Mary Bryant Shrader, creator of Mary's Nest Cooking School on YT returns!

                             ---------- Originally Aired on the Good Foods Podcast ----------

It was my honor to have Mary back and this time, since it is Mother's Day 'month', I wanted her to share more stories of her mom.

Sadly, Mary lost her mother suddenly late last year, but she holds her memories in her heart and Mary's laughter, along with her husband Ted and son Ben, have been a source of comfort to her.

You'll find about her recent YT Million Milestone and so much more. Mary Bryant Shrader is the best-selling author of The Modern Pioneer Cookbook and a self-described "former New York City girl" who discovered the simple life with her husband in the Texas hill country. 

Mary is a modern pioneer in the kitchen who has spent the last twenty years teaching friends and fans alike how to make nourishing recipes using traditional methods and whole, seasonal ingredients. Her mission is to teach her followers how to make nutrient-rich meals using traditional "pioneer" techniques like fermenting, canning, and drying. 

I know you will enjoy it thoroughly and like her You Tube video's, she introduces this episode with her signature salutation, "Hello, Sweet Friends!"

YT ➡️ https://YouTube.com/marysnest

Website ➡️ https://marysnest.com

Cookbook ➡️ https://marysnest.com/my-cookbook

Social ➡️ @marysnest


The Good Foods podcast was created and hosted by Shardan Sandoval in March of 2023 and was active until September of 2024. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello, sweet friends. This is Mary Bryan Schrader, best selling
author of The Modern Pioneer cookbook and creator of the
Mary's Nest YouTube channel and website. And this is the
Good Foods Podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
All of us are on a journey towards better health,
and we're grateful that you've allowed us to join you
on your quest.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
In this episode, people will often say, yo, oh, you
don't have this, you don't do that, you don't do this,
you know, get your team in gear. Hey on the mic. Okay,
my teeth, Me and Ted my husband, we're the team. Kids.
You up.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
This is the Good Foods Podcast And now here's your host,
Shaw Dane.

Speaker 3 (00:51):
Mary, thank you so much for joining me again on
the podcast.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
Oh, Shardan, thank you so much for having me. I
love being with you.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
You know, before we into it, I wanted to let
you know that I am so sorry for your loss
and I hope that you continue to heal and have
all those wonderful memories of your mom turning your sadness
into smiles.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
Oh, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Yes,
as I shared with you, my mother passed away this
past December twenty twenty three, and she was just shy
of her ninety ninth birthday, which is just amazing and
really a testament to how she lived her life. You know,

(01:32):
just a traditional foods home cook and loved her butter
and just positive attitude, always loving and kind, you know,
just really she practiced what she preached and she lived
to be almost ninety nine. So yeah, I miss her,
but it was a blessing to have her with me

(01:52):
as long as I did.

Speaker 3 (01:53):
Well, yeah, you are blessed to be surrounded by the
heir to the throne and your it slash husband during
this time. As you know, many people don't have that magic.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
Mary. It's very true. I feel very fortunate. My mother
got married a little later in life and wound up
just having me just to one child. And my husband
has a very similar situation in that his mom was
a little older when she got married and she wound
up having the one child, so we're both only children.

(02:23):
And then I wound up getting married later in life,
as you know, and in my early forties I was
blessed with one child. So we're all these only children,
but at least we have the three of us, and
we definitely my husband's mother is still alive which is
a real blessing. She's about ninety years old, which is

(02:46):
just fantastic. And we have found family is so important
and we've really reached out a lot to our extended family.
My husband has family in Flora and West Virginia and
in the Carolinas, and we stay in touch with everybody

(03:06):
because it's true, even if even if you have a
small family, it's precious and just reaching out to as
many people as you can. And everybody's different. But I
really feel that when it comes to family, and you
could even say this you know too about having some

(03:27):
close friends as well, that you're not going to agree
on everything. Nobody's perfect, but sometimes you just got to
put all that aside and go, hey, come on, we're family.
Let's sit down and eat. That was my mother's philosophy.
She was like, okay, okay, the lasagna's ready. If people

(03:52):
were starting to get a little you know, vickering family
vickering or whatever, a little testy, yeah, it's like you
need to eat. And now it's so funny is if
my husband or son, if they seem like a little
tired or something, I'm like, you need to eat, come on,
sit down, you need to eat. I'm my mother's daughter.

Speaker 3 (04:13):
Well, that longevity on both sides of the family. There, boy,
that's good jeans for ben He's like he has got
a long life.

Speaker 1 (04:20):
I know. Isn't it amazing? The doctor says, all right,
y'all have the super gene soon.

Speaker 3 (04:26):
When we last spoke, you shared many wonderful stories about
how your mom taught you how to cook and how
to run a home. What does she call it? To
run the home? What it was her term?

Speaker 1 (04:36):
Oh, the gentle arts of domesticity?

Speaker 3 (04:40):
I love that.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
Yeah. She was just the best. It was so cute.
She lived about five minutes from us, her and my
father when my dad was still love so they were
just about five minutes from us. And my mother was
very cute because she would call me in the morning
and she would say it'd be like nine o'clock in
the mo and Benjamin was a baby, maybe just a

(05:03):
month or two old, and she would say, my name
is Mary Louise. Yeah, and she would say, well, Mary Louise,
what do you have planned for the evening meal? And
I'd say, mom, evening meal, I ain't been up all night,
I haven't had a shower, I got to feed the baby.
I can't remember the last time I cleaned the house

(05:25):
or did wash evening meal. I can't think straight. And
she'd say, don't worry, sweetheart, I'll be right over. And
she had a little station wagon and she'd come right over.
It was really cute. But she was very happy to
see me in the role of wife and mother. She
was a smart lady and sophisticated and talented and all

(05:48):
of that, but her greatest, I guess, fulfillment in life
was for herself being a wife and mother. And she
was very happy to see me taking on that role,
and if she had to wait very patiently for it.

Speaker 3 (06:04):
Speaking of Ben, did you teach him how to cook?
Do you have any interest in that at all? Oh?

Speaker 1 (06:08):
Yes, very much. So. He enjoyed being in the kitchen
with me very much. And he had a little stool,
that little one of those little stepping stools, and he
would stand on it and he would be at the stove.
And he loved helping me make soup. There was something
about having all these little cut up pieces of vegetables
and I'd put them in a little bowl and then

(06:30):
he would dump them into the soup pot. But sometimes
the water, you know, would be getting hot and be
you know, coming up to a boil maybe. And one
time he dumped a lot of vegetables in and the
water sputtered up and got on his hands, and he
was like, oh, here I am. You know, mother of
an only child, you know how we can be like,

(06:51):
oh no, my precious. And he was so cute because
we still he and I laugh about this to this day.
He looked at me and I was like, oh my gosh,
you're you okay, And he's like, Mom, don't worry. Sometimes
as chefs we get a little burned. Yeah. He was
so cute. But he loved making all sorts of things,

(07:13):
and very early on he decided he had this amazing vocabulary.
Some kids just do you know, they're like a little
sponge and they pick up all these words. And he
knew the word or dirm, and so he said, I'm
making or dirms. He says this to me. One day, Well,

(07:33):
he gets some kind of I don't know if they
were saltine crackers or what, and he takes all of
the spices and herbs out of the pantry and puts
them on the crackers and he brings them to the
table and he says Mom and Dad, I have orders. Well,

(07:55):
you know, there's like cayenne pepper and you're eating them,
and I'm sure our eyes were tearing up the riderc
and water, but we never wanted to discourage him, and
so we're like, oh, they're delicious, you know. And it
reminded me of when I was a kid. When I
was about nine years old, I told my mom, Okay,

(08:16):
I'm making dinner tonight, and I thought I was covering
the chicken in paprika, but I was actually covering it
in cayenne pepper. So it was like what goes around
comes around. My parents ate it and their eyes teered
and they drank water and they just were like delicious.

(08:39):
But yeah, Ben has always enjoyed that, and even you
know now being a single fellow, he will have cookouts.
You know here the weather's mild, you know, most of
the year, and the department buildings you know, usually have
a swimming pool and a grill, and he will try
out all these exotic things on the grill and tell

(09:01):
his friends, Okay, you got to bring something, and it'll
just be the guys and they'll have a cook gap.
But he enjoys it.

Speaker 3 (09:07):
I love that your mom called I guess maybe deserts
in general holiday time. Yes, do you remember one of
the first times that she mentioned that phrase.

Speaker 1 (09:16):
Oh, yes, I'm when I was very young, because I think,
you know, probably like I was probably like around four
or five years old, and some of these things I
don't necessarily remember, but she tells me these stories and
in hopes also too that I would use these similar
techniques when I went on to have children. But she

(09:39):
would say that we would go to the grocery store.
Now they were nothing like the grocery stores we have today,
but we would go to the like the A and
P grocery store or whatever. And you know, this was
maybe the like late fifties, early sixties, and all of

(10:00):
these products, these commercially prepared or what my mother would
call like prepared foods were becoming very popular. And you
had the cereal aisle with the various boxes, very colorful,
and the prizes inside and whatnot. And I would just
be going up and down the aisles with her, and

(10:21):
I would be saying, can we get that? Can we
get that? Can we get that? Can we get that?
And this is what she would say, not today but
holiday time, at holiday time, and so I was just
always hanging on the holiday time. Now do you always
understand this when you're a kid, because you may not

(10:44):
have a complete picture of the calendar. But I knew
holiday time was going to be special. We laughed about
that once I was an adult, and then I would
say the same thing to my son. I remember some
because I was an older mom, but I was in
a social circle of younger moms, and they would say, boy,

(11:07):
how do you do traditional foods and all? What do
you do when you go to the grocery store and
there's so much temptation? I say, well, I learned this
trick from my mother so as to not disappoint the child.
You say, well, not today, but at holiday time. And
now Benjamin like, well, share that story with me. He'll go, Oh,
I always remember your mom saying okay, we'll get it

(11:28):
at holiday time.

Speaker 3 (11:31):
Well, do you have one of those first holiday time
cooking memories that you could share with us that you
had with her?

Speaker 1 (11:38):
Oh my gosh, yes, I see, because grocery shopping was
very different back then. You had the grocery store, but
it was like small. We had A and P and
we had datche. I don't even know if dates exists anymore.
And they were just small grocery stores. And I grew
up in somewhat of a like Italian There was a

(11:59):
definite a lot of Italian immigrants in the community where
I grew up. And just to give you this a
little bit of a side story, but can you imagine
this today? There was a vat and this was like
in the datch grocery store of that with salted water
with mozzarella balls floating around in it. And you went

(12:21):
in with your hand and took a ball of muzzarella
and put it in a bag and brought it to
the checkout. The level of lack of sanitation, it's just
amazing to me. But nobody got sick, you know. But
in any event, there was also the bakery and the
pizza parlor, and the butcher, you know, and the fishmonger.

(12:47):
There were a lot of separate little stores. Well, there
were these merangue shells that the baker always had and
they would just sit in the cabinet. And when we
would go there, if my mother was picking up maybe
some like Italian cookies or something like that for a
Sunday tree, whatever the case may be, I would see

(13:10):
these merangue shells, but they were twenty five cents. Now
that was big money, you know, and they were about
for your listeners, maybe about three inches four inches in circumference.
And then they were twenty five cents themselves, and then
the bakery would fill them with something. Now depending on

(13:34):
what filling you picked, that would up the price. Well,
I was in love with these merangue shells. They looked
so good. And then I'd see the baker filled, and
every time we'd go in to the bakery, I'd say
to my mother, oh, can I get one of those
merangue shells? And she would always say, holiday time, don't worry,

(13:59):
holiday time. On well, one Christmas, she had the box
of the Italian cookies. Because if there was some celebration
or it wasn't like every Sunday dinner, but we would
often get together, you know, with my mother was one
of five, five girls, and my grandmother and my aunt's

(14:23):
husbands and the cousins. It could be fifty people for
Sunday dinner. And my mother would bring, you know, like
the little box of Italian cookies for special occasions. And
you've seen them. They look like red or green leaves,
with chocolate. Yeah. Well, one Christmas, my mother has another

(14:44):
box and in the box are the white meringue shells. Now,
mind you, they're not filled because the aunts, you know,
and my mom they were going to fill them with
Rokota cheese or whatever they were going to put in them.
But I saw those merangue shells and I was like,

(15:05):
oh my gosh, it's holiday time. And I took a marangue.
I asked my mom, can I have a mirror? I
didn't want it filled. I didn't want I just wanted
that merangue shell and I ate the whole thing in
one sitting. I was probably five years old. And to
this day, if I ever see those marangue shells, and

(15:27):
when you know, like a fancy bakery, you don't really
see them here. It's not as common, you know, in Texas.
But when I was living in New York City and
I would go to a bakery and I would see
those merangue shells, I would always have that memory and
there's so delicious and melts in your mouth.

Speaker 3 (15:46):
What was and by the way, what a way do
a mom say no but without saying no, right exactly?
What was the first holiday time meal that you prepared
for your husband, Ted.

Speaker 1 (15:57):
Oh, that's a wonderful question. You know, we always celebrated
Christmas with my see because we were married in the
beginning of December, and we would always do Christmas with
my parents and my in laws, and then basically it

(16:19):
was my mom and I and my mother in law
all working together in the kitchen and for Christmas. And
my husband was so happy because my mom and I
are total Abu danza. We just make so much food.
And it was funny because we had draught over the years.
We had like pulled my father into this mentality and

(16:41):
I'll never forget one Thanksgiving him saying, I don't think
we have enough pies. I think I have to go.
And he went down to this specialty grocery store that
we used to have. I think we need more pies.
We had more pies than we did people, you know,
but we may He'd a turkey and a ham and

(17:04):
all the fixens, so all the fixens that would go along.
I mean, this is just home cooking. This is not
very basic, you know, but all the fixens that would
go with turkey. It was kind of like a Thanksgiving
repeat and then all the things that would go with
the hand the biscuits. And my husband loved macaroni and cheese,
so of course we had macaroni and cheese, and we

(17:26):
had scalloped potatoes.

Speaker 3 (17:27):
You know.

Speaker 1 (17:28):
It just a table filled like we were feeding, you know,
fifty people. And so he was always very happy. He's like, wow,
this is holiday time. I'm liking this a lot of food,
you know, because we have only married a few weeks,
you know, so he's like, this is good. And something
that was so cute he had already always grown up

(17:49):
with and I think so many people did you know
the cranberry sauce that comes in the can and it
looks like a jelly. He had always grown up with that,
and I think a lot of people did. But my
mom always made it homemade with the berries, the fresh berries,
and it was really cute because my father in law

(18:10):
absolutely loved it because he grew up on a farm,
so he had the heart of a farm boy, and
he absolutely loved that my mother made this old fashioned
cranberry sauce with the fresh cranberries and you could actually
like have the cranberries like pop in your mouth. That
was very sweet. So yeah, we always enjoyed nice holiday dinners.

Speaker 3 (18:32):
You were ted at the airport. You were I think
you were vacationing with your parents or were going on vacation.

Speaker 1 (18:37):
Yes, I did as I said. Yeah, I'm an only child,
and I was living in not far from your neck
of the woods. I was living in northern Virginia, in Alexandria,
and I worked in Washington, d C. And my parents
had retired to the Austin area and asked me if
I would consider relocating to Texas. And I was. I

(18:58):
going to tell you, I was very hesitant about that
because I had my home and my career and all
of that, you know, in Virginia. And I might have
shared this with you last time. Driving home from work.
It was the day before Christmas Eve, because I was
supposed to fly home Christmas Eve to spend Christmas with
my parents in Texas. The teenager ran a stop sign

(19:20):
and totaled my car. I walked away without a scratch,
but sitting on the curb in the rain, it was
a rainy night, waiting for the tow trug and the
police and all of that, I had like an epiphany
and I was like, you know, I don't know when
it was the last time I went on a date.
I have no life. I work eighty I was a week.

(19:42):
I need a new life. So I get up the
next one and get the red eye to Dallas. My
parents picked me up at the airport and I say,
I'm moving to Texas. They were so happy, but they
were shocked. They were like, what changed? So but in
any event, the ok to Austin. I moved down here
sight unseen. I had never even been to Austin. And

(20:06):
they said, oh, you know you're not married. We don't
want to do the Christmas tree and all of that.
We're going to go on a little vacation and you're
welcome to come with us. Well, we go to the airport,
who do I meet my husband? So I'll always love
Texas because Texas brought me such a wonderful husband.

Speaker 3 (20:25):
Do you remember one of the first conversations with Ted
when you dropped the bomb that yes you did know
how to cook, Thank you very much. And do you
remember what the first thing was that you cooked for him?

Speaker 2 (20:37):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (20:37):
That is such a good that is a good question.
So we had bet at the airport, and then we
had a couple of dates, you know, out we went
to restaurant movies things like that. And then one time
I said, oh, let me, I'll come over to your
house and I'll make a dinner. And he's like, oh great,
you know how to cook, you know, and you know what,

(21:02):
like you buy something semi prepared and you warm it up,
you know whatever. And I made a made I made it.
Sometimes you know, it's terrible because it's like twenty six
years now. I'd made some type of chicken dish homemade,
like you know, real nice, with sauce and fresh vegetables.
I don't remember exactly, but what I do remember is

(21:24):
along with it, I made a salad. Nope, opening the
bag and shaking the green I mean I had the
lettuce and the cutting and the cleaning and all of that,
and I served it with mandarin orange supremes, which if
you're if you're listeners, you know not't familiar with the

(21:45):
term supreme. It's really no big deal, but it sounds
and looks fancy because you peel the mandarin orange and
then you make sure there's no white pith, nothing, and
then you cut out all the little segments of fruit
that look beautiful and have no pith or peel or

(22:05):
anything on them, and I had a lovely homemade vinigarette,
and I just remember tend being like, Wow, this is
really good.

Speaker 3 (22:16):
So this is what real food is, Like, Yeah, this
is real food. Were you nervous making the meal? Oh?

Speaker 1 (22:23):
Very because I didn't know what his experience might have
been with home cooking. And so you're always thinking, because
you know, you talk to so many fellas no matter
how their mother cooked, if their mother cooked, even if
they were cooking very basic things, they often have fond

(22:44):
memories of it, and they often think of their mam
as being a really good cook. And so I was
a little nervous because I was like, Number one, is
he going to like what I'm making? Because you know,
as I've shared with you, my mother in law is
a Vietnamese ethnicissity, and so what was she making? And

(23:08):
what would I know how to? You know, would my
husband like what I was making? Because it was going
to be different. You know, I didn't know how to
make Vietnamese or she also has Chinese ancestry in her line,
and I don't know how to make those foods. So
would he be happy and like what I was making?
And the good news is he's just a great guy

(23:29):
and he just likes to eat and homemade food is
homemade food. And he was very very happy. I'll share
something funny with you about my mother in law. She
was showing because I said, oh, you know, what are
the foods Ted likes? And she's like, oh, he likes these,
like little dumplings and fried rice and different foods like that.

(23:50):
And the spring rolls. You know where you have the
rice paper but they're not fried, but you see them
around today. They're pretty popular. It's just the rice paper
that you just wet it, and then you have the
noodles and you some you know whatever fresh vegetables you're
cutting up. Well, it was really funny because my mother
and Las says, oh, Ted really likes spring rolls. I'm

(24:13):
going to show you how to make spring rolls. Well,
God bless her. She is so patient because I get
the rice paper and I wet it and it's like
sticking to my hands and I'm working a little too
rough with it. You know. It takes a very gentle
touch and it's sticky, and I'm just going, oh, I'm

(24:37):
so sorry. But she's so kind and loving and she's like, oh,
don't worry, you're gonna get the hang of it, let's
try again. She's like the best cheerleader. She's one of
these people who always says, you can do it, don't
worry about it, you know. And then eventually she's showing
me how to put the ingredients in and roll them up.

(24:59):
And I finally get something rolled and the ends folded in.
It doesn't look anything like what she's doing, but she
still gives me a lot of accolades and encouragement.

Speaker 3 (25:10):
You know.

Speaker 1 (25:10):
It's funny because she speaks She's amazing. She speaks five languages,
one of which is French, and a lot of people
will write to her in French. And I had went
to a convent school for my elementary education with nuns
who spoke French. So that's what they taught people, so

(25:30):
useful in Texas. I really needed Spanish nuns, you know.
But in any event, she was so happy that. I mean,
my French is terrible. But she would give me the
letters from her friends and she'd say, oh, I have
to share this with you. This is so sweet, and

(25:53):
this that and the other thing. I'd be like, well, mom,
my French is really rough. This is hard for me
to read. Oh, you can do it. That'll come back
to you. Don't worry about it. You know, she's always
a really good cheerleader. But she took a lot of
patience with me showing me how to make spring rolls,
and it taught me how to make dumplaying, nijazarid, cute
bride rice. Those were her specialties of the house and

(26:16):
all delicious.

Speaker 3 (26:17):
I'm joined by the wonderful Mary Bryan Schrader, author of
the best selling Modern Pioneer cookbook and creator of the
YouTube channel Mary's Nest, which now boasts one point three
million followers. What was that experience, like, Mary.

Speaker 1 (26:32):
I really can't believe it. I mean, I find it humorous.
I'm sixty six years old, you know. I mean, I
just get a kick out of it that there are
so many people interested in this. But it brings me
so much joy knowing that there is this audience of
people who want to learn how to make traditional foods.

(26:55):
I really couldn't ask for better. It just it really
warms my heart because I'm so passionate about people learning
how to make these kinds of foods and keeping these
skills alive. I don't want people to forget, you know,
and people who you know a lot of viewers. They'll
write to me or lead comment and they'll say, oh,
you know, I never learned how to do this, and

(27:18):
you know, you're like the mother or the grandmother I
never had, and I so appreciate it, you know. And
it's kind of funny because I have very long form content,
and in the YouTube world, when they say long form content,
they'll often say, you know, like a ten minute video.
Some of my videos are an hour long. And people

(27:39):
will say to me, Oh, I really appreciate this because
it's a full length cooking class and this is what
I need because I don't know how to do these
things and I need someone who's go slow and patient.
But every once in a while, I'll get the comment like, oh,
for heaven's sakes, lady, you can talk. It's really unnecessary.
Can you just show us in a short or in
sixty seconds or two minutes, And then the other people

(28:03):
will leave comments saying, you go away, we need her,
we need this deed dip oh, but it really worms.
I can't believe it. But it just warms my heart
and it makes me very happy because people have been
on a journey with me. I've been doing this now
for over five years, and I still have people who

(28:25):
correspond with me who were with me on day one,
and they'll say, oh, you know, after six months, I
finally mastered bone broth. Now I'm trying furments. And then
they'll get ferments under their belt, and it could be
like two years into the journey and they're like, Okay,
I'm ready to try sourdough. And I love that because

(28:46):
we're just all on this journey together. And then they're
teaching their children or their grandchildren or kids in the neighborhood.
You know, it's really wonderful. I still can't believe it.
You got two plucks, right, yes, so explain that to me.
They send you YouTube sends you a silver plaque when
you get one hundred thousand subscribers, and then they send

(29:10):
you the gold plaque, which, boy, I was shocked when
that arrived. That's big compared to the silver one. And
they send that to you when you talk out at
a million subscribers, so that was quite something.

Speaker 3 (29:28):
Well, how has that milestone impacted or changed your life?

Speaker 1 (29:32):
Well, you know, I'm just the same same old home
cooking I really, you know, I think as we rechat
a little bit before the podcast. I don't do a
lot else with social media. I'm very much the cooking
teacher and working through my videos, you know, day by

(29:55):
day on YouTube, and I'm just a very grounded person,
you know. I would say the biggest thing for me
was when I had around five hundred thousand subscribers and
I was offered the opportunity to write a cookbook, the
Modern Pioneer Cookbook, and that was a dream come true.

(30:19):
I have just a wonderful editor, such a loving and
kind man, and he really held my hand every step
of the way, because it's an interesting experience writing a
cookbook because they give you very strict parameters on the
page count and here's the recipe, you know, on one side.
Then we got to have a picture here, and so

(30:39):
this only has to be so many words. And it
took me a little while to wrap my mind around
that and understand that. But that I think was really
one of the most significant things to happen to me,
because I'm really no different when I had one hundred
subscribers versus when I had a million subscribers. I still
teach the same way. I do the same things. I

(31:00):
try to answer as many comments as I can I
would say one of the biggest things is when the
channel grows and there's so many more people leaving you comments,
and so many I have the website also, and so
many more people sending your emails. It is harder to
stay on top of all of that, but I just
try to do the best I can. I usually sit
in the morning with my coffee, a little blurry eyed,

(31:24):
as they say, and I just start I usually spend
about an hour and just try to answer as many
comments as I can. And it makes me happy to
see when people will be watching an old video and
they'll say, oh, you probably won't see this comment because
it's on an older video, but then I'll see it
and I'll answer it, and then it's cute. They'll answer
back and they'll go, oh, my goodness. You know that

(31:45):
makes me happy.

Speaker 3 (31:46):
What's one of the most amazing surprises that's come your
way because of your YouTube channel journey.

Speaker 1 (31:52):
That's an interesting question. Definitely, the cookbook was a surprise.
And the other surprise that I've found is the when
I meet people. I don't know these people, but they
will recognize me and they will come up to me,
and it's so heartfelt. When you know, maybe if I'm

(32:16):
like at Vitcon or you know, VIT Summit, or you know,
one of those sort of video type conferences, or even
right here in my own community, and people will come
up to me and they'll hug me and it's like
they I'm their friend and they know me and that
it's not like a starstruck thing or anything like that.

(32:39):
It's like I'm their friend, I'm their neighbor, I'm a
home cook just like them, or I'm their cooking teacher,
and they'll hug me and they'll say, oh, it's such
a pleasure to know you, and thank you so much.
And I'm overwhelmed because it's just so sweet and it's

(33:00):
hard to describe the feeling. It just warms your heart.
And people will say to me when they say that
to me, you changed my life. I'm so humbled by
that because I'm just teaching how to cook things and
people will say, oh, you changed my life. I make

(33:21):
everything homemade now, I don't waste food, and so that
the fact that I had that kind of impact on someone,
it kind of blows my mind. I can't really I
feel so overwhelmed. But I would say probably the most

(33:41):
significant thing that really surprised me and just humbled me
beyond anything else that I have experienced on this journey.
Was I received a comment, and it was a very
long comment, and this was a young girl, she was

(34:06):
in her early twenties, and she shared with me that
she had had a very difficult life and that in
her life she never had any role models. This has
nothing to do with cooking. She was just sharing her
life story and how difficult it was and how she

(34:26):
never had any role models. And she was going for therapy,
and her therapist said, because you've had a very hard life,
and she was only like twenty one years old, and
you've never had any role model, and you have no family,
nothing like that. What you need to do is you

(34:48):
need to look either in your immediate you know, your community,
or on television or movies and find someone that you
feel a connection with and that you can model yourself after.
So she said, she looked in her community, and she

(35:11):
looked at movies and TVs, and then she was just
watching YouTube and I came up and I was teaching
something and then she looked underneath at the comments and
someone had left a very mean comment to me. You know,
you get happens. What are you going to do? You
have to be thick skinned if you want to do YouTube.

(35:34):
Any people can say really harsh stuff. And this person
had left me a very harsh comment. And usually what
I try to do is I try to say if
I would get a harsh comment, I would respond and
I would say, you know, I'm sorry, you know, if
what I said didn't jibe with you or upset you,

(35:55):
and I'm sorry that I don't look a particular way
for the cooking teacher you want or whatever, but just nice,
and I'd say, you know, I wish you all the best.
I understand, you know, if I don't have the style
you need for teaching or whatever. And so she read
my response to this very mean person and she was like,

(36:15):
oh my gosh, this is my role model. This is
a lovely lady who is speaking so gently, cooking showing
people how to cook, and being loving and kind to
people who are mean. This is my role model. And
she said, you are my role model. And to this

(36:36):
day she's still watching my videos and learning how to
make traditional foods and she's come doing well, you know,
coming along in life. And I have to tell you
that has always stayed with me. When I read her
comment to my husband, I was crying because how could
just a video on YouTube affect someone like that? And me,

(37:00):
I'm just you know, I'm an older lady. I'm cooking
in my kitchen, you know. I mean, there's nothing special
about me. And the fact that I was able to
really touch the heart of just one person, that makes
it all worth it. Even if I just had her
as a subscriber, that would make it all worth it,

(37:23):
because you have no idea with this person. You know,
she didn't go into a lot of detail, but life
did not sound very good and her life is very
different today. And the fact that I may have played
a small role in that, that's very humbling. Sorry, I
went on a little log. It was very humbling. You

(37:43):
went on the exact amount of time. Mary.

Speaker 3 (37:45):
It's fine. I love those stories. And it's not just you.
It's magic, that's what it is.

Speaker 1 (37:53):
Yeah, really, there's just something there.

Speaker 3 (37:57):
You know.

Speaker 1 (37:58):
I'm a religious person and I believe in God. And
I know other people, you know, they have nature, the universe,
higher power. You know, everybody has something different. But I
have this thing that whenever I have to do something,
you know, when I Ted sets up the camera and
I'm going to get ready to film. And some days

(38:20):
you're really feeling it and other days you're feel tired.
But you know the people are counting on you, and
I'll say, okay, Holy Spirit, I'm going to need you
to do the talking today.

Speaker 3 (38:32):
I didn't see any merch on your YouTube channel, Mary
two that I can think of right off the bat
is an apron with your beautiful face on it. On
the other is it says holiday time and maybe a
stencil of your mom's smiling face.

Speaker 1 (38:47):
That would be very good. That'd be very good, you know.
I It's funny, you know, people will often say, you know, oh,
you don't have this, you don't do that, you don't
do this, you know, get your team in gear. He
I'm like, okay, my team, me and Ted, my husband,
we're the team kids, you know. But yeah, we often

(39:09):
will say that and I'll do our little brainstorming and
we're like, you know, we got to do something. But
I really like your idea at the holiday time. That's perfect.

Speaker 3 (39:18):
Has anyone ever reached out to you asking if you
would teach them how to cook one or one?

Speaker 1 (39:24):
Yes? And you know it's interesting because I used to
teach right here in my kitchen, you know. And I've
always done this for free, and that's why I did
YouTube as opposed to doing some type of you know,
course that you had to pay for, because I wanted
to make the entry point to all of this accessible
to everyone. If you can afford one of the higher

(39:44):
press cooking classes, that's great, But I never wanted the
cost of a class to prevent people from learning how
to make traditional food. So I was teaching this in
my kitchen going back years ago, you know, especially you know,
as an older mom having a younger mom social circle,
and Sally's book came out and they wanted to know
how to make these things. My mother had taught me

(40:06):
how to make all this stuff, although things like kombucha
were new to me. My father wasn't making kompotcha, but
my mother made a lot of unusual things. But I
think if my father saw us goby, he would have
drew the line at that and said that thing needs
to be thrown out.

Speaker 3 (40:23):
I don't know what you're attempting, woman, but don't attempt
it in his house.

Speaker 1 (40:26):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah, because he used to laugh. But
we get a kick out of us because we would
be like doing things with yogurt and stuff, and he'd say,
shouldn't you put that in the refrigerator and my mother
would be like, oh no, it's already gone, band and
you're eating it, you know, meeting culture, you know, but
than any of it. So I was teaching, yes, for

(40:48):
many years, right here in my kitchen, just for free.
But once I went on YouTube, and all of my girlfriends,
you know, had grown their kids, you know, we're off
to college and whatnot. And so once I went on YouTube,
then I wasn't teaching in my kitchen anymore. I was
just doing the YouTube videos. But every once in a
while it's very cute because I get these questions from people,

(41:10):
but they don't live in my town, and you know,
they might live where you are, you know, or somewhere else,
and they'll say, oh, do you offer you know how
you see these people have these like vacation destination cooking things,
and I just think that's hysterical gause. They're like, oh,
we can come to the hill country for a week

(41:32):
and we'll come to your kitchen and we'll learn how
to cook. You never know. I'd never like to say never,
you never.

Speaker 3 (41:38):
Know, have you ever thought about maybe having a contest
and whoever is chosen, you could collaborate with them, let's
say via zoom record it and then teach them how
to cook and other things, and then have your followers
watch the progress.

Speaker 1 (41:53):
Oh that's a good idea. That would be a lot
of fun. I had never thought of that. That would
be a lot of fun.

Speaker 3 (41:58):
Well, maybe the result of the final Marry class that
you could do it as a YouTube live or something
that we kind of Yeah.

Speaker 1 (42:05):
Yeah, yeah, boy. I did a live once that I
had to do when my cookbook was coming out and
the Random House has a relationship with Like, oh, I
forget what it's shop Talk live. I think it is
shop Talk live and you have to be cooking and

(42:25):
talking and selling your book. Yeah. I was like just rattling,
just going, going, going. I was so nervous, and it
was funny because I almost forgot to do one thing
and then like the comments are rolling and so you're

(42:47):
trying to look at the laptop and answer the questions
and this, and I was getting so involved as what
I was doing and I almost forgot to do one thing,
and apparently people in the comments, but I didn't see
it because my comments like got jammed up and stopped,
but they were screaming, don't forget the cabbage leaf. But
thank god, at the last minute I remembered it. But

(43:10):
that was so's Oh it was a comedy show. But
people were like, oh, you did great.

Speaker 3 (43:15):
It was funny. Was it the Lusio ball ethel mermon
with the chocolate the conveyor belt.

Speaker 1 (43:21):
Yes, yeah, that's how I felt because I was trying
to I was making live, I was doing so I
think I was doing sour krab and, so I'm chopping lead.
I got to remember the core, and you're trying to
cut that big head of cabbage, which I usually don't
do these things on camera. I'm a small person. And
he'll like her and get cutting out the core and

(43:46):
grat and everything, and oh my gosh, and then getting
it in the jar and did I get the brine
and the salt and the water. And you only have
so much time because the show is supposed to maybe
go like an hour, and I'm not noted for my brethty,

(44:07):
so I'm like trying to talk past and get the
food in the jar. It was funny.

Speaker 3 (44:12):
Have you ever thought about creating another cookbook featuring just
desserts and calling it Mom's Holiday Time Cooking.

Speaker 1 (44:18):
Oh, I think that would be wonderful. From your Lips
to God's Ears, Yes, I think that would be a
wonderful book. Yes.

Speaker 3 (44:26):
Did reading doctor William Davis's book Super Got change your
way of thinking of yogurt fermented foods and well fermented
foods in general, or how to prepare them?

Speaker 1 (44:38):
Oh my gosh, that was amazing. When I came across
his video, I did not know who he was, and
I did not know his book. And this is what's
so funny. I normally don't spend a lot of time
on Facebook. If I did, I would get nothing done.

(45:02):
But I have a Facebook group where I'll spend a
little time, you know, because it's nice. People can post
pictures of what they're doing, and then I can help
them and we all interact, and that's very nice. Then
I have the main page, Mary's an ass Show, and
then do that. People can join the group. But I
also have just a personal page, you know, just that's

(45:25):
our all of we all have, you know, when you
go on Facebook with your regular name and all of that.
And I was over there and I was sharing something
that I had done. Usually I use those pages to
share what I've done on YouTube. I'm sure it's buried,
but I do it anyways. But you know how the

(45:48):
Facebook scrolls and all. And I saw this man talking
and I because it had like the closed caption, you
know how Facebook can have videos and what. And I
see that man talking about good gut health. So I'm like, oh,
I got to watch this. So I turn up the
volume and I'm listening to this doctor and he's blowing

(46:13):
my mind with what he's talking about. I had never
heard of And you have to excuse me if I
don't get the production. I know everybody pronounces this a
little differently, but el RUDERI I had never heard of
this good bacteria. I had never heard of making it. Technically,
he was explaining, you can't call it yogurt because here
in the United States, the USDA has certain rules and

(46:35):
regulations as to what bacteria needs to be used to
make yogurt. But whatever the case may be, it was
a cultured dairy. This is right up my alley. I'm like,
this man is fascinating, but he blew my mind when
he said, and you culture it for thirty six hours
I'm like, what, So I watched that, but it was

(46:55):
just a short, relatively short clip. So I go over
to YouTube and I doctor Davis and all these videos
come up about making l Rudera yogurt, and I was
so impressed, and so I said, okay, I got to
track down these tablets. I have to try making this myself.

(47:16):
And I am so impressed at what a amazing quality
product it makes. There is a learning curve, and the
first batch does come kind of a little kurdled, but
he explains all of this right away. I'm like ordering
his book. You know, I'd become like a super fan.

(47:38):
I'm like binge watching any video I can find where
he's talking about this. I order his book and I'm kay,
I'm a super fan, and I get the tablets. I
get the half and half I'm making the l Ruderai.
I said, oh my gosh, I got to share this
with my people, and I go through the whole process

(47:59):
showing I don't panic. The first batch is a little kurdled,
the second batch is going to be better, and the
third batch is even going to be better than that.
And I found this fascinating and I wanted to make
this and I wanted to eat this because he talked
about how we used to human beings, used to have

(48:21):
so much more el ruderie, good bacteria in our gut,
and now we have a lot less. And he's a
medical doctor and a researcher, you know, so this isn't
just some guy on the street saying this stuff. He's
highly qualified, and he was talking about him and his
researchers and how l Ruderi is like sometimes they'll call

(48:43):
it the love bacteria, because it's the bacteria that helps
create a lot of oxytocin. Is that the right word.
I think that is like what a mother has with
her baby, or and a husband and wife, you know,
hug a lot or whatever. You make a lot of

(49:04):
this particular hormone in your body. But l Ruderi also
helps with this, and so it can help you sleep better.
And so I just surmised from what he was saying, Gosh,
you know, sometimes it seems like people are really rough
with one another today. Maybe we don't have enough l Ruderi.
Maybe if we have more l Ruderi in our gut

(49:27):
in good bacteria, maybe we'll be a little more loving
and kind to each other. So but I'm very impressed
with him, and I think his book Super Gut. I
highly recommend it. It's such an excellent read. And he
has all kinds of recommendations of different types of good

(49:48):
bacteria and different types of culture dairy that you can
make if you have various digestive issues. I'm very lucky
I don't have any of those things, lactose intolerance or
something that people call is it cbosibo. It's some sort
of digestive disorder that can cause a lot of health problems,

(50:12):
and he has recipes for that, and I think he's
really doing a lot of good, a lot of good
for people, and he's reawakening a desire in people to
wanting to learn how to make their own culture dairy,
and that's always a good thing.

Speaker 3 (50:26):
I know. The last time we talked, you talked about
wasting food in this country, and you sent me a
link of a TV affiliate down there in Texas that
did a story on you and you mentioned are wasteful ways.
I think it was forty percent you had read.

Speaker 1 (50:41):
Yeah, something like that. It's just it's shocking to me,
and it's such a foreign concept because my parents both
lived through the Great Depression, of the nineteen thirties and
then all the shortages of World War two and even
going into the seventies. You know, stat plati and behive

(51:02):
grocery prices and so on and so forth. But I
think for people who lived through the Great Depression, you
can't waste. There's no such thing as a waste, you know.
My mother, I often tell people could make a meal
out of scraps and nobody would know it was scraps.
Everything was delicious, And that really was passed on to me.

(51:28):
Don't waste, you know, you get your scrap bag, you
put your scraps in there. You use that when you
take the chicken carcass and you make you know, my
mother didn't use the term necessarily bone broth. That's kind
of a modern term. But you we're making broth from bones,
or you're making stock, whatever the case may be. And
we had a little choke. We used to refer to

(51:50):
my mother as the blender magic Lady because she was
it was great at putting a lot of things in
the blender that no one knew what was going going
into that blender, and she was turning it into a
cream soup, you know, or a puree you know, and
then I remember my father. He's like, my mother made

(52:11):
something in that she had some leftover as at the blender,
but prunes went in there, and then she was like, oh,
I've got this amazing prune whip dessert. And my father said,
I draw the line at prune's but I always remember
her prune whip dessert, you know. But I think that

(52:32):
the more you practice making traditional foods, anytime you go
to toss something in the garbage, you look at it different,
in a different light, And especially when foods are very expensive,
or if you've grown those foods in your kitchen garden.
Before you throw something out, you look at it very
carefully and you're like, Okay, what can I do with this?

(52:54):
You know, do I really need to put this in
the garbage or the compost?

Speaker 3 (52:57):
You know?

Speaker 1 (52:57):
Can I do something with this? And I think that
all of us need to really look at our food.
We also need to recognize, you know, I often talk
about this. I'm not a fan of these formal meal
plans because people will rent these meal plans out and
then you know where someone's telling you what to make

(53:17):
every night of the week, and you go to the
grocery store and you buy all these things and then life,
as they say, gets in the way and you don't
get a chance to make it or whatever the case,
and then a week or two down the road, the
foods are rotting.

Speaker 3 (53:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (53:32):
I had a girlfriend who used to say, well, I
would just put the water on a high blast, I'd
put the garbage disposal on and I would just start
throwing it in the sink. This is why forty percent
of our groceries are wasted, you know. So I'm not
a huge fan of that. I always say to people,

(53:53):
just shot your pantry. And you know, I often use
the term four corners pantry. The working pantry where you
have your non perishable is your fridge, your freezer, and
then your extended pantry where you put things when you
find them on sale and stuff that you then refurbish
your working pantry with when things run low. Look at
what you have, and I always believe in once a

(54:16):
week you have your clean out the crisper soup and
you look at what's getting a little past its prime
and in your crisper, but nobody's going to notice if
you turn it into a soup. And then also have
a clean out the fridge or freezer meal where you
look and you see what's in your refrigerator that can't

(54:37):
necessarily be turned into a soup, but you should try
to reinvent it into some sort of meal. And what's
in your freezer that's getting close to freezer burn that
you need to really turn into something And I think
that's a better way to meal plan. You can start with,
like depending on what your household structure is like, you

(55:00):
can start with you know what I call like the
star of the show meal on Sunday if you're one
to make a big Sunday dinner, but it doesn't have
to be. I was single for a very long time
and I wasn't necessarily making something like that to feed
a family. You can start very small. But I would

(55:21):
roast a chicken on Sunday, and then I would have
the chicken meat, and I would have the chicken bones,
and I would make some broth and I could use
some of the leftovers to make soup. I also could
use some of the if I had some nice chicken
meat leftover. And this is when I was cooking for
my family. You know, here in Texas, tacos are so popular,

(55:43):
and I could do like chicken tacos or something like that.
And then I would, you know, as the week was
winding down, Okay, how's the crisper looking. Okay, let's do
a soup, you know, and especially if people like to
do whatever the case may be, meatless money or fish
on Friday, which can also just be like a meatless Friday,

(56:05):
that's a great time, you know, to do these clean
out the crisper soups. And then you know, on Thursday,
maybe food's getting a little low. If you've done like
a Star of the show meal on a Sunday, what
do you have in your fridge? You can even make something.
And even when you're tired. There have been times when
you know, I have a loaf of bread maybe it's
you know, gonna start getting a little stale or whatever,

(56:27):
and I've got some cold cuts. You put together a
little i think today the hip term they call them boards,
but you know, just like a chikotaie platter, you know,
and it's easy for you. No one's going to walk
away from the table hungry, and you're gonna make use
of stuff so that you don't open that bin where
you keep cold cuts and cheeses. Two months from now,

(56:49):
and everything's brown or starting to go moldy. You know,
this is why we have a lot of waste, because
I think people don't do like an inventory, so to speak.
Even if you're not in the formal inventory. Just look around.
What's in your fridge, you know, what's going bad? You know?
Or those beans in your pantry, how old are they?
You got to just soak them. You don't have to

(57:12):
do any work, just soak them overnight.

Speaker 3 (57:14):
What did Mama think about the YouTube channel?

Speaker 1 (57:16):
Oh, my gosh, you know, it was very funny when
I told her, I said, oh, I put these videos
on YouTube, and I'm teaching people how to cook the
way you taught me how to cook. And that made
her so happy and also too, I would read the

(57:38):
cookbook to her because I talk a lot about her
in the cookbook, and she just was so happy because
she's like, people are interested. And I'd be like, yeah,
people are interested. They want to know about these things,
you know. She's like, Wow, it's amazing. She was just
totally blown away by the Internet and cell phones and

(58:02):
the iPad, you know, all of it, and the fact
that she'd be like, my daughter is on the internet. Yeah,
and shows very cute. She was really really how she
felt very proud, and not just proud because I was
on the internet, but proud because I was teaching people
what she taught.

Speaker 3 (58:20):
Me, my daughter the influencer.

Speaker 1 (58:22):
No, that's funny.

Speaker 3 (58:26):
And finally, Mary, did you ever think in your wildest
dreams you would have this kind of following on YouTube?

Speaker 1 (58:33):
I really didn't. It's funny. When I first started, the
way I would teach how to make traditional foods in
my kitchen was basically a fifteen week I think it
was about fifteen week class, and I would start with
showing people how to roast a chicken, and then we'd
make chicken bone broth. Then we'd get some beef bones,

(58:54):
we'd make beef bone broth, then we'd cultured airy. We
would just work through. When Ted and Ben encouraged me,
my husband and son, to create the YouTube channel, I said, okay,
I shared this at the end of the pasture. I
had to google how do you make a YouTube video?
Before I even did anything.

Speaker 3 (59:16):
And.

Speaker 1 (59:18):
I said, okay, I am going to put these fifteen
classes on YouTube, and this will be very nice for
people who, as I mentioned earlier, may not be able
to afford to buy you know, masterclasses and things like that.
Not that I'm in that category, but at least I'm

(59:39):
a home cook doing the best I can. You know. Well,
here I do these fifteen classes. And the response shocked me.
And I was just getting a hundred subscribers to a
hundred subscribers. Hundred subscribers, you know, it was just snowboiling,

(01:00:02):
and I was like, oh my gosh, there really is.
You know, I'm very niched. I teach very detailed just
traditional foods, you know, stocking the pantry, you know, and
making these traditional foods, also home panning. You know, it's
a real niche. And I'm an older lady. And yet

(01:00:24):
the outpouring of interest. I was just shocked. And I said,
oh my gosh, people are hungry to learn this stuff,
and so it's a little bit of a pun hungry
to learn them. But that's all I said. I was
just shocked, and so I said, well, people want this,

(01:00:45):
people need this, and they want more than just these
fifteen lessons. They want me to expand on this subject
and they want me to show them how to use
these foods to make a meal. And it was cute
because then and the pandemic hit I was inundated with

(01:01:05):
emails of people saying, Oh, my gosh, I only have
a week's worth of food. How do you stock a pantry?
And that's how we started the whole series of how
to Stock a Pantry? You know, It's funny. I view
my viewers as the influencers because they influenced me as
to the path that I follow in terms of, you know,

(01:01:28):
what videos make, because it's all about the viewer, you know,
I'm here for them. So I was really I was
really taken aback by how many people wanted to learn
how to do these things. And we're so interested in
long form content, and we're interested in step by step,
and we're interested in communicating with me, either through comments

(01:01:50):
or emails, and it just had warmed my heart and
I to this day every time I get a new
subscriber who leaves me a comment and says, well, you two,
just put you into my you know whatever, the homepage
whatever they call that. And I see this lady and
she say it, oh, how to make X and such.

(01:02:12):
I think I need to learn that. And then I
click on your video and next thing I know, it's
three o'clock in the afternoon and I've been binge watching
you and then I'm to tell you something funny. This
is totally out the subject, but I do find it's
very cute that I have viewers, and this makes me

(01:02:34):
extremely happy because the way I'm teaching, and I'm teaching
very detailed, and I go slow and I talk a lot,
but people say, oh, I like your teaching style because
you're calm and you not monotone, but that you're calm,
and you tell us, don't worry. If you don't have this,
you can use that. If you don't have that, you

(01:02:55):
can use this. There's a lot of substitution where home cooks.
It doesn't need to be I have viewers who have
been with me almost from the beginning who say, ma'am,
you're just the nicest lady, which that always makes me
feel very happy, because I do try to model after
my mom and be a loving and kind person, but
I'm not always perfect at it. But they will say, ma'am,

(01:03:19):
I really don't cook, and it's not something right now
in my life that I'm particularly interested in. But I
am a terrible insomniac. But you have a very soothing voice,
so I put you on my phone at night and
you put me to sleep. Now, please do not take

(01:03:42):
this that you're boring, but it really helped me, and
I want to thank you for that. You never know
who's watching you, and you never know how you help it. None.

Speaker 3 (01:03:55):
I don't know what it's called AMSR. You're the cooking AMSR.

Speaker 1 (01:03:58):
Yes, isn't that funny? I didn't know what that was.
I had to actually ask my son because people would
put that in the comments and other people. You know,
Bob Ross the painter from PBS, I get a lot
of that. I get a lot of your the Bob
Ross of cooking. That is a good company to be

(01:04:19):
and Mary, that is one of the best compliments I've
ever seen. Forget those plaques. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:04:26):
And there's your little slogan there on the other apron,
you know, the Bob Ross of Cooking.

Speaker 1 (01:04:30):
Yeah, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:04:32):
I can totally see PBS reaching out to you and saying,
we want to do a cartoon animation and we'll call
it Mary's Nest Egg or whatever. Is a character based
off of you and your features and look, and you're cooking,
and you're cooking for children, and you're teaching children how
to cook.

Speaker 1 (01:04:48):
Oh my gosh, I can't believe you said that. That
would be fantastic, wouldn't it. And I could even see myself,
like with my voice, even if I were and presented
as a human, but as like a mother hen right.

Speaker 3 (01:05:06):
Oh God, that's better, isn't it?

Speaker 1 (01:05:08):
Right?

Speaker 3 (01:05:08):
Cooking life lessons with the apron.

Speaker 1 (01:05:11):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (01:05:11):
Absolutely, with the apron.

Speaker 1 (01:05:12):
You know, like remember the book The Little Red hen right,
So like the mother hen you know, So that would
really be something. And you're not going to believe this,
but you know what I did. After my book came out,
a lot of parents were saying, I'm learning this from you,
and I want my kids to learn, So can you

(01:05:35):
give me any tips you know on how to get
started and how to teach the kids and what should
I be doing and so on and so forth. So
I thought, wow, this is a like an entree or
something to do another project. So I said, I'm going
to create a curriculum totally free. You can go to

(01:05:57):
my website, you can download it, have to put in
an email. I don't want to make it difficult for people.
I want them to just boom hop over to Mary's
Nest and click the link and download this program so
that you can teach your children or your grandchildren, whomever.
So I started developing a curriculum to teach children in

(01:06:20):
grades K through twelve. But I wanted it to be
really good. So I worked with this lady, a lovely lady.
Her name's Jamie O'Hara, and she is a professional curriculum developer.
And she said, I can really help you make this,

(01:06:42):
you know, because I have basics on what to do,
but people who do this for a living they know
exactly how it has to be, step by step. And
she said, well, do K through fourth grade, fifth through
a middle school, and then nine through twelve, and we'll

(01:07:03):
take each chapter in your book and we'll create a
lesson plan for each of those grade bands, so to speak.
And so we work together and we created something you're
not going to believe it. It's over two hundred and

(01:07:24):
fifty pages long, and I give it completely free because
I am passionate about this and if people want to
teach their kids, I want to make sure they have
everything they need. And I even gave a presentation at
our local library to a group of moms who have

(01:07:45):
my cookbook. And my local library even carries my cookbook too,
so as to many libraries. So even if people are
not in a particular financial situation to buy my cookbook,
they can check it out at the library and then
they can download this curriculum totally free. They want, they
can get fancy and printed out, but they can also

(01:08:06):
just have it right on their computer. And it's great.
It's got activities and book recommendations and how to learn.
Oh gosh, I just love it. I'm so proud of it.
I gave a presentation at our local community library and
I showed the kids how to make butter, because I

(01:08:27):
remembered when I was in second grade, my teacher showed
us how to make butter, and I remembered that to
this day, and I said, I'm going to teach these
kids how to make butter. And so I gave a
little presentation, talked to the parents about the curriculum, and
the kids are very polite, you know, and they're listening
and all. And then the librarian helped and she had

(01:08:50):
little bottles and we had the cream, and she brought
some bread, and we gave each kid a bottle and
they shook and shook, they shook to their hearts and
it eventually turns into butter. They can't believe it that
they took a liquid they turned it into butter, and
then we gave them plastic knives and they smeared it

(01:09:12):
on the or as a good New Yorker, i should say,
shmered it. Shmered it right odd the bread and they're
eating and they're like, oh my gosh, this is so good,
Miss Mary. And one little girl, she must have been
about seven years old, she comes up to me and

(01:09:32):
she says, Miss Mary, this was the best time I've
ever had in all my life.

Speaker 3 (01:09:40):
All seven years, all seven years.

Speaker 1 (01:09:45):
But this is the type of thing that I love children.
You know, today with cell phones and all, you can
really see when kids get into middle school, they just
look so bored and it really kind of saddens me.
And I want to see kids really excited about learning.

(01:10:06):
And it's funny because Benjamin and I were just talking
about this and he went to high school without a
cell phone. And he's not that old, he's only twenty five,
and he went to high school without a cell phone,
and he didn't get a cell phone until he was
in tenth grade and he was turning sixteen. The game

(01:10:27):
the cell phone, but it was very cute because the
very first parent teacher meeting we went to, the teacher
said to us, thank you so much because he is
the only one I don't have to say to put
your cell phone away, And she said, and he's so enthusiastic. Yeah,
he didn't have a cell phone. Yeah, what's my Chris

(01:10:49):
in his hand? Let me talk, you know. But I
really want to see children become enthusiastic about learning, and
I want them to have activities because you can learn
in this lesson plan, and you can do this through
cooking and through food. We teach math, we teach science,
we teach history, we teach so many things geography, you know,

(01:11:13):
because a lot of the foods that I talk about
and make come from traditional cultures from all over the world.
And to see children take something and turn it into
something else and then eat it, you know, they were
just so excited. I'd love to see schools bring back.
Maybe I sound a little old fashioned, but you know,

(01:11:34):
you can really learn a lot through home economics, and
you can hopefully encourage people to get back into the
kitchen and to develop a love of learning and get
excited about learning, and that we can instill in our
children skills. These skills are going to ask them a lifetime.
No matter what you do in life, if you know

(01:11:55):
how to roast a chicken, you're never going to go hungry.

Speaker 3 (01:11:58):
Mary, thank you so much for coming back on the podcast,
and as always for sharing such wonderful story.

Speaker 1 (01:12:03):
Oh, thank you, You're so kind. You know, I have
one thing. I know your viewers may not be able
to see this, but you might be able to post
a picture later. I wanted to share a little something
with you because you had mentioned about Mother's Day and
I just I don't know if you can see this.
It's a little wooden heart and it has three people

(01:12:26):
and then a dog here. This was a gift that
my son made for me when he was a little boy.
So it's Mom, Dad Ben, and at the time the
dog we had was Popo, was a Boston Terrier rescue.

Speaker 3 (01:12:42):
That's better than any YouTube pluque.

Speaker 1 (01:12:45):
Isn't it. That's why I wanted to show it to you,
because this I have in my kitchen along with I
also have this too. I love mom. These are the
things he used to make for me for Mother's Day
and this is what matters to me, and I'm so
happy to be on YouTube because I can teach people.

(01:13:06):
The plaques are very nice, and that's you know, it's
a reinforcement. Okay, you did something good. That's very nice.
But it's these things that are what matther. And this
is what I always have in my kitchen on my
kitchen shelves. But I decided to share that with you
because you had mentioned in your title about Mother's Day.

Speaker 3 (01:13:27):
In reality, every day is Mother's Day, isn't it.

Speaker 1 (01:13:30):
That's very true. And you know, I missed my mom
so much, but I know she's in heaven watching over me.
And it was very cute. I'm Catholic. And when after
the funeral, you know, because she passed awake very close
to Christmas, and it was hard, you know, the first
Christmas and I came out of Mass and we have

(01:13:52):
a very nice priest, and it was cute because I
said to him, oh, you know, I missed my mom,
and he said, help take salace in knowing that she's
celebrating Christmas with the angels. And I could really see that.
I can really see that. So yes, it's very special

(01:14:12):
to be a mom. I'm glad I have been, and
I'm glad I had a wonderful mom, and hopefully Benjamin
feels that. He often tells me that I've been a
good mom, and I hope so I strive to be.

Speaker 3 (01:14:30):
I think you've made it.

Speaker 1 (01:14:31):
Oh, thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:14:36):
The Good Foods podcast is for entertainment purposes only. The claims, comments, opinions,
or information heard should never be used in place of
your medical provider's advice or your doctor's direction. Thank you
for listening, Follow us on social media and wherever you
get your podcasts. Good health through good food, Good Foods,
Grocery