Jackie Sun has been one of the greatest blessings to Cook Smarts. She was the first person I hired and took me from a one-woman show to a two-woman show. Not only has she proved herself to be an integral part of the team, but she is such a gentle, caring soul and has made me a better person over the years we’ve worked together. 

In today’s episode, we’re getting to know this multi-talented lady and also taking a walk down memory lane. I cannot believe that Jackie has been working with me for 7 years -- time absolutely flies! Among the many stories you’ll get to hear:

1. How Jackie became a pastry chef and how she made the transition to working for Cook Smarts and learned an entirely new set of skills
2. All the different hats she’s worn over the years at Cook Smarts and what she loves doing most now
3. How working at Cook Smarts has helped her start her own company Wondershins
4. How she meal plans and cooks for a mixed-diet household

If you love getting a behind-the-scenes peek at small businesses and love a transformation story, then this podcast episode is for you!

Want to be a super supporter of the show and home cooking? Please tell a friend about our podcast and leave us a review on Apple Podcast (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/in-the-kitchen-with-cook-smarts/id1454754429?mt=2). If we read your review on a future podcast, you’ll win a Cook Smarts tote bag!

We’re on a little summer break, so I’m introducing you to another one of our Cook Smarts team members!

If every company had a Sarah Byun on the team, companies would have many, many more happy customers. Sarah started off as a Cook Smarts customer in 2014 and then joined our team as our Kitchen Happiness Cheerleader in the spring of 2015. Since then, she has helped countless customers get their questions answered, concerns addressed, typos on their emails fixed, always with the most cheerful demeanor. 

In today’s episode, you’ll get to know this amazing multi-tasking mama and also get a behind-the-scenes look at our small but mighty company. Plus, you’ll get to hear:

1. How Sarah juggles being a homeschooling mom with her Cook Smarts responsibilities
2. All the hats she wears because she does way more than answer customer service emails
3. The negative customer service email she had to answer in her application to get the job!

Want to be a super supporter of the show and home cooking? Please tell a friend about our podcast and leave us a review on Apple Podcast (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/in-the-kitchen-with-cook-smarts/id1454754429?mt=2) . If we share your review in a future episode, we’ll send you a Cook Smarts tote bag to bring you more fun and eco-friendly grocery shopping!

We’re on a little summer break, so we’re rerunning one of my favorite episodes!

One of the best things that’s happened to Cook Smarts is bringing on a dedicated meal plan developer. Jess Smith joined the team in the spring of 2015, all the way from Thailand and has taken our recipe development process and the quality of our meals to a whole other level.

In today’s episode, we’re getting to know this multi-talented lady and also giving you a behind the scenes of our small little company. Plus, you’ll get to hear:

1. How she made a huge career switch going from working for the State Department in Thailand to working in food full time and all the lessons she’s learned during this transition
2. What it’s like to go from food blogging to getting feedback -- sometimes less than positive feedback -- on every recipe you create
3. The most challenging part of the job and what’s gotten easier over time

If you’re someone who’s wanted to make a career change and pursue your true passion, this episode is definitely not to be missed. Another added bonus: I also offer some advice to the entrepreneurs out there about building out your team. 

For all the links mentioned in this episode and to see a picture of Jess’ family of 5, head to our show notes: www.cooksmarts.com/podcast/3

For the full set of links from today’s episode, head to the show notes at www.cooksmarts.com/podcast/33

In today’s episode, I’m covering the five main flavor profiles: salty / umami, sweet, sour, bitter, and spice. Most of us are just following recipes when we’re in the kitchen but if you develop an understanding of flavor and how it’s created using a wide variety of ingredients, you’ll be free to go off-roading and become much more confident tinkering with recipes (or even creating your own!). 

Here’s what we’ll cover:

1. The concept of “The Flavor Star,” and how flavor profiles balance and enhance one another.
2. The ingredients you can use to create each flavor profile. We’ll be going well beyond the basics of salt, sugar, lemon juice, and pepper.
3. We’ll dissect a few recipes to understand how different ingredients contributed to its flavor profile.

Have a listen and become a flavor star! You’ll even get to hear me sing a few tunes in this one 🎶🎤.

Want to be a super supporter of the show and home cooking? Please tell a friend about our podcast and leave us a review on Apple Podcast (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/in-the-kitchen-with-cook-smarts/id1454754429?mt=2). If we read your review on a future podcast, you’ll win a Cook Smarts tote bag!

In today’s podcast episode, we are bringing in teacher extraordinaire Katie Kimball to give us a few cooking and parenting lessons. Katie is an advocate for healthy kids cooking, a blogger, former teacher and the founder of the Kids Cook Real Food eCourse. Her blog, Kitchen Stewardship helps families stay healthy without going crazy, and she’s on a mission to connect families around healthy food and teach every child in America to cook.

We are actually going through Katie’s course right now, and it’s been so fun. Katie is one of those people who was just born to teach kids. She has a naturally warm demeanor, a gift for explaining concepts in a way that anyone can understand, and a rapport with kids that cannot be taught. Plus, she’s got amazing camera presence! My kids are learning a lot from Mrs. Kimball and definitely loving their new kitchen skills, and I am learning a thing or two about parenting and communicating with kids from Katie through the course, which is such an added bonus.

Because of our businesses, I have known Katie for many years now, and I’ve always been so impressed with how smart she is but also how generous and thoughtful, and I am so excited to introduce her to you today to talk more about her program and the importance of teaching kids how to cook.

In today’s episode, we chat about:

1. How important it is to teach kids how to cook and how parents can do it without making it more work
2. How to make your own DIY kitchen summer camp
3. What kitchen skills children should learn at various developmental stages
4. How to encourage a child to help in the kitchen when they show little interest in cooking

Check out this Knife Skills Lesson Katie is making available for free to the Cook Smarts community -- it is appropriate for children of any age! https://www.kidscookrealfood.com/cooksmarts

Want to be a super supporter of the show and home cooking? Please tell a friend about our podcast and leave us a review on Apple Podcast (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/in-the-kitchen-with-cook-smarts/id1454754429?mt=2). If we read your review on a future podcast, you’ll win a Cook Smarts tote bag!

In today’s podcast episode, we’re checking in with another one of our all-star community members Lauren Davis. Lauren lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and is the mom to 4 year old Gavin. Her husband is immunocompromised so she has been extra diligent about staying away from the grocery stores and this definitely requires some next level planning.

In addition to the adjustments required for the pandemic, her family has also moved in with her parents, which is introducing another element into her planning process. However, using a sophisticated Post-It Note system (head to our show notes to see www.cooksmarts.com/podcast/31), not only has Lauren been able to get it done in the kitchen, but seems to be thriving during this time!

In our chat, Lauren shares:

1. How she gets 4 different adults to agree on what they’re eating
2. How she’s meal planning so that she only needs to grocery shop just once every 3 to 4 weeks
3. How she’s managing her mental mindset during this time

During our rapid fire round, Lauren shares a kitchen tool that I’ve never heard of. This spoon has a flat edge, and it’s her favorite kitchen tool. She’s never been able to find another one, so we’re on a hunt to help her find a backup in case this one breaks. Have you seen something like this? We need the help of our entire podcast community in this treasure hunt!

For photos of Lauren’s Post-It Note system and very-important spoon, head to the show notes at www.cooksmarts.com/podcast/31

Want to be a super supporter of the show and home cooking? Please tell a friend about our podcast and leave us a review on Apple Podcast (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/in-the-kitchen-with-cook-smarts/id1454754429?mt=2). If we read your review on a future podcast, you’ll win a Cook Smarts tote bag!

In today’s podcast episode, we’re checking in with one of our favorite community members Gabrielle Smith. Gabrielle lives in Fort Worth Texas with her husband and her 7 year old son and 4 year old daughter. While she works as an attorney, she could just as easily be a professional meal planner and prepper.

Gabrielle has been one of our most active Facebook members. She so generously offers tips and suggestions when others need it and routinely shares not only photos of her meals but the comments of the food critics she cooks for. During the time she’s been a part of our community, I can also tell what an incredibly organized, process-based person she is, and she’s stepped up those skills during the pandemic.

During our chat, I had her share how she’s had to adapt her weekly meal planning and grocery shopping process to accommodate all this new normal we’re living through. We talked the day before Mother’s Day, and it was such a delight to not only talk to one of my favorite members, but a mom I truly admire.

In our chat, Gabrielle shares:

1. How she meal plans normally and what changes she’s had to make during the pandemic
2. How she’s introduced more meatless meals into her life, and how you can too, especially important now with potential meat chickens and pork shortages in our future
3. How she manages her life week-to-week to fit in all the things that are important to her

Come join us as we talk to this great Cook Smarts friend! 

For all the links in today’s episode, head to www.cooksmarts.com/podcast/30

Want to be a super supporter of the show and home cooking? Please tell a friend about our podcast and leave us a review on Apple Podcast (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/in-the-kitchen-with-cook-smarts/id1454754429?mt=2). If we read your review on a future podcast, you’ll win a Cook Smarts tote bag!

* G I V E A W A Y* 

Our podcast turned 1, and we are doing a little $50 Amazon gift card birthday giveaway. Leave us a review on Apple Podcast, snap a screenshot of your review and text it to 650-386-0290. It has to be a new review dated after April 22nd. If you’ve already left a review in the past but still want to enter the giveaway, you can leave your review as a voice message at the same number, and we might just play it on a future episode. At the end of the month, I’ll select 1 winner at random!

In our latest podcast episode, I got to chat with Yvette Marquez all about Mexican food. As a second generation Mexican-American, she has been sharing cherished family Mexican recipes since 2010 on her food blog Muy Bueno Cooking, which has been turned into its own cookbook. 

I love Mexican food but like all ethnic cuisines, it can feel a bit intimidating when you’re getting started. There are ingredients you’ve never heard of, a new set of pantry staples to get to know, and new techniques that might not feel familiar.

So in this episode, I asked Yvette to break it all down for us and make Mexican cooking totally approachable and accessible. You’ll learn all about:

1. Peppers -- the difference between dried and fresh, plus which ones you need for simple sauces
2. Sauces -- basic master sauces that will help you create a wide variety of Mexican dishes
3. Plus other Mexican staples like spices, beans, tortillas, and cuts of meat.

For all the links in today’s episode, head to www.cooksmarts.com/podcast/29

Want to be a super supporter of the show and home cooking? Please tell a friend about our podcast and leave us a review on Apple Podcast (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/in-the-kitchen-with-cook-smarts/id1454754429?mt=2). If we read your review on a future podcast, you’ll win a Cook Smarts tote bag!

We are rerunning episode 8 because like everyone in the world, our schedule got a little thrown off by the coronavirus. Since Earth Day was yesterday, we thought it was the perfect time to replay one of our most popular episodes from season 1. Plus, 2 new special guests appear in the intro!

In this podcast episode, I’m sharing how I’m trying to create a greener kitchen and reduce the amount of waste, especially plastic waste, that my family produces and tosses. 

Ever since having kids 4 years ago, I’ve become so much more aware of all the waste, we as a modern family of 5 produces. Even though I’m committed to making green improvements in all areas of my life, today’s episode is going to focus solely on the food or kitchen side of things. It’s the area I spend the most time in and feel like we’ve made some great progress with small, doable changes that anyone listening to this podcast can also make. 

In this episode, I’ll cover: 

1. How we’ve pretty much stopped using single-use plastic, like plastic wrap and produce bags
2. How you can get takeout without the plastic containers
3. The reusable containers we use to pack snacks, lunches, and freezer meals
4. The progress we’re still hoping to make by reducing the number of products packaged in plastic that we purchase

Have you made some greener changes you want to share? Head to our show notes and tell us in the comments and also grab all the product links mentioned in the episode. www.cooksmarts.com/podcast/8

To celebrate our podcast’s first birthday, we are doing a giveaway for a $50 Amazon gift card.

All you need to do is leave a review on Apple Podcast. Snap a screenshot of your review and text it to 650-386-0290. It has to be a new review dated after April 22nd.

So If you’ve already left a review in the past or are not an Apple person but still want to enter the giveaway, you can leave your review as a voice message at the same number 650-386-0290 and we might just play it on a future episode. I will select a winner Friday, May 15th but don’t procrastinate. I know you’re just stuck at home so enter now. There will be just 1 more reminder on our May 7th podcast episode, so get it done today -- your reviews will make this such a lovely birthday gift.

In our latest podcast episode, I invited Jenny Best Founder of Solid Starts to talk all about baby led weaning, the process of transitioning a baby to solid foods using a finger food first approach. Jenny is the mom of 3, including a set of twins, and Solid Starts grew out of her own challenges of introducing solids to her little babes. From fears of choking to lack of information around what foods are best for babies, she started documenting all of it herself.

Now Solid Starts features an ever-growing food database offering parents incredibly pragmatic information on hundreds of foods, all for free. Each ingredient has a nutrition rating and nutritional information, when and how it should be introduced, if it’s an allergen or how it can be a choking hazard, and so much more. It’s such an incredible resource. 

In this episode we also dig into some of the biggest questions parents have when starting their babies on solid foods, such as:

1. Why baby led weaning and is there still a place for purees with a finger food first approach?
2. What are the signs that a baby is ready for solids?
3. How do you start a baby on solids? What do you need?
4. What makes a food a choking hazard and what steps you can take to prevent it from being one?
5. What are some great on-the-go snacks and solids for a baby?

Even though I’m a mom of 3, I learned so much from this episode and wish I had had this interview 4.5 years ago when I was starting Neko out on solids for the first time. Clearly, it all ended up fine but I would have had a lot more context and a clearer process (and I love a good clear process!). Talking to Jenny has given me great inspiration to dig into the database and introduce even more variety into our family’s diet!

For all the links in today’s episode, head to www.cooksmarts.com/podcast/28

Want to be a super supporter of the show and home cooking? Please tell a friend about our podcast and leave us a review on Apple Podcast (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/in-the-kitchen-with-cook-smarts/id1454754429?mt=2). If we read your review on a future podcast, you’ll win a Cook Smarts tote bag!