs at the moment. She’s got her own woods. The house is old and beautiful and big and lovely. And there’s a church, like literally just a walk away next door, which she plays the organ for. It’s a beautiful, beautiful place. Anyway, and we arrived on the Friday and stayed until Sunday lunchtime. And so there was Fiona and then there was Amelia, who lives in Wales, and there was Jen, who lives in Kent, me, and Nicole, who lives in Italy, who flew over. Wow. So it was just wonderful. When we arrived, I just wanted to focus on the food, really, because it was fun and just give you a long, try and remember what we ate, give you a long list. When we arrived, Fiona had done a venison stew with venison that was just shot in the Forest of Dean, which is close to where she lives. And it was just on the big range, a kind of a range cooker. It was on the cooker.
Andrea:
[54:41] And her kitchen looks really big in the picture.
Alison:
[54:44] It was a very, very big kitchen. Very big. There was two tables in there and loads of workspace. So we ate in the kitchen for breakfast. And then we ate in the dining room. Very, very nice dining room. That’s so fancy. Big table and fancy white linen tablecloth, et cetera, in the evening. And she’d done some baby onions in butter to go with it. Oh, my gosh. Absolutely beautiful. roast potatoes and then she has a tree nearby with damsons on so she’d stewed some damsons and also made a damson jelly that wiggly jelly um and homemade ice cream was had for oh my gosh, really beautiful i feel like wine like i walked into.
Andrea:
[55:31] A red wall book
Alison:
[55:33] It was it was beautiful delicious fiana’s house and her kitchen and everything she gets up to with food is amazing The next morning was Saturday. I’m trying to remember everything we had now. So on Saturday morning, I made large oat cakes and we had them with scrambled eggs from the chickens that Fiona has. So we just went out and got the eggs.
Andrea:
[55:53] Oh, my goodness.
Alison:
[55:54] With some butter and bits and bobs. And there were jars of all these different preserves that Fiona had made, which we had at different times. And then we started cooking haggis. We’d cooked the pluck. So that is the heart, the lungs and the liver with the windpipe hanging over the edge of the pan, which was quite an unusual photo. And then we minced that. So this was to have the following day. We minced that with a hand mincer and we put it with oatmeal and herbs.
Andrea:
[56:32] You mean like herbs? Okay, when you say mince, my picture is like chopping it really small, but okay, so it’s like ground up.
Alison:
[56:40] Yeah, like we had a cast iron grinder that you attach to the end of the table and then you turn the handle. And so we made haggis. We also made a roast beef, which Jen was kind of in charge of making roast beef. So we served haggis with roast beef together and lots of roast vegetables and Brussels sprouts. Nicole made a strudel, which is a traditional kind of recipe where she is with apple in and a really nice spelt sourdough pastry, which had a tiny bit of lemon in, which was really nice. I’m trying to remember what we had for lunch on Saturday. Yeah, lemon in the pastry. It was really – I didn’t try any there, but we had some leftovers and I had a little bit when we brought it back here. And the pastry was delicious. Um and what else we made it we made a spelt sourdough while we were there um and yeah so the haggis was absolutely wonderful it didn’t taste like liver and heart and things it just it was it was amazing it just it tasted a whole kind of rich and whole but you couldn’t taste the, liver or the lungs or the heart separately and you couldn’t you wouldn’t have known that there was no there was no meat in there you know it was just the awful you wouldn’t have known that which was really quite incredible it had quite a lot of suet in it.
Andrea:
[58:09] Why does haggis get such a bad rap
Alison:
[58:12] I don’t know i.
Andrea:
[58:14] Have to say i’ve never had haggis but when i read the ingredients it just sounds literally delicious i mean you can yeah you read something and be like that sounds good Like, it just sounds amazing. I love everything that’s in it. But growing up, I always heard, you know, oh, haggis. It was like the big joke. Like, oh, they ate haggis or they’re serving haggis.
Alison:
[58:32] I don’t know. I think it’s the thought of it, the fact that it’s got the lungs and the heart in and the liver in. People just don’t like it. But the flavor, I didn’t think, was livery at all. It was absolutely beautiful. I can’t wait to make one. It was really, really lovely. So we made a… A sourdough bread as well. We made something for lunch and I’m trying to remember what it was. You know, I wrote everything out that we made and I don’t know, I can’t remember what we have for lunch now. Maybe I’ll remember before we finish.
Alison:
[59:07] And then the next day was Sunday. I made a Throdkin in the morning on a Sunday, which is an oat and bacon dish. And then Fiona got some of the green salad leaves from her kind of greenhouse. She’s got a greenhouse with a, a stone a stone kind of bottom it’s not just glass um and then we had all these different kind of preserves with it and we had fried eggs and then we made sandwiches for lunch with the bread that i remember what yes what the lunch was on sunday saturday now i’ll tell you that in a minute we made sandwiches with the with the bread the spelt bread we’ve made and a rye bread that fiona had bought from a kind of artisan baker’s and um the leftover roast beef oh it’s just so nice the next day um and all sorts of preserves on the Saturday lunch I’ve just remembered now Nicole made um a soup uh a leek and potato soup which was absolutely delicious and of course we had kind of leftovers from the bread we had leftovers from the oat cakes we had leftovers from all this other stuff it was so such a rich weekend of people who just speak our language.
Alison:
[1:00:18] Just spending time together in the kitchen, doing stuff. There was always something going on. You know, we were making the bread or we were, Nicole was making the pastry or we were doing something for the haggis or there was always something happening in this massive big kitchen. And we were chatting away and looking at Fiona’s books and talking about homeschooling and life and health.
Andrea:
[1:00:41] You didn’t tell me about the books.
Alison:
[1:00:42] Food and it was and we went for walks around the the grounds kind of when we went and saw Fiona’s chickens and her sheep we looked around her um how bit you know where she’s growing the different lean-tos and um greenhouses she has we went out into the fields we walked all the way to Wales and stepped over the border and went into Wales and then came back because Wales isn’t right there so we went for a walk on the Sunday and we walked into Wales and the sun came out for us which was lovely went to the church and looked at the church and and the organ that fiona plays and we just we talked and we talked and we talked no she didn’t she didn’t no we talked and we talked and we talked just all the time it was just so heartening and connecting and wonderful so yeah it was just it was it was a shame that you’re so far away and you can’t be there because it just you would have loved it everyone would have loved it every patron listening would have would have loved to have been there. I would have loved for us all to be there. It was definitely doing it again. It was wonderful.
Andrea:
[1:01:43] I told Gary about it and he like immediately looked up tickets and he’s like, you know, it’s not that bad. Like, you could go. I just got to get Kind of past the stage that the baby’s in right now.
Alison:
[1:01:56] It’s for next year.
Andrea:
[1:01:57] It’s not easy to travel with this, but.
Alison:
[1:02:00] Next year, maybe.
Andrea:
[1:02:02] Yeah. Oh, man, that would be awesome.
Alison:
[1:02:05] I need to put another log on the fire. Okay. Should I go and do that? Can you talk for a few minutes? Just a minute or so when I put a log on the fire. Okay.
Andrea:
[1:02:15] Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So since it’s just us, guys, let’s talk about Alice. I’m just kidding. um no really though on the nourishing traditions bookmark and bookmarks generally uh guys give me some ideas for bookmarks because i actually uploaded a couple extra ones for you that i made of some waterhouse paintings i love the waterhouse paintings and so i uploaded those for you guys to use as well but give me ideas if you want more bookmarks
Alison:
[1:02:42] Okay okay i’m back the flames.
Andrea:
[1:02:43] We were We’re talking about you, Alison.
Alison:
[1:02:45] Oh, were you? Oh, no.
Andrea:
[1:02:47] You’ll have to listen to the episode.
Alison:
[1:02:50] Oh, dear. I’m just kidding.
Andrea:
[1:02:52] But that sounds so lovely, so lovely.
Alison:
[1:02:54] I would love for anyone who could. You know, we were very, very mindful of everyone’s particular needs in the kitchen, you know. So not everyone can eat everything and not everyone there could eat everything. And so it wasn’t a problem because we all know what it’s like to come from that position.
Andrea:
[1:03:11] Yes.
Alison:
[1:03:12] And. Yes. The information exchange was amazing. You know, the learning, the things that I learned that weekend were amazing. And the closeness that I felt towards those people who just have come from us sitting here chatting. It’s just amazing. It was such a visceral, you know, real representation of what we’re doing. And it was wonderful.
Andrea:
[1:03:42] It makes you think When we bemoan You know Loss of community And these sorts of things That There you go. You know, that was an experience for a weekend. And I’m not saying that, you know, you all want to be cooking fancy extravagant meals every day, all day. But the idea of that flow of the ideas and the information and the learning. And I’m sure, you know, Nicole will just drop some random casual comment and you’re like, wait a minute, wait a minute. Like, that’s how that works, you know. And just having that more, you realize, oh, there is a really rich heritage to be had of just being with real people.
Alison:
[1:04:36] Exactly, yeah.
Andrea:
[1:04:37] I’m so glad that you wanted to start the podcast because I’ve met a lot of our listeners in person because a lot of them are in the United States.
Alison:
[1:04:50] Yeah.
Andrea:
[1:04:50] So I’ve been able to meet quite a few. In fact, Allison, somebody booked three nights in May, and she sent me a message, and she said, hey, I’m a long-time listener of the podcast, and I’m one of your supporters as well, and I’m just really excited to go out and stay. And so then now we’ve been able to text back and forth some food things, you know, like, oh, do you do this with sourdough? And, oh, I do that. And, you know, just being able to have conversation. And it’ll be cool because she’ll come out. She’ll be here for three days and I’ll get to meet her. You know, it’s not like she’s, you know, sleeping on my couch or something. So she’ll have her own space and we can walk around and look at things. And she’s going to sauna and, you know, it’ll be spring, so it’ll probably be dumping rain and cold still, but it’ll be lovely. Yeah. Yeah.
Alison:
[1:05:47] Exactly. Wow. Yeah. That’s a nice note to end on.
Andrea:
[1:05:51] I think. That’s a good thing.
Alison:
[1:05:52] Yeah. I think we’ve been going quite a while. We should probably end.
Andrea:
[1:05:54] I think we need a Washington, like in Pacific Northwest to meet up.
Alison:
[1:05:58] Yeah, well, you have talked about that and there are quite a lot of you there. So I think that’s a good idea.
Andrea:
[1:06:04] There’s people, like, there’s quite a lot, if you even count down to Northern California, which is, you know, within a day’s drive if you’re in the very northern part. We have the eastern Washington. We have northwest Washington.
Alison:
[1:06:19] We have, you know.
Andrea:
[1:06:20] Tilsha and Jacey are down, or Allie are down. Wow. No. Sorry. Rebecca. Rebecca is down south of me. and the other ladies are east of me. But, you know, there’s actually a fair number out here. And then I feel like there’s starting to be a pretty fair collection out in, like, the Michigan area, too. Okay. So, you know, maybe a… What is that, Northeast group meetup? I don’t know, wherever there’s clusters of us, we should get together. And we’ve had, I’ve been fortunate to have a number of our supporters come out and just visit the farm or stay for a night or something. I mean, Justine came out and we did a whole weekend together. That was really fun.
Alison:
[1:07:09] It’s so nice.
Andrea:
[1:07:11] It is.
Alison:
[1:07:12] Meeting people in person. Really, really good. It’s something else.
Andrea:
[1:07:14] And then Leah came out and we were all sick the whole time.
Alison:
[1:07:17] You really? Yeah. Apart from that. Apart from you real.
Andrea:
[1:07:19] I was so sad because I wanted to like make all this food.
Alison:
[1:07:22] She’s coming back.
Andrea:
[1:07:24] Instead I was taking like soup out of the freezer and stuff. So exciting. Yeah. She’s coming back though. She’s coming back. Actually. Yeah. If anybody wants to come out, she’s coming back on Labor Day weekend. So we’re actually putting together. I get together. I posted it in Discord.
Alison:
[1:07:39] I should post it again.
Andrea:
[1:07:40] Oh, that’s cool. If anybody wants to come out to that, then I have a feeling there will be a lot of food.
Alison:
[1:07:46] Yeah. Come and finish eating it.
Andrea:
[1:07:49] Yeah. Come out and eat.
Alison:
[1:07:52] Okay. Anyways. Right. Look at that. We’re going to go. Okay. And thank you very much. And good time. I shall speak to you again soon.
Andrea:
[1:08:00] Yes, you shall. Can’t avoid it.
Alison:
[1:08:03] Bye for now.
Andrea:
[1:08:04] Bye.