[Kevin]
Oh, I love that music. I've missed it so much.

[Michelle]
I have missed the music and I have missed you, Kevin.

[Kevin]
Oh, me too, Michelle. It's been way, way, way, way too long. And you know who else I've missed?

[Michelle]
Who?

[Kevin]
All the noobs in Noobville.

[Michelle]
Oh, I know. I miss all the noobs in Noobville. That's like the who's in Whoville.

[Kevin]
Well, exactly. It's seasonal, you know, we're just a little tiny bit past the holiday season. So I figured I'd try to bring it back.

[Michelle]
And we owe the noobs a huge kind of apology, or I do, because the break that we took was not intentional because we did intend to come back in September, but stuff happened. And we'll talk about that today to let people know why the break. And it was a needed break, but wasn't originally intentional.

[Kevin]
It wasn't just Kevin and Michelle deciding to play hooky for a few months.

[Michelle]
No, and we didn't break up.

[Kevin]
No, we didn't. No, no, not at all. Oh, my God.

Can you imagine the rumors? Oh, what if people thought that? Oh, OK, we need to put everyone's mind at rest.

Don't worry. We're still best buds.

[Michelle]
We're still besties. It's all good.

[Kevin]
And for better or worse, we're back into your ear holes again. Yes.

[Michelle]
Awesome. Yes. Yeah.

So should I dive into this?

[Kevin]
I think we should dive in to what have you been up to, Michelle, over the past several months?

[Michelle]
So I welcome everybody back. And I hope that you're still going back and listening to episodes and looking forward to the new ones. So what happened was listeners are aware that I had a business.

I had a tea company and a tea room in London, Ontario.

[Kevin]
And a wonderful one at that.

[Michelle]
Really, really was. I ended up selling my my company and and my tea room and looking towards the future and just, you know, needing to simplify my life and the right buyer came along. So that happened.

And it's much more complicated than I might have imagined winding down from that.

[Kevin]
What, simplifying your life is more complicated than you thought?

[Michelle]
There were so many parts and pieces, Kevin. And I think, you know, this listeners maybe don't appreciate, but I was not your typical small business owner. I had my my talents in a lot of different places and because it was really a business of passion.

And it was really, really driven by my passion, my interest, my wanting to create really special experiences, interesting events and really sort of my own amusement at the same time.

[Kevin]
Michelle, if if there's one thing I can say about you, you have always been unusual, but in the best way possible. That's that's what honestly, I mean, that's what I think sets your business apart. That there was clear passion, there was there was knowledge and and deep learning there.

But there was also the passion and it showed through in everything you did. And that's what made it stand out and different in my mind.

[Michelle]
Thank you. I am going to miss it, but I am ready to, you know, go focus on some new things and dive into other areas. I mean, that's the you know, what is it they say?

Reason, season or a lifetime that applies to people. It also applies to the things that we invest our time in.

[Kevin]
Exactly.

[Michelle]
What I wanted to kind of cover, though, in case there's any listeners out there that are business owners that aspire to be business owners I wanted to take nutrition for noobs through just a little recap of how I integrated the food into the business and where we went with it, because I think it is a very interesting journey that we went on. And it's not necessarily a long story.

[Kevin]
Good.

[Michelle]
But I opened a tea room, of course. Well, I started the tea company in 2012, and that was basically an online business, which you helped me a great deal with, too, Kevin. I have to acknowledge that I don't think I would have survived those first years that had not been for you.

[Kevin]
Oh, the good old days.

[Michelle]
They really were. And we have to appreciate, too, that was long before there was Square and Shopify and all these really simple tools.

[Kevin]
You're doing it all by yourself. Yeah.

[Michelle]
And they were it was really expensive to build a website in those days. It's amazing to me how much that landscape has changed in such a fairly short period of time.

[Kevin]
Oh, because you have sites now. I mean, I don't want to, you know, drop names, but we all know the big names. And you can set up an e-commerce in like five minutes now.

It's absolutely astounding.

[Michelle]
And you can do things through Etsy and Instagram and Facebook and things like that, too.

[Kevin]
I was trying not to name drop, but thank you. And you didn't mention Shopify either or Wix.

[Michelle]
That's OK. As you know, I'm not afraid to tell the truth.

[Kevin]
To drop some names here and there. So long as they and if any of those preceding companies would like to sponsor us, you can get in touch.

[Michelle]
Absolutely. Yeah, but it was really it was kind of bootstrapped. But and I had to figure it all out because I was a corporate person.

I wasn't a small business person. Anyway, fast forward. I had my market store next.

So I was in a farmer's market started out as a six foot table that became a 12 foot table that became 18 feet of tables around like in a little horseshoe. Kept getting more and more until finally I moved to an indoor spot where I was year round. And that was really my pilot site, I would say, where I got to test a lot of things with the public and try things and see what people were interested in, what questions they were asking as I was engaging with a live customer in front of me instead of a customer order online.

So that was really interesting. And then I got my big girl store in 2016 brick and mortar. And that was a long journey, which I won't bore the audience with.

But I actually gave up on it at one point. My dream was to have a world class tea shop where you could experience tea in traditional styles and maybe a little something to nibble with it, a scone or like something. I wanted to make things healthier.

I want a decadent and treats to be made with better quality ingredients.

[Kevin]
We have enough donut shops out there.

[Michelle]
Right, exactly. But I never wanted to have a full blown restaurant, a full blown tea room. That was that was not my goal.

[Kevin]
Because that's a lot of work. And that's yeah.

[Michelle]
But what the public showed me again and again, loud and clear was that they wanted food. They wanted they wanted more than a nibble. I've been told many times that had my business been in downtown Toronto or New York City or something, that original business model would have worked.

Right. But not in the city that I was in. So that was a learning.

So we slowly got into more food. And as we expanded, I started out with mason jar salads as well as some desserts, some cheese boards. I was 90 percent plant based when we when we first started with food, Kevin, which meant that there was some dairy in the form of cheese and the form of clotted cream for scones, et cetera, things like that.

But then in 2020, so we tried I'll just say we tried a whole bunch of different things. We went through a lot of evolutions of menu. But the interesting thing was back at that time, and this would be like pre 2019.

We really weren't getting a significant amount of health conscious customers, as I had hoped. And we also weren't getting a significant amount of non health conscious customers. We were sort of getting a little bit of everything.

[Kevin]
OK.

[Michelle]
And we were we were doing OK. But it was kind of like I wasn't really clear on who we were. Sure.

So really afraid, though, to alienate that unconscious customer, I shall say, that just want a good tea, just wanted something to eat with it. They didn't really share my values about nutrition, sustainability, or at least it was not their reason for coming in the door.

[Kevin]
They were. Yeah, they weren't coming in specifically for that reason.

[Michelle]
Correct. But I did some soul searching, especially as my I was teaching for the nutrition school. And I was seeing clients on the side and I was doing my nutrition programs, et cetera.

And as I got deeper and deeper into working with chronic disease clients that I really started to soul search. Why am I why am I putting these things on my menu when I know that they're detractors of health? Right.

And I was referring specifically to the to the cheese and to the to the to the dairy when when there were reasonable, excellent tasting alternatives. Right. So 2020, before that happened.

[Kevin]
Yes.

[Michelle]
In January, we launched a brand new menu that was whole food plant based. But the interesting thing.

[Kevin]
Good timing.

[Michelle]
I know, I know. But the interest. But before that, keep in mind, we were 90 percent, like a majority of everything that we had was was was plant based.

Exactly.

[Kevin]
Or are we are we had just the occasional ingredient?

[Michelle]
We had that alternative for the people that didn't want any at all. But we also had kind of a conventional version of it is what I would say. Right.

But, you know, there were there were a whole lot of things economically behind that decision as well. It wasn't just my values. It was stalking two types of things.

It was about the space, the fridge space, the freezer space. It was about training the staff, you know, clarifying messaging. All of these things played a factor from a business perspective.

But what anyone else in my position might find interesting is is those who understood my values kept asking me, why aren't you just going plant based? And I was like, well, you know, we didn't want I wanted to be the place where everybody could come together and everyone's welcome. Yeah.

Right. But but there was a contingent that was bothered by that in our health conscious community in the city that I live in, that they were they were bothered by, you know, trying to cover both of those bases. So I made the decision to go 100 percent.

And but the decision that I made was not to market it. So I did change the menu. It's not that we hid anything.

It was all transparent on my website, on my social media. And we used the term consciously delicious instead of whole food plant based. But then went on to describe what consciously delicious meant.

[Kevin]
Sure.

[Michelle]
And didn't go out with a big fanfare, a big marketing message, because I didn't want anybody to make the decision to not visit the tea room because they were making a judgment before they tasted anything.

[Kevin]
Exactly. And in the long run, like it was only 10 percent that you like the change. It's not like you were going from a McDonald's type menu to a salad based menu like you were already mostly there.

So we're talking about just the you know, the very edge of the of the that makes no sense. But, you know, the edge of whatever metaphor I'm trying to make that you were slicing off.

[Michelle]
Right. And I thought the customer in front of me, it was much more important to engage them directly than it was to put out a big guess what? We're right now because, you know, the way that I looked at it, Kevin, is that another restaurant doesn't go out shouting from the curbside.

We serve meat.

[Kevin]
Right. Yeah, exactly.

[Michelle]
You know, they just serve the food that they want to serve and they you know, say they do it within their business model. And I thought, I'm just doing the same thing. I'm just serving really good food.

If as a nutritionist, if there's one thing that I could do and my message has always been in my program, nobody has to be 100 percent. You just have to do better than yesterday.

[Kevin]
Right, exactly.

[Michelle]
If you do better than yesterday, those small changes cumulatively are going to layer on top of one another. And you can completely transform your diet in a matter of months or years or whatever pace you want to go. But it's never about being perfect, because whenever we strive for an ideal, that's actually, quite frankly, unrealistic for everyone, including me.

Then we just invite another reason to beat ourselves up.

[Kevin]
Exactly.

[Michelle]
So I know I never wanted to be that. I never wanted the message to be that I never wanted to be like anyone else. I just wanted to be who my brand was.

And I thought if I go out with a particular message that's going to invite judgment and I did not want to invite any judgment. So it started actually started out as a soft launch. We started messaging to our customers.

They weren't bothered by it. And that's where I came to the conclusion after our sort of, you know, soft launch period was done. I kind of thought there's no need now to come out and say anything.

[Kevin]
To continue on with more messaging. Yeah, of course.

[Michelle]
Right. And then COVID happened.

[Kevin]
Enough said there. Story over. We all know that.

[Michelle]
But we had those three months, January, February, March, to really test this. And it was working. And my biggest fear in making that change from the 90 percent to 100 percent was that it was going to just be very disruptive to our revenue.

Right. And it wasn't because the food was good.

[Kevin]
Which is which is critical for a food service industry like a restaurant or a cafe. That what's that? It comes down to that.

[Michelle]
Exactly. And at that at that particular point in time, I was partnering with a chef. And the chef was producing the food for us through as a ghost kitchen.

So that was kind of iteration one. And again, like I said, didn't make a big fan for it. But what would happen, Kev, is that customers would come in.

They'd look at the menu board on the wall and they'd be sitting there reading the options and everything. Some customers would notice that there was no meat and dairy on the menu or eggs and some wouldn't. And the ones that would, they would sit there and they'd go, oh, that looks good.

Oh, that looks good. And then they would sit and they would read through them all. And they'd look at me and go.

Is this menu vegan? And I'd say we're a consciously delicious business that we try to produce food that is delicious and healthier than other options. So healthier for humans and the planet.

Right. And they would go, oh, OK. Didn't use the V word ever.

[Kevin]
Right. Yeah. No, that that can be the kiss of death sometimes.

[Michelle]
V word is very divisive. And again, like I said, I'm going to because anyone that's listening maybe to us for the first time, I want to reiterate my values. Personally, I am a whole food plant based almost 100 percent of the time.

That is my values. I'm not projecting that on anyone. But the way that I looked at it as a business owner is there were plenty places to go where you could get those things.

There were very few places that you could go if those were your values. And it's just excellent food at the end of the day. So that was kind of that part of the journey.

And then we made it through COVID. But you know what I would say that we did even even before when we were 90 percent. And then after when we kind of got back to being a thriving a business again, things went back to normal.

As I was always trying to create really unique experiences around the food. And I'm really proud of that because and people still approach me and talk about it. Oh, I miss that.

We do this. We did these tea pairing dinners. And so I would work with a local chef and have them come up with four courses that that just out of their heart and their creativity and their interest.

And it wasn't necessarily a plant based chef that I was selecting, but I would tell them in order to fit in our format, it has to be whole food plant based. And I'm going to pair a tea with each one of these courses. But within that, make whatever you want.

Right. And you know what? Even the conventional chefs.

We're excited by this and it was so much fun. They got to explore doing something different. I got to explore doing something different and actually really being that sommelier as well as that nutritionist and create a really exciting experience around the food that I have been told many times rivals any tasting menu anywhere that anybody had done.

Any chef that is we've said this before, any chef that is really worth a grain of salt knows how to build flavor, knows how to create really exciting things without having to have a whole bunch of fat or other other things in it. So we had so much fun with that. We did, you know, collaborations that involved other aspects such as sound bass.

I did yoga, tea and avocado toast mornings and so many so many different things that we did. And that was really, really exciting. So I find it very satisfying to look back that, you know, I had a lot of fun playing with the food.

[Kevin]
It's always fun to play with your food.

[Michelle]
And if I try to count the number of times we changed the menu, like we changed micro, I'm going to say micro changes, except for we made a big change between, you know, when COVID started and COVID ended, because that was a long period of time. But I had a lot of time to think and a lot of time to figure out what we were going to do next and introduce it back in. But that's when after COVID that we went pure, I'm going to say pure tearoom, where we went back to a pure tearoom menu and really focused on making a healthier version, a more planet friendly version of afternoon tea.

And anyone out there that might feel skeptical about that business model, I'm just very proud to tell people that we were at the time that I still had the business. We were, I didn't have anything to do with this, but I opened up the internet and saw that we were named in an article by Ontario tourism as one of the top tearooms in Ontario.

[Kevin]
That's amazing. Yeah, that's incredible.

[Michelle]
And that's without any of them realizing writing that review that we were at a whole food plant based afternoon tea.

[Kevin]
The other thing is, Michelle, I just want to point out, you said, you know, if anyone listening was doubting this business model. I just want to say if everyone listening is doubting that business model, then you're probably subscribing to the wrong podcast. I mean, let's just, let's just, you know, call a spade a spade.

But anyways, continue.

[Michelle]
I always wanted to tell people and teach people that healthy tastes good.

[Kevin]
It does. It should.

[Michelle]
Healthy can taste good or healthier. I'm not saying, you know, I'm not saying that our scones with our coconut crema and and locally made jams was necessarily the healthiest thing on our menu. We also had had chocolate cheesecake.

We had banana bread cookies. We made we worked with a local ice cream parlor, sold them our matcha and had them make for us a hundred percent whole food plant based matcha green tea ice cream. And we made affogatos out of that matcha affogato with the espresso coffee or with tea.

So we did a lot of really creative things, you know, using healthier as our as our hinge. Right. Yeah.

[Kevin]
But but it doesn't have to be boring. That's that's the point.

[Michelle]
Absolutely not.

[Kevin]
Be healthier and be super, super interesting.

[Michelle]
You know, at one point, Kevin, we did. You familiar with Robbie Burns Day?

[Kevin]
I am.

[Michelle]
I am.

[Kevin]
There is my crappy Scottish accent.

[Michelle]
So our dear, dear friend Marguerite, who we call Mummy, was was doing our food for us at that time. She made a vegan haggis for us, a plant based haggis, and we had it piped in with a piper and everything.

[Kevin]
You know, actually, to be honest, I think I'd be much more tempted to try a plant based haggis than an actual haggis. I've never tried it. I'm not saying it might be delicious, but honestly, I'd rather try a plant based one, to be perfectly honest.

[Michelle]
Oh, I know. Yeah, we we had a we had a lot of fun. We did brunches.

Yeah. So that's my little stroll down memory lane.

[Kevin]
And and now you're a free woman.

[Michelle]
Now I'm free and I'm excited to be back here.

[Kevin]
That's wonderful.

[Michelle]
Back doing this.

[Kevin]
And you can take on whole new challenges.

[Michelle]
Yeah, absolutely.

[Kevin]
We won't count me as one of those challenges. But, you know, now that we're doing the podcast again, that is one of your challenges. You know, let's face it, dealing with me on a regular basis again.

[Michelle]
Well, I think we've discussed some really exciting ideas about where to go with this next. And I'm excited, too. I've been thinking about this a lot.

It's been sort of steeping, if I can say that.

[Kevin]
Oh, good. Good move. Good move.

[Michelle]
There are some really exciting people that I've met through the experience of having my business and and through my nutrition pursuits that I would love to bring on as a guest.

[Kevin]
With pleasure. I think we need to dilute me a little bit more on this podcast.

[Michelle]
No, no, no, no.

[Kevin]
In which case, yeah, the more guests, the merrier. So if anyone wants to be a guest, like, come on, hit me up.

[Michelle]
There is no Nutrition for Noobs without you. You're the head noob.

[Kevin]
The head noob, exactly.

[Michelle]
I'm the chief executive noob, the C.E.N. Well, you know, so let's talk about you for a second, because, you know, this break. So in your time paused from Nutrition for Noobs, where we had a little break there.

[Kevin]
Yes.

[Michelle]
You know, what have you been doing from a culinary delight perspective? I know you've commented in past episodes how, you know, you've been modifying recipes. You finally gave our listeners your perfect Caesar salad dressing.

[Kevin]
Perfect for me.

[Michelle]
Like, what did you do for the holidays?

[Kevin]
So for the holidays, it's funny because this is kind of the first holiday season where I've been a little bit more conscious about some of the decisions I've been making, which is not to say it's radically different from normal years, from previous years. But I have been making a few changes. You know, little things like, for instance, you know, I mean, we always do like a turkey dinner with all the fixings and all that.

But, for instance, for the mashed potatoes and mashed yams that I do, I do a mix of both.

[Michelle]
Mmm, yummy.

[Kevin]
I added zero fat. Wow. So normally I'd add butter and I'd add heavy cream and, you know, it would be really, you know, adding fat into the, you know, the potatoes and yams.

And I added nothing this year and I got some pretty good compliments on it. So no one noticed.

[Michelle]
That's awesome. So what did you use?

[Kevin]
So what I ended up using is I used a bit of I there's this amazing veggie broth that I've discovered. I forget. It's called something like it's better than broth or something like that or better than bouillon.

It's plant based.

[Michelle]
It's in a little jar. A little jar and it's a powder?

[Kevin]
No, no, no. It's a it's a like it's a paste.

[Michelle]
It's a paste. OK, I think I've used that too.

[Kevin]
You keep it in the fridge and it just tastes like salty. You know, it vaguely reminds me of Vegemite.

[Michelle]
Oh, wow.

[Kevin]
If anyone knows what. Yeah, just slightly. It's got that it's probably yeast based would be my guess.

It has that slightly yeasty tone.

[Michelle]
Which is a great prebiotic.

[Kevin]
And and it's an it's a really nice umami flavor. So I find it adds more umami than just veggie broth, because I find veggie broths can be just either plain, boring or else way too salty. OK, so I find this was like a nice mix between the two.

So I basically added that with some oatmeal. Maybe I shouldn't be saying this because I'm now announcing to my family and everyone who ate it, like, oh, that's what you did, eh?

[Michelle]
But you know what, you proved to them that healthy can taste good.

[Kevin]
Yeah, well, but like you, I didn't announce it.

[Michelle]
Yeah.

[Kevin]
Like when you changed to 100 percent plant based, I didn't announce this.

[Michelle]
That is where the trouble begins. As soon as people have an idea in their head and they have a preconceived idea without even actually having tasted it. Yes.

As soon as the judgment is there, it's, you know, thoughts become things, as we say, right?

[Kevin]
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And then, you know, I also like, you know, radically reduce the amount of butter in my stuffing and little, little, little things like that.

[Michelle]
If you're going to have the turkey and you're going to have the stuffing in the turkey, you don't need to add more fat to it. It's got lots of fat.

[Kevin]
Exactly. Exactly. So I just basically added a little bit just to start the onions and celery to to break down, whereas normally you add, I think the recipe calls for two sticks of butter.

And I added.

[Michelle]
And that's a lot, right?

[Kevin]
Oh, it's a ton. And I added a half a stick.

[Michelle]
Good for you.

[Kevin]
So I cut it down by 75 percent. But the biggest change, I think, honestly, is been my baking. Oh, I tend to bake a lot over Christmas and I tend to previously make butter rich, sugar rich, you know, decadent baking cookies and stuff like that.

And this year I deliberately sought out some recipes that would be less fat and less sugar.

[Michelle]
Fantastic. So so so what were your favorites?

[Kevin]
So my favorite and it was a favorite in my household. It was a very simple bark recipe.

[Michelle]
Oh.

[Kevin]
And I used it was simply three ingredients.

[Michelle]
I love that.

[Kevin]
Dark cacao. So like 70 percent dark chocolate. Nom nom nom.

Yeah. So no sugar added. Really almost bitter and good quality.

And then white chocolate. And that provides the sugar.

[Michelle]
OK.

[Kevin]
And the fat. So that's that's a little bit of the sugar and fat. But that's the only ingredient.

And then you melt those two. Add a little bit of peppermint extract to each of them.

[Michelle]
Nom nom nom.

[Kevin]
Once they're melted to give it that that, you know, sort of candy cane flavor.

[Michelle]
Yeah. And that freshness, that kind of pop.

[Kevin]
Yes. Yes. And then you simply pour them on a baking sheet, swirl them together to make a nice pattern and throw it in the fridge or outside for a few hours.

I think I wanted to. There was one batch I wanted to do quickly because I was giving this away to people and I had to like make up a gift pack quickly. So it's like, oh, it's super cold outside.

I'll just put it outside and it'll be set in no time. And that was a big, big hit, the spark. And I felt pretty good because I added no sugar, I added no fat.

Yeah, I know the white chocolate's like not ideal.

[Michelle]
I'm not a huge fan of white chocolate and I never was. So but but but, you know, when it's mixed in like that, though, it makes a lot of sense. Yeah.

[Kevin]
Yeah. It offset the dark cocoa because that was not at all sweet. So you needed that that mix.

And it was very simple and delicious. And I didn't make I didn't make a single shortbread cookie.

[Michelle]
Is this new?

[Kevin]
This is new because I love shortbread cookies.

[Michelle]
Oh, that's right. They're British roots.

[Kevin]
Yeah. But you can't make shortbread without butter and sugar. And I just wanted to see.

And no one has no one's mentioned, oh, where are your shortbread cookies this year? Cool. And I did make a fruitcake.

And that's why. Oh, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. OK, them's fighting words, lady.

[Michelle]
Sorry, I've had some bad fruitcake experiences in my life.

[Kevin]
No, see you. But have you I don't think you've had my fruitcake.

[Michelle]
No, I have not.

[Kevin]
And I'm OK. So my fruitcake, it's it's from my fruitcake in my family is something you give to people that you don't like. It's no, this is not doorstop fruitcake.

OK, this is good, solid fruitcake passed down through generations.

[Michelle]
All right. I'll have an open mind. Do tell.

[Kevin]
And it is it's. I can't possibly even begin. It takes like months to to make.

It is kind of boozy.

[Michelle]
What do you mean it takes months?

[Kevin]
Oh, because you have to soak the fruit.

[Michelle]
Oh, OK.

[Kevin]
In rum and port.

[Michelle]
Oh, I see.

[Kevin]
So that's probably, you know, eight years worth of alcohol units just in this case alone. But it all gets burned off when you cook it. And I did cut the butter down in the cake.

[Michelle]
I love how conscious you're being about this now. See, this is what I'm saying. It's it's not about the macro, right?

It's about the small cumulative things that add up because it's those little things. Yeah. That are in all of these aspects that add up immutably, that push us over that saturated fat level, that alcohol level, that salt level, that sugar level, that process level.

Like it's it's not about any one thing.

[Kevin]
Right.

[Michelle]
So this I love this. This is awesome.

[Kevin]
I think for me, it's it's it's the awareness.

[Michelle]
Yeah.

[Kevin]
Like I'm much more aware of when I add an ingredient to something, I'm aware of, OK, this is fat that I'm adding. Do I actually need to add it? And it's honestly the first time for in months that I've cooked with butter.

[Michelle]
Wow.

[Kevin]
Because up until now, previously, I mean, you know, throughout the year, it's mainly like banana bread and such like that. And I now keep a big jar of unsweetened applesauce.

[Michelle]
Yeah.

[Kevin]
And that is my official fat and butter replacement.

[Michelle]
I love it.

[Kevin]
All of my baking.

[Michelle]
You know, I had a three ingredient item that my family went nuts over. I had to make them several times. I made a banana chocolate chip cookie that, again, was was a three ingredient recipe.

[Kevin]
Let me guess. Bananas, chocolate chips and oatmeal. Oatmeal.

OK, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Michelle]
Yeah, I can see that. And the trick with that, I guess it's technically four ingredients because there was quick oats as well as rolled oats.

[Kevin]
OK.

[Michelle]
And that's the trick with this recipe, because if you use exclusively rolled oats, it's a little bit chunky.

[Kevin]
They won't stick together. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The quick oats kind of melt and make the glue.

[Michelle]
So it's like three quarter quick oats, one quarter of the other. Or maybe it's two thirds to a third. I'm trying to remember.

[Kevin]
But that's still, I mean, oats are oats. So that's still three ingredients.

[Michelle]
But super easy. You just mash up the bananas. You toss, you toss the you toss the oatmeal in there.

You toss the chocolate chips. You make it turns into a batter and you just scoop it onto a pan. You cook them for 15 minutes.

Boom, you're done. It's it was so good. And again, I didn't tell anybody.

I just here you go. You made cookies and put them out. And everybody was like, oh, my gosh, these cookies are so good.

Yeah, that was a big win. And then so I didn't have I didn't cook a big. Family Christmas dinner this year because we went to our relatives who they were doing it this year.

But I did I did host like an appetizer kind of evening on Christmas Eve. And I put out a lot of like a charcuterie type of thing. I mean, I had I had a sweet sort of area, but had a lot of artichoke and different pickles and olives on one tray.

And then I had some there's really incredible cashew cheeses and almond cheeses and things like that now that are so delicious. I am going to brand drop again because I think one of my favorites is nuts for cheese. And and the lovely inventor of that is from my city here in London, Ontario.

[Kevin]
But sponsorships are still available.

[Michelle]
But they're just they're just so easy to work with because they're nice little triangle like wedges. So they look they look very pretty on a cheese tray. OK, yeah.

With lots of crackers and nuts and fruits and and and then I made these little amazing they're mini quiches. They were tofu based quiches instead of egg based quiches. And there's lots of yummy nutritional yeast and turmeric.

And I think they were spinach and sun-dried tomato that I made.

[Kevin]
Oh, nice.

[Michelle]
And they were delicious. And again, didn't tell anybody. And then we also got some this this is where I think these meat alternatives play a really nice role.

So I I cooked up some beyond sausage. So I cooked those up, chilled them in there in the fridge and then sliced them into little things so that there was something that yeah, for the charcuterie.

[Kevin]
Yeah.

[Michelle]
And it was it was a hit. Everybody seemed to love it. Yeah.

And even some of my unsuspecting relatives did not realize that they were not eating real sausage and real quiche.

[Kevin]
It's always nice when you can pull one over on someone who you know would be the first person to object if they if you actually announced it. It's kind of a bit of a nice feeling. Oh, you like that, do you?

OK, good. I'm glad you like that. I'm not saying anything.

I'm just really glad you like that.

[Michelle]
Yeah, yeah. No, so that was so that was fun. And yeah, you know, there's so much you can do.

Like charcuterie is like the easiest.

[Kevin]
Oh, it's so easy to pull stuff together.

[Michelle]
You know, I could eat nibbly appetizers, charcuterie food like all the time. Like, I just I love grazing.

[Kevin]
Of course, like you can get nuts and dried fruit and fresh fruit and like you name it. And that's just it's wonderful. It's wonderful.

So since it's the new year, do you have any resolutions?

[Michelle]
Oh, resolutions. So many. Well, anyone that knows me really well knows that I'm always kind of working my epic 50 list.

So that was I'm now. So that was a list that sort of a running list I came up with when I was 50, when I was turning 50, because I was going to age gracefully and awesomely and not be in declining health, as other people in the media may suggest. So I'm going to have to edit that out.

[Kevin]
Yes, that was last year, your 50s. Yes.

[Michelle]
So I'm still I'm still working on that because and the and the whole idea is that if I when I make it to 60, then it becomes an epic 60. But I might the idea with epic 50 or the 50 things I need to do before I turn 60. But anything that I don't get done just rolls over onto the new list.

So on that list, this is kind of a maybe a crazy goal to some. This year, I'm going to apply to be on Survivor.

[Kevin]
Cool.

[Michelle]
That is my that is my big resolution this year.

[Kevin]
If you need a character reference to prove, I will say, look, this lady is a survivor. OK, like no problem. No doubt whatsoever.

[Michelle]
Who knows? I'm sure they get like thousands and thousands and, you know, I may never hear from them.

[Kevin]
But you may just have that secret sauce you're looking for.

[Michelle]
You never know.

[Kevin]
But maybe they'll be. Maybe if you send in your application and you use this podcast. See, as a reference, you see, they can hear.

And then, you know, maybe they invite me to they say, hey, you guys are a package deal. Like you got to go. You know, you can't.

[Michelle]
Oh, Kevin, you need to write if I make it that far, one of the letters from home.

[Kevin]
Yes. Oh, absolutely. Yes.

Oh, and I can embarrass you on international TV. I cannot wait. Oh, this will be fun.

[Michelle]
I will not read it out loud. But oh, OK. Yeah.

So other than that, my resolution is really I mean, I make resolutions every day, not just once a year. So this is just really, you know, not being a small business owner, not being anchored. To that every day and working every weekend.

It's just to simplify, just, you know, really focusing on my passions and continuing to try to be, you know, spend more time with family and friends, things like that. That's important. Including you.

[Kevin]
Oh, well, we're off to a good start already.

[Michelle]
Yeah. What about you? What's what are you?

What are your plans?

[Kevin]
What about me? My resolution is very simple and kind of silly. I like the simplicity of it.

[Michelle]
OK.

[Kevin]
Because like you, I like to simplify. My resolution is I'm going to be happier this year.

[Michelle]
I love that.

[Kevin]
I find that I mean, I'm generally a reasonably happy person, but I can get bogged down by the day to day grind of life. You know, I have a young son. I have a partner.

I have two businesses now that I'm like, you know, running. I'm you know, I'm a business owner for two different businesses. I've got a lot on my plate and that can, you know, sometimes get to me.

And I just I just go on autopilot.

[Michelle]
Yeah.

[Kevin]
So this year I've decided I'm not going to go on autopilot. I'm going to actively be happier. Yeah.

We'll see how that goes. We'll see how that turns out. But that's my plan.

[Michelle]
Well, you know, I definitely believe that to a very large degree, happiness is a choice.

[Kevin]
Well, it's not like someone else can't make you happy. Like if you don't do it yourself, no one else is going to do it for you.

[Michelle]
Yeah, yeah. You have to decide in that moment when stuff happens. How are you going to show up?

[Kevin]
How you react? Yeah, exactly.

[Michelle]
And how are you going to show up? Yeah, yeah. Well, I love that, Kevin.

And I encourage the listeners to write in and let us know what are your resolutions and if there's anything in there that you want us to talk about on the podcast, I am happy to oblige.

[Kevin]
Exactly, exactly. So in my, so to support, because I know you're very supportive of my resolution.

[Michelle]
Well, thank you. I'm very supportive of you, Kevin.

[Kevin]
To support my resolution, it's time for the dad jokes.

[Michelle]
Yay! You wouldn't believe how much I've missed that.

[Kevin]
You don't believe how much I've missed trying to collect them.

[Michelle]
I was going to say, you must have quite a backlog at this point.

[Kevin]
You know what? I sort of fell out of the habit for a while. It's horrible.

[Michelle]
Well, that is just sad.

[Kevin]
Now I'm back on the wagon again, so it's all good. Okay, so I got two for you today because, you know, we got to make up for lost time.

[Michelle]
Bring it, man. Bring it.

[Kevin]
So what should people never eat on New Year's Eve?

[Michelle]
I don't know, Kevin. What should people never eat on New Year's Eve?

[Kevin]
Firecrackers.

[Michelle]
Oh, God. Okay.

[Kevin]
Okay. And clearly we've got a bit of a theme. So second one, what's a spider's New Year's resolution?

[Michelle]
I don't know. What is a spider's New Year's resolution?

[Kevin]
To spend less time on the web. Oh my God. See, you're already regretting it.

It's like, to it, it's like, oh my God. Okay. Can we just have one per episode, please?

We don't need two. No, that was cute. We need one of those canes to pull me off the stage, like in vaudeville.

Well, Michelle, it's amazing being back in the saddle with you.

[Michelle]
We're back.

[Kevin]
I'm so happy. We're back, whether you like it or not. We're taking the axe to the door of your headphones and we're there.

Wow. So I can't wait to hear what you have for us in the coming months.

[Michelle]
I have plans.

[Kevin]
I know that you've got, I know I've heard a few of your plans and I'm really looking forward to it. I think we've got some really exciting stuff coming and some guests.

[Michelle]
Yes.

[Kevin]
And some interesting things and a lot of really amazing topics. So stay tuned. And if you have anything that you'd like us to cover off, please don't forget about us.

You can email us at n, the number four, noobs, that's N-O-O-B-S at gmail.com. And I can't remember our taglines. That's how long it's been.

Oh my God. What do I say? Oh yes.

Okay. And thanks for listening. And until then, eat your greens.

[Michelle]
Be real, everyone.

[Kevin]
This has been Nutrition for Noobs. We hope you're a bit more enlightened about how your fantastic and complicated body works with the food you put into it. If you have a question or a topic you'd like Michelle to discuss, drop us a line at n4noobs at gmail.com.

That's the letter N, the number four, N-O-O-B-S at gmail.com. If you haven't already, you can subscribe to the podcast on whatever your favourite platform might be. Also, please consider leaving a review or telling your friends.

That's the best way to spread the word. We'll see you next time with another interesting topic. The views and opinions expressed on Nutrition for Noobs are those of the hosts.

It is not intended to be a substitute for medical, nutritional, or health advice. Listeners should seek a personal consultation with a qualified practitioner if they have any concerns or before commencing any actions mentioned in the podcast. I almost forgot that.

That's horrible. Oh my God.

[Michelle]
Well, in your case, maybe it's eat your bark. I'm not sure.

[Kevin]
Maybe, maybe in my case, it's eat your ginkgo biloba so you can remember and you have some sort of memory. You can remember something that's like, you know, it's only been a few months.

[Michelle]
I need some lion's mane mushroom to clear that brain fog.

[Kevin]
I need some sort of mushroom.

[Michelle]
I should do an episode on lion's mane. That's a good...

[Kevin]
There we go. Or just mushrooms in general. But not those type of mushrooms.

[Michelle]
I don't know.

[Kevin]
Maybe. Yeah, okay. I'm game.

So long as we can get samples. Can you imagine us doing an episode on mushrooms?

[Michelle]
I actually can.

[Kevin]
Well, the scary thing is I don't think anyone would notice.

[Michelle]
Okay. Are we still recording?

[Kevin]
Okay. I hope so.