Wrapping Up Season 1 and Planning For Big Things

It's been 48 weeks of the Sip and Feast podcast and we couldn't be more grateful to those who tuned in to listen over the past 11 months! During this time we learned much about our audience and will use our time between Seasons 1 and 2 to continue to learn and pave the way for new and exciting things. Watch on YouTube https://youtu.be/nAhtYo-de-w What we know (and don't know) Through every channel possible (email, the website, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube) we've heard a resounding message: our audience wants a Sip and Feast cookbook! So it's time for us to shift our focus a bit to help make that possible. This is what we know, but there is a lot we don't know, and that's where we'll need your help. Over the next week we will distribute a very brief survey to all those who have subscribed to our email list. If you're not yet on our list, be sure to subscribe today. The survey will include questions regarding cookbook content, the podcast, and other offerings you may want to receive from us. We encourage your participation as you will be playing an active role in driving the future of Sip and Feast! A moment of gratitude As of today, the Sip and Feast podcast is ranked #59 on the iTunes list for Food Podcasts, and we couldn't be more grateful to be in the Top 100. Thank you for all your support throughout our fledgling season; your questions, comments, and engagement are appreciated more than you know! We'll communicate any and all updates regarding Season 2 via our email list and social media, so stay tuned. If you enjoyed the Season 1 Finale Episode, leave us a comment below and let us know!   We love your questions.  Please send them to [e-mail] (remove the 11111 for our contact).  We'll get to them in Season 2! If you enjoy our weekly podcast, support us on Patreon and you will get 2 more bonus episodes each month! Thanks for listening! For a complete list of all podcast episodes, visit our podcast episode page.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
- Welcome back to the Sip

(00:01):
and Feast podcast, episode number 48.
Some big news today. Reallybig news, right? Tara
- . Yes.
- It's not a goodbye,
I just wanna tell youthat right off the bat.
Okay? But season one of thispodcast, which has gone on,
if you include today, for 48weeks, is coming to an end,

(00:21):
Tara, she does such a great job of always
writing all these notes down that a lot
of this podcast is done by her.
Like a lot of the work, thebehind the scenes stuff,
coming up with the ideas,coming up with the topics, um,
a lot of this is Tara.
It it, it truly is.
And once again, Tara wroteup all this right here.

(00:44):
Uh, I asked her, you, I askedher if you wanna read it.
You want me to read it though, right?
Well, I think well, we'llexpand upon it. Yeah.
- Yeah. I mean,- We'll ex of course.
We'll, we'll, we'll, we'll,we'll espouse, right?
Is it espouse? Is that aword? It smells .
God, this was, this was like the downfall.
Always my trying to comeup with these words.
I make up words all the time.
Like you do moisture . Okay.
- You're good at it? I

(01:06):
- Do.
Yeah. Um, alright, so again,this is the final episode
of this season.
Think of this as season one.
I mean, spring, right now we'refilming this spring summer's
coming up, so we're gonna be going
away a few times this year.
You are gonna be going awayprobably a few times this year,
and honestly, it's probablythe best spot for us

(01:26):
to take a pause. Mm-Hmm. .
- Yeah, definitely. And Ithink, you know, I think we,
we kind of need to take apause right now with some
of the things that we've got going on,
which I know you're gonna touch on. Yes.
- Yeah. Again, we're takingthis pause to kind of refocus,
redouble our efforts onto whatis the most important things.
Like what are the mostimportant things, not

(01:48):
for us, but for you.
And you might be saying, Jim,
this is the most important thing for me.
That's why I'm listening to you.
That's why I'm watching, youknow, you on, on, on, you know,
every week on this podcast.
That might be so, butI doubt it. I doubt it.
I think, you know, usfrom our other endeavors,
I think you know itfrom the cooking videos,

(02:09):
you know it from our recipeson the website, et cetera.
Like, this is not the firstthing you found us on.
This is probably you're like,oh, they have a podcast also.
Mm-Hmm. .One thing we keep hearing,
and this is via emailpredominantly, um, a lot of you like
to communicate through email with us back

(02:30):
and forth, you know, whenlike young, younger people,
I think Gen Z specifically,but also millennial,
because we're not millennial.
I'm Gen X I'm verydistinguished Gen X individual.
Um, but they, younger millennials
and Gen Z will alwayssay email is worthless
and it's going away.
That is 100 and 100000000000% untrue.

(02:54):
It will never go away.
It's just, it's one of the mostintimate ways to communicate
for us to communicate with you.
But for you to communicatewith us, we get often the best,
uh, contact, best relationship,
best discussion through email.
So through email is where a lot
of you have cons have,

(03:15):
have continuously askedabout the cookbook. Mm-Hmm.
- . That's right.- So Tara
reads the emails more than I do.
- Yeah. And it's not just via email.
We continue to get messages on social,
so on Facebook Messenger, um,
and especially on the website.

(03:36):
So if you were to read
through some comment on different recipes,
people are not even commentingon the recipe itself.
They're just saying,where's that cookbook? Yeah.
You talked about, uh, two years ago.
Um, so with the combinationof email, social,
and what's the other one I'm missing?

(03:57):
- Um, well, nobody calls uson the phone. Um,
- email, social onthe website. That's it. Yeah.
- Website. - Um, it seemslike the cookbook is something
that people want, andpeople have been asking
for the cookbook for years now,
and it's something that Iknow we've talked about on the
podcast before, someof the, the challenges

(04:19):
with doing the cookbook,but it's becoming more
and more clear to us that it'ssomething that we have to do
for our audience.
Yeah. And it's somethingthat we want to do,
but it's something thatwill take a lot of time
and will take a lot ofresources. And that's why,
- Well, why don't you go into that?
How much, how much time does an episode

(04:41):
of this take per week for us?
Conservatively, I don't even edit this.
My, my editor edits this for me.
I mean, which would add more
to the time? Probablyabout, probably about 10.
- It's about 10 hours, I would say at
at least a full day. Yeah.
- And we were additional, uh,initially I was marketing it,
I was trying, I was,this is why, if you're,

(05:01):
if you are watching mewatching us right now,
there's three cameras here.
We were, I had everyintention of creating clips
and then putting thoseclips on, say, Instagram
or YouTube shorts.
Uh, TikTok though. tiktoks getting banned.
Thank God, I'm happy about that. You know?
Um, but all of those were more,it was more time consuming

(05:23):
to do it, and I almost feltthe pressure to do that.
So it was just getting tothe point where it was a lot
of effort for not as much,I don't wanna say reward.
That's not the right way tolook at it. Reward for you.
So as many of you who are listening
and watching this right now,there are way more of you
who aren't, who are stillwaiting for that cookbook.

(05:45):
Mm-Hmm. .So the cookbook is going
to be a big endeavor,
but it is probably the singlemost important thing I can do.
And I almost look at it aslike volume one of maybe five
or 10 to come, because I probablydo have five or 10 in me.
And especially as I think I move on to
that next stage in my life, I,

(06:07):
I could see myself really doing it.
Again, this isn't over for this podcast.
I wanted to do this initiallyto be able to have a venue
to really speak to you.
I, I thought it was probably,
it's probably the most intimateof all ways I can do it,
especially me, because I'm not a writer.
I can't, I just, I can't write well,
but I, you know, I'm betterat speaking like this.

(06:28):
But ultimately it was just, I,
I ha I have to make a decision.
And we both came tothis decision together.
It wasn't like one of uswas like, we must like, we,
we've just gotta keep doing this,
and then we could put the cookbook off.
We both kind of realizedthe cookbook needs
to take number one priority.
- Yeah. At this point in time.
That's, that's what we're,that's what we're hearing from

(06:52):
our audience, which isincludes the podcast audience,
but includes all of ouremail subscribers, the folks
that visit our websiteand those who subscribe
and watch the YouTube videoson the main YouTube channel.
- The podcast audience is,might be a little bit different.
You know, I, I don't know.

(07:13):
I would just say I'm probablywatching the cookie videos and
because of this, if, if,if we do stop this for now,
it might be able to getus, we might be able
to get a couple more cookingvideos out per month,
which I think is, I thinkit's extremely important.
You know, we have up,
we have almost 500 recipes on our website,

(07:33):
and we have 270 YouTube cooking videos.
I would like it to bealmost all of them to all
of those recipes to be in video form,
because a lot of people just don't,
they don't learn any other way.
Now it's just video. And youknow, how I feel about long,
long form video is for,is for the instructions.
Short term. Short termvideo is not instructional.

(07:54):
I actually ju just realized this now.
It's actually more promotional.
So that's kind of wherewe're at with that.
Um, we do really
want your opinion though, on this.
So going back to that emailthing, if you're not subscribed
to our email list, I recommend you do.
Uh, it's where we can communicate

(08:15):
with you about the upcomingbook and other things.
But also we're gonna sendout a survey very soon,
probably a few days after this airs.
And we're gonna actuallynot, we're not going
to project.
Okay. We're gonna see what yousay. Mm-Hmm. .
And that's gonna actually lead the next,

(08:38):
you know, the choices we make.
See, when I, when I started this podcast,
initially I was like, oh, peoplewanna hear me do a podcast,
but I didn't survey you.
Mm-Hmm. ,right, Tyler, I didn't survey
our existing audience.
And it just, you know,people think like, oh,
I'm gonna get the same peoplethat watch my cooking videos.

(08:58):
It doesn't work that way.A podcast listener is a
very unique listener.
Mm-Hmm. podcastrelationship is very much a
parasocial relationship.
Like, I engage in that withpodcasts. I listen to Mm-Hmm.
like, I think,like I know the person
and of course I want youto think you know me,
but this is not exactly me.
This is podcast me. Mm-Hmm. .

(09:19):
You know, and it's just,it was a lot of that
where I thought like, Hey, you know,
people know me on the cooking videos.
Mm-Hmm. , they're gonna all
wanna hear me talk longer. Yeah.
- But well,- That's,
- That's not, that's clearly not the case.
Yeah. If you look at thesubscriber count on our YouTube
channel, it's approaching 830,000 Yeah.

(09:41):
Subscribers and the folks wholisten to us on the podcast,
it's a lot less, it's
- A, it's considerably,- Considerably less,
- Less than like, God, I don'teven know what the math is.
- It's very small. Butthat doesn't, I say that,
but that doesn't diminishthe way we feel about each
and every one of you who are listening.
- We put our best effortinto it every week.
And again, this isn't,it's not over here we're,

(10:03):
we really have to, I couldsee us if we get, make a lot
of progress on the book comingback to the podcast quicker.
Yeah. I could see us potentially,
and this is what we want to know from you.
I could see us stoppingthe video format here
because I, I would go out on a limb
and say, even of all of youwho do tune in on YouTube, most

(10:24):
of the time you probably haveyour phone down or you're not,
or you're cooking and you'renot paying attention to it.
That's what I do when Iturn on a YouTube podcast,
- To be honest.
I mean, the amount oftime it takes to prep
to get in front of the camera
and to edit it takes a lot of time.
Yes. If we were to justgo to an audio format,

(10:49):
it would be so much, um,I don't wanna say easier,
but there would be less involved with it.
Yeah. Um, so that, that'sdefinitely, that's gonna be one
of the questions we ask in the survey.
How do you prefer to consume podcasts?
Do you want to, do youlike the video format
or are you good with just audio?

(11:10):
Do you prefer once a week
or are you good with every other week?
We're trying to strike theright balance here to be able
to continue to give youthe best possible sip
and feast that we can give you.
Yeah. Um, with the resources that we have.
One thing I do want to kind of tease,
which we haven't talked aboutthis with any other audience,

(11:33):
but I wanna let the podcastaudience know we're working on
a free pizza ebook.
- Yeah. The pizza ebook.That's a good one.
- One's it's already in the works. Yeah.
We are working on it.
It's something that I'mhoping will be out within the
next couple of months.
Um, that's gonna be, we'regonna use that to kind
of test the waters with,with the cookbook too.

(11:55):
But that's gonna be ourbest pizza related recipes.
And again, that's gonna be free.
You'll be able to get it whenit comes onto the website
and be sure to, again, ifyou're not already subscribed
to email, subscribe, there's
- A million ways to subscribe.
It's just subscribe if, if youwant, maybe, maybe you're one
of the people who don't like email.

(12:16):
And so if that's the case,don't subscribe then.
- Or if you would do, andyou just wanna give us your
opinion on the survey, then subscribe,
wait for the survey to come out.
And then if you don't wannaget the emails from us,
you can unsubscribe,
unsubscribe after you've taken the survey.
- Still skin on my back.It costs a lot of money
to maintain the email listwith, um, the 65,000 people

(12:37):
that are on that list.
So, or you can just even giveus your thoughts on this,
what we're discussing right now.
- Yeah, I mean, I do think it's helpful
to get it in the surveyformat that That's right.
Because we are going to askspecific questions Yeah.
That we really do.
And the, the way that we're gathering all
of the data from thesurvey, it'll, it'll feed it

(12:57):
to us in a way that's helpful for us
to analyze and understand.
Yeah. Um, it's easier than, and,
- And even discussing thisright now about what my,
my general belief thatit's gonna say what I kind
of know already, it's notreally influencing you
because the amount that arelistening here is going to be

(13:20):
just a tiny portion of who,the people who get the email.
Mm-Hmm. . So it'snot, it's not really gonna,
it's not really gonnaskew the numbers too much.
Um, but, you know, maybe I willbe completely thrown off and
and wrong when we do bring backseason two of this podcast,
when we start up season two ofthis podcast, we are going to
thoroughly communicate that with you,

(13:41):
and I will communicate itthrough every venue that I have
to let you know that it's coming.
A again, I don't thinkit's going to be coming
until we make significantprogress on that cookbook.
Like, I want the cookbookto be fairly along,
and I am really glad thatwe stopped the idea of pub

(14:03):
of doing it with a publisher.
Uh, I I went into it in the past.
I will say simply again,a publisher is just,
I don't think in the year 2024,
I don't think it means anything.
I don't, you know, peoplesay, oh, well you want
to be published with aone of the big houses.
I don't care. I, I don't care.
All I care about isthat it's a good product

(14:24):
and that you like it.
I don't care if it says Simonand Schuster or Random House
or Joe Blow's publisher.
It's just, I want it to be a good product
for you. That's it. Mm-Hmm. .
- That's right. Yeah.
- And that would've justadded a ton more friction
to the progre process if we went
with a traditional publisher.
That's why we stopped.That's why we got scared off.

(14:46):
It was gonna be two years from
that initial stuff to the end game.
And I was just like, youknow, this is, that's insane.
It's gonna be 2027 whenit thing's out. Mm-Hmm.
that's like Stranger Things.
They're gonna be like 38 yearsold when they finally, uh,
when seasonfive finally comes out.
It's, it's ridiculous, you know? Yeah.
I wanna kind of wrap it up here.

(15:06):
I don't know what elseto say, but thank you.
Thank you for listening each week.
Thank you for coming here
and being part of this little community
that was different than the cooking videos
and different than a lotof the other stuff we did.
Uh, you probably noticedthat we got better at it
as time went on.

(15:27):
It was like, well, the,from the beginning episodes,
I was like, trying to makeit serious and then Yeah.
Now it's like, you know, like, it's
- More fun.
- It's, it is fun. It, it'sa fun thing. It's, it is.
Um, and don't let this deter you.
If you're thinking about doing a podcast,
you can throw your hat inthe ring with the other 19
and a half million podcasts inthe United States of America.

(15:48):
- Is that really how many? There are
- there, there's about that many.
It's, it's, it's, this is the thing.
There's no way, there's nobarriers to entry for a podcast.
The cooking videos have anatural barrier like wall
where people go, huh, I'm not doing that.
That sip and feast guycan keep doing that.
I'm, I'm not doing that. Butthe podcast, anybody can talk.
You don't, you don'tneed one of these mics.

(16:09):
You can just, uh, youcan just use your phone
and talk into it, record and post it.
And then you might become,you might become famous.
Tara, you wanna help me out here ?
- Yeah. W was that all you were gonna say?
- Yeah. I don't, I don'tknow what else to say here.
I mean Right. I'm not, no.

(16:29):
This is the thing I don't wanna make.
I'm not like, I don't wantthis to be like, oh God,
like the podcast industry is rough.
Like, no, like, this podcasthonestly did really well
for being 48 weeks, 47 weeks in it.
I don't know how muchbetter it could have done.
I mean, every week we were inthe top 100 of food podcasts.

(16:50):
Mm-Hmm. . Which, which I,
which I think is a prettygood accomplishment.
It's paradoxically it just,
the rankings will probablykeep improving when,
when , when, whenstop putting in episodes out,
because that's what happens.
Because it's like a long game. Mm-Hmm.
where peopledon't find you until months
later after you start.
But yeah, I mean, that's, Idon't wanna sound bitter at all

(17:11):
because I'm not, I actuallyenjoyed this process.
I learned a lot about how to, how
to produce another form ofcontent. Mm-Hmm. .
- Yeah. No, it was great.
And honestly, season onewas, it was so much fun.
It was kind of like, likeyou said in the beginning,
like we had our training wheel on,
and now we're kind ofcoasting and it's fun.
And at the same time, itdoes take, it takes energy

(17:34):
and it takes resources.
And that's why I feel likehitting pause right now
and ending the season is agood move for us and for you.
Yeah. Um, I do wanna saya special thank you to
those of you who have sentall of your questions in,

(17:55):
especially some of youregulars who send me emails
every week, sometimesmore frequently than that,
you've become a part of my life.
You've put a smile onmy face so many times.
So I'm so appreciative.
And, and I hope those emails keep up.

(18:16):
Um, even if it's just to, to tell me
how your kids are doing or, or whatever.
Yeah. Um, in the, inour off season, there's
- A lot of communicationopportunities that we have, again,
through, through that email where it's,
where it is a back and forth thing.
Um, that's the best place to, to write it.
I mean, you know, if you go into a recipe
and you write it in, ina recipe at the bottom,

(18:38):
it's not like, it, it's notnecessarily the best place.
This is what I'm sayingright now is absolutely.
I'm not trying to, I'm not trying
to force you in there at allthese taste tests that we do.
These are one of the thingsthat we did enjoy in some form.
They're probably gonnacontinue on our Patreon.
So again, not positive about it.
I, I don't think though that, I think

(19:01):
that would probably bethe most logical place
to put 'em if we, ifwe continue doing them.
- Yeah, I think so.
- We bought furniture for, in here.
We had two, two nicegreen cow, uh, chairs.
We had a new table, wasgonna paint the wall.
All of that was going to get done.
And then I said, you knowwhat, when we do come back
for season two, that'swhen you will see it.
Mm-Hmm. .That's right. That's that.

(19:22):
That's the most logical time to do it.
- Yeah. Yeah. 'cause thatalso is gonna take time. Yeah.
We're not, we're not gonna hire
someone to do it. You're gonna ,
- I wasn't gonna hire, I wasgonna do it myself. You're
- Gonna do all the work.
- Yeah. I used to do, I actuallydo that stuff for a living.
I used to, uh, work for,uh, a handyman type guy,
a carpenter in the stateof Minnesota, which, um,
which is a very differentjob than what I do now.

(19:44):
And I've always been into,uh, carpentry and painting
and just home improvement in general.
I, so right now, when I getto do an occasional thing,
I actually look at itas a form of therapy.
Mm-Hmm. , I kind of enjoy,
I do enjoy doing it though.
Like, don't, I can'ttake off for a month just
to put siding on my house or something.
Mm-Hmm. .That, that, that's not,

(20:06):
but I do like theselittle smaller jobs. Yeah.
- They're good. They're good. Yeah.
- Yeah. I was like decent at everything,
but not great at anything that,
that was kind of always my issue. Well,
- I think you sell yourself short there.
- Yeah. I think I told a story
where I really realized Ididn't wanna do it was, um,
we were at a house.
It was a big colonial andthey needed a piece of, uh,

(20:30):
on the gable, the moldingthey needed that replaced.
And it was probably like 45 feet high.
And I was just like, oh man.
The guy I worked for just had like,
his huge extension ladders.
I was like, this is just, this is
when you start to question things.
You know, when you're 45 feetup in the air looking down.
- You didn't, you have some, um,

(20:51):
like negative 30 degreeweather and you had mice.
- Yeah.- But at least I was, uh,
carcasses falling on your head too.
- At least I was on the ground. Yeah.
- . Yeah.- . So that that,
that didn't bother me.
Yeah. Yeah. All right. Soanything else before we wrap up?
Is there anything else here? No.
- No. I think, I think that's it.
Again, thank you forlistening to season one.

(21:13):
This has been so much fun.
It's been such a greatlearning experience for us,
and we are excited for
bringing more greatcontent your way. Yeah.
- It is all about you.
Ultimately, if, I think if therewas a lot more of you here,
we probably would not betaking a pause right now.

(21:35):
That doesn't mean we don'tappreciate every one of you
that did listen.
Mm-Hmm. . Butultimately it comes down to
what the majority want.
And I know, well, I don'tknow for sure yet until I do
that survey, but I highly suspect it's
going to be that cookbook.
I think so too. And I can'twait to bring it to you.
- Yeah. We're so excited.
So again, please, if you're notsubscribed, please subscribe

(21:57):
to the email list Yeah.
And share your opinion withus, because we really do.
We don't just want it. We needit. Yeah. It's so important.
- I'm signing up forSurveyMonkey now. Yeah.
I gotta get another subscription. Yeah.
But it's, it's better than Google Forms.
- In fact, our our daughter Sam,
she's taking a marketing class right now
and she keeps telling us, I can't believe

(22:19):
that you've never surveyed your audience.
Because her marketing teacheris teaching them about
the power of surveying your audience,
surveying your clients,whatever business you're in,
you need to be getting a pulse.
Yeah. Surveying on youraudience followers.
So clients important,et cetera, et cetera.
So, so important. It's,it's due for us to,

(22:41):
to do this. Yeah.
- It is due. Mm-Hmm, .
And until we meet again,
I bid you a due .
- That was a dad joke.- I tried.
We'll see you in probably a couple months.
- Thank you.