Good Day Google+ - Creativity : The Key to opening doors

Hey everyone, I'm Chef Dennis Littley and welcome to Good Day Google+. It's Friday, it's a great day in the state of Florida, and it's a great day on Google+ because I'm here with my friends. We're having a little bit of technical difficulty. Chef Johanna has left us to come back in because her lower third wasn't working and now it's not letting her back in. So hopefully she'll be able to join us in on the call as soon as she reboots. Gets things back running. And right now we're gonna say hi to who is here and we'll get the party started. It's a Friday afternoon and we'll say hi to who we have. Katrina, and I'm not even gonna try and pronounce your last name. I could, but I'm afraid I'd slaughter it, so why don't you tell us how you say that?

Sure, it's Pfannkuch. It actually means pancake in German.

That's what I thought it was, but I was— yeah, okay, I know I've heard it, but I couldn't remember. Thank you so much for being with us today, Creative Katrina.

Well, thank you.

Happy you could come and share your insights with us tonight. We were talking about— I love your backdrop, it's really cool looking, and the little yin and yang on the other side too. So I'm loving the nice mystical feel of it.

Thank you so much. It helps me feel at peace when I'm in here, so that's, that's what it's all about.

Yeah, me, I have an exercise bike that I wave to every now and then. Other than that, Actually ended up in here because we didn't have any other room for it. I should have it in the living room where I watch TV because that would be the place to do it, but anyway, it doesn't work out. So let's move on. Where are you coming from today?

I'm actually from Fort Collins, Colorado. I've been here for about 15 years, so love living near the mountains.

I guess so. And are you getting a lot of snow lately?

Yeah, we've had a storm system that's kind of been hanging around, snowing just a little bit every day, but I think today is really the first day that we've got actual, like, good sun. So it's nice to feel the sun on your face. That's why people live here. They love Colorado because we get over 300 days of sun a year. So it's kind of strange when you have a long stretch of no sun.

You don't mind the snow as much if you get the sun. Living in Philadelphia, I mean, it was gray from November until, like, April. It wasn't a very good environment to live in. Snow's okay when it's sunny, unless of course you're in Alaska and it's snowing all the time and sunny all the time. But anyway.

Yeah, whole different lifestyle there.

Different, definite. Alright, so let's move on to Arizona. How you doing today? So nice for you to join us, and I'm happy you could be here.

Well, I greatly appreciate the opportunity to come on. Thank you.

And where are you coming from?

I am just a little bit south of Katrina. I'm in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Another Colorado native. I know I have a friend in Boulder and she had sent me an email saying— because she gets so ticked off at me sometimes when I post all the pictures of the beach and stuff— and she said they were having 10 days of snow. I'm like, ugh.

Well, you were just saying that you were 70 and that was cooling off for you, and we're 40 and in a heat wave.

I love it.

I love it. Now, I don't miss that at all. It's good to be down here. My wife was having second thoughts, and actually she went back up and didn't take gloves. And I said, "Are you crazy?" She goes, "No, it won't be bad. We'll be going from the car to house." I said, "Have you forgotten? Have you not lived there? It wasn't that long ago that you forgot how cold it gets?" She remembered, so it was a good wake-up call, get her back here. I'm glad you could join us, and thank you. We'll come back to you in a little bit. Then we have Aaron Wood. Aaron, you're in the chilly northeast though, aren't you?

Yeah, it's 21 degrees here right now up in Massachusetts.

That's in the middle of the day, so you're getting the warm temperature.

Yeah, but it's beautiful out there. Blue sky, but probably still about a foot and a half, 2 feet of snow on the ground here and there.

Well, sorry to hear that, but you know, I posted a picture a couple weeks ago with a ruler in the sand and it said, "Damn, will this winter never end?" Well, that didn't make me real popular.

We survived.

I'm about an hour and a half from Boston and they got probably double the amount of snow that we got out in the western part of the state, so it's It's pretty brutal out there. I'm glad I'm not living in the city anymore.

The coast really did get pummeled, so that is a good thing. So I'm glad. Happy to have you join us. This is long overdue.

I know.

It's good to be here.

So let's take a few comments from our guests and see who's in the audience. And Kate Bowers here, happy to be here. Dave Pipe is saying hi to everyone. We got Rain Dowell in the house. And we have Karen Chin is in the house. Candy is here. Where is Jeremy Murphy? Is here. Coach Moore, Bob Strossel, Michael Thomas. We got a full house today, a lot of people. So, and here's a question that Jeremy Murphy had, so we'll talk about to unleash your creativity, but how?

So we're gonna—

today's topic for the show, and it's not really much a topic as the title was Creativity the key to— I can't remember what I called it— but the key to other doors opening up. Opening doors. So we'll talk about that because you're all kind of creative people in your own way. And why don't we get started with this party? And I'm gonna let Katrina start. And let's talk about creative Katrina and some of the things you do. Why don't you tell us about your passions and things you have going on in your life?

Yep, sure. I'm a writer at heart. I've been a writer for, gosh, since I was 10. So for me, it's just been really easy to express myself in that way. And it's interesting that when you sort of work with a talent that you feel is very natural to your heart, you're able to step into the natural parts of who you are in other areas of your life. So I found that when I got older and was writing things that weren't necessarily in alignment or interesting to me, that my creativity kind of started drying up a little bit. It was really interesting to sort of see that dynamic change. So I think for me specifically, I have a passion for health and wellness, for yoga, for being outside. I love animals, all of those pieces. And the more I was able to add those pieces back into my life with the writing, I felt fuller. I felt more engaged in other areas. So I think a lot of times people sort of get a little laser-focused because they're like, this is my career, I have to be really professional, really serious. And all of that energy really focuses on just the success part of things when But really, I truly believe if you are, you know, just that the natural process of who you are is how you are creative. When you're tuning into those natural pieces, that's, that's really the juice that you need to be creative in all the things that you do. I would say the biggest message that I have for folks is that creativity isn't necessarily a talent, it's a way of being. Because I think a lot of people feel that creativity is limited to an activity or a skill set. And I truly believe that when you're innovative and you're engaging and you're looking at the big picture of everything, that's, that's when you're truly in your creative space. And I love being able to help coach people and work with people in that way so they can see that part of themselves. I think we all need that mirror to just kind of have a reflection of what's really going on so we can kind of move past that and grow into a new level of who we are.

What are the biggest challenges you face when you talk to people about that?

I would say it's the mind. You know, it's really challenging. The mind gets in the way a lot because we have expectations. We think things should look and feel a certain way in order to be right. There's a judgment around what is right, and a lot of times when we have all those pieces that aren't fitting together, we're really stuck with how to make it look into a creative, pretty picture. So a lot of the time I'm helping people with sort of their mindset more than anything else. Because they had a hurt in the past that's really kind of— they're still struggling with getting over. They've had some failures that are kind of following them around, that kind of stuff. Or they're just not really sure how to express themselves. It's really hard to write about yourself if you're really— especially for business owners, sometimes it's hard to be objective and be able to see this is the value of what I'm offering and this is how I can share that with people. And so I help people kind of move past that obstacle too. I find that's a very common one.

Do you sometimes find it's easier to have someone else write about that person?

Yeah, I mean, I do some ghostwriting, not so much anymore, but I sometimes will do that for folks just to kind of help them get started, or even just edit their stuff so they can kind of see that flow, and then they get familiar with that juice. So then they get a little bit more comfortable with talking about themselves and sort of what their gifts are. And a lot of times, if I can sort of just sit one-on-one with people and chat with them for about an hour, that's That's a great starting point for them to just start to see themselves in a different way, and then they can go and write and sort of, you know, go create the things that they're really passionate about creating. But it's really about that balance. I'm very much about mind, body, spirit. It's— you have to, you have to be mindful of what you're putting in your body, you have to be mindful of what you're doing with your body, and you have to be mindful of what you're thinking.

I think a lot of people forget about that last part, mindful of what you're thinking. Sometimes it is easier to write about something that we're not as passionate about, but truly when we get into it, the things just don't come out as we would hope they would.

Exactly, and it's always good to get a little perspective, right? In anything you're doing.

Absolutely.

So, well, that sounds like a great way. And guys, if you have any questions for any of our panelists, please put them in the comment tracker— comment bar, I mean— and we'll pull them up into the, into the questions in the into the show and do our best to answer for you. So thanks a lot. So let's move on while Joanna's here, Chef Joanna's here, and John is here, and we will get her on as soon as she's finished setting up. So let's talk to Arizona now. So Arizona, why don't you talk to us a little bit about what you're doing?

Um, well, I have several projects going on. I have my HOAs, Thinking Out Loud, Talking Art, and blogging Lunchtime Bites. Those are my 3 primary ones. And all of those are wrapped around a community called Today's Visions. And my idea for Today's Visions was to help creative folks get the word out. You know, teach them how to blog properly, teach them how to use social media properly, and give them space to play. Anyone who signs up, you know, they get free spots. They get a free blog. As far as that one question, I was, I was really wanted to mention one of the things I did to, I think, help unleash my creativity is I started writing 15 minutes, just free flow writing, 15 minutes every single morning.— and it helps me throughout the entire day, you know, thinking outside the box.

I think the morning's the best time to really write too because you're fresh. I know I find the later in the day it gets, the more I have to think about what I'm writing instead of just letting it flow.

Oh, I totally agree with that. And a lot of times things in your subconscious will be right up, you know, from sleeping. From your dreams, and so they're right there, and it's so much easier to get it out on paper.

That's the best way. I know I used to keep a pad by the bed because I would wake up after— when I, in my chefing days, I'd have some pretty strange dreams after a hard day at work. And of course you eat right before you go to bed, and we were drinking and God knows what else we were doing. But for a while there, I would wake up and sometimes I'd come up with recipe ideas that way. But lots of times they were just strange dreams I didn't want to forget, so I'd jot them down. I thought one day I'd put a compilation of them together in a book, but it might be too scary. I don't know.

Are you a lucid dreamer?

Yeah, sometimes, you know, too lucid. I had one the other day, and someone was— the other night, someone was coming for me, and I remember kicking, and luckily I didn't kick my wife. That would not have been good. There's lots of times when I reach out or something, she thinks, "Oh, she's snoring or something," and I'm trying— I'm waking her up, so it's not a good thing. I kicked the covers off, so yeah, I guess I am a little more of a lucid dreamer than I think sometimes.

I would love to see one of the recipes that you dreamed up.

I did. It was like a— It was never a complete recipe, but I would come— something would come to me, right? I haven't thought of it too much these days, but in those days, I would come up with a combination, or it might have been something I was just thinking of before I went to bed, combining ingredients together to make an entrée. I can't remember what they were, but I know I came up with a few that way. Now I text myself when I come up with something I want to blog about or make. So I don't forget. But again, like we were talking about having a schedule, I don't always go back to my own texts because they're not important, because they were for me. So I don't have to answer myself. Oh, kind of crazy. Alright, well, let's talk a little to Aaron. Aaron, stand up. We're going to come back to Chef Johnna. And Aaron, thanks for joining us. And you know, I always— I love your description about you, and you always have it about your Etsy shop too. And that's something that always amazes me, Etsy shops and how well they work and how well people do with them, because that's a concept that just seems completely foreign to me. But I'd love to hear what you're doing and how things are going in your life.

I'm a freelance graphic designer from Massachusetts, and I've been doing freelance work for— uh-oh, I'm hearing myself echoing somewhere. Who's got a—

I don't hear you.

OK.

So yeah, I'm a freelance graphic designer from Massachusetts. I've been doing freelance design for close to 2 years now. Before that, I've had a few jobs working for a gift wrap company and for LEGO. That was my first job out of college, so that was kind of a cool thing. Currently, I'm pretty much just looking for freelance work. I'm doing a lot of book covers lately for various authors that I've met either through Google+ or somebody has referred them to me from some other source. And just trying to create something new every day.

Yeah, I love working with authors. I'm starting to get a few more of them coming on the show, and they're just really interesting people. Anybody that has enough thoughts to really write a book of fiction or even nonfiction has really got a lot to talk about.

Oh yeah, there's one author in particular, Brian Meeks, that I work with that— I think before the show we were talking about, you know, numbers and traffic and stuff, and just by approaching him to redesign his book covers, he His traffic went way up on Amazon and various other places by me just redesigning his cover to be a bit more eye-catching. So I've worked with him on 4 covers so far.

Yeah, well, it's the picture tells the story, and if you're not telling a story in that picture, it's, it's kinda hard to bring people in because you gotta give them something to catch their eye. Now, that's, that's like that in pretty much anything that we do, in food and in music, you know, you gotta give them something. The old album cover would draw us in if we didn't know the band, you know, that kind of a thing. Picture's worth a thousand words. So how long have you been designing?

Oh, pretty much all my life I've been an artist, and I went to college for illustration and picked up enough Photoshop and Illustrator, and back then it was PageMaker— these days it's InDesign and QuarkXPress— where when I got out of college and went to work at LEGO doing that for a little while, but after I was done with LEGO, I said, "Well, what do I want to do?" I got a job in a print shop doing typography and setting stuff up for press, and that's where I really learned a lot about design, whether we were designing a job from scratch for somebody or just working with somebody's pre-existing design and getting it set up. To go to press so everything translated correctly. I learned a lot of, of information there. And then I like to think of myself as a double threat because not only can I design, but I can also design for press. And a lot of designers don't have that knowledge. They can make something look pretty on the screen, but when they go to print it, maybe they don't know the technical side of things and they have to go back and fix it, or they just— they mess it up, unfortunately, and then they have to— the other people have to fix it on the other end. So it's good to always be learning more about your field than beyond just making something. Learn what happens to it after you've made it, whether it goes into your Etsy shop and it gets sold to somebody. Learn the process of what goes on after the item's sold. So you just— you gotta always be learning. And that's what I find is a good bit of advice for anybody that's any type of creative. One class that I'm really glad that we had to take in college was Business of Illustration, because a lot of artists just don't know how to run a business. They like to create, but then who knows about paying taxes and stuff like that? So if you have that knowledge in your tool belt, you're just going to be much better off than somebody that's a flailing around not knowing what's going on.

That's something that a lot of us don't think about in whatever business we're in, taxes and all the other things that we have to pay for as a solo entrepreneur. When you started, when you talked about the differences in creating something and then printing it, what would be the downfall of some? What are those things you need to look out for? Because that's something I never thought about.

Well, when you're doing something like a book cover You want to make sure that there's a little bit of extra all the way around your image so when they finish the job and they trim everything out, there's no white space, you know, if they miscut it. You need to know about, you know, how to calculate the thickness for a spine of a book. You need to make sure everything is in CMYK and not RGB, so when it goes through a RIP, they call it, a computer program to get put onto film or plate, it translates correctly.

So yeah, there's just a whole number of things that—

just little technical things that you wouldn't even think about when you're making a cover, because a lot of people work for ebooks now, or, you know, just create for an Amazon thumbnail or something. They don't— but then you get the occasional person that says, "I want a physical copy of this book still," or dead tree edition as they call it, and You got to be able to do that for the person so it saves them a huge upcharge, you know, so they don't have to have the design house do it. You know, that's what it comes down to.

So I guess as long as you know that you're doing it, it's not a whole lot of extra work, is it?

No, it's not a whole lot of extra work.

It's just, it's like measure twice, cut once, you know, that old adage.

So just, you know, take a little bit more time. There's plenty of resources out there online to look at about print production and self-publishing and stuff like that you can look at.

Very cool. Now, I've been working— I have a designer that I work with that I met before I met you, and one thing that I noticed in our relationship is that it's a lot easier to work with him the more projects I do. It's just like we— it's a very— it's a personal thing. It's like really getting to know the other person.

Yeah, you really need to do that.

You need to, you need to have that rapport back and forth with your client and your designer, or else something's going to get lost and you're going to end up redoing jobs over and over again.

Yeah, I know that, like I said, the first job, it was a little harder to convey. And then after we did that, they started getting easier and easier. Now when we talk, it's like, you know, I trust him enough to know that he knows how I'm thinking and what I like. That's important. The other thing I didn't realize at the time was that, you know, I think a lot of us without the technical skill or without the know-words try to create our own, and sometimes that's like a nightmare. You know, we use fonts we shouldn't use, we use colors we shouldn't use, we save in the wrong format. You know, it's just insane. And we sometimes make the mistake of having someone who's really good at technically putting a blog together do our design work too. And that's not always a good idea.

Not always a good idea.

Yeah, they try, but it's not quite the same.

Bless their hearts, they try.

Bless their hearts.

But yeah, so I've learned a lot moving forward and see that you do get what you pay for. So I always say get a designer. Well, let's move over to Chef Johnna now, and I'm glad you're here. And you are muted, so if you just You just want to unmute yourself up at the top of the microphone there. On the black bar above your head, just click. And while John is getting the microphone unmuted, we will just have any— anybody have any questions for each other about what they were doing?

I just want to give Aaron a shout out. I actually moved to Colorado from Boston, so I lived in Boston for about 5 years.

Wow.

I loved it out there. I'm not sure if I can go back again, but—

I visited Colorado probably about 5 years ago. I've been doing a ballpark tour for the major league ballparks, and I went to— it's Coors Field, right, out there?

Yep.

Yep. Oh, it's one of my favorite parks besides Fenway.

Yeah, I actually used to go to a lot of Red Sox games. I didn't live very far from the stadium. Stadium, so I'd go and check out some Red Sox games. You know, like the bleacher seats, everyone's just hanging out, drinking beer, doing their thing.

When I was in college, some of my most memorable games were just going to the box office, picking up a, you know, $5, $10 bleacher seat and enjoying the game.

So that's good stuff.

Well, it's good to meet you from, you know, even though you're transplanted now out in Colorado. How long were you in Massachusetts for?

I was actually—

I got my master's in journalism from Northeastern, so I was living out there for a while getting my master's, and then I stuck around for a few years.

Excellent. So you were over in the MFA area and all that?

Yeah, I lived in Brookline for a while too.

Mm-hmm, good area.

Yeah, it is.

Oh, I think she's unmuted.

I think maybe.

Alright, there you are. So how you doing, Chef Johanna?

I'm good. How are you today, Dennis? Thank you for having me on the show.

My pleasure. I'm sorry for the technical difficulties. You know, it's sometimes just the joy of Google, and, uh, but hope— I'm glad we got things worked out and that you're here.

Learning curve.

Absolutely. Well, you know, nothing's— it's easy, it's, it's easy and difficult at the same time to learn as you go, right? As long as it doesn't break you, they're valuable lessons.

They didn't break me in film and video school, I don't think Google is going to break my brain on the technology here, or iPhone, because I had to switch to my iPhone. So, a little bit about myself.

Yes, please. Let's talk about you.

I'm the Kitchen Shaman. I run a website, www.kitchenshaman.com. I was a chef for 20 years in the industry, learned as I went. I did not go— biggest question I get, where did you go to school? I didn't go to culinary school. I learned as I worked. So I started writing recipes down, and my spouse said, "Let's put it in a blog." So we did, and it's getting pretty successful. I just wrote a book, Delectable Vegan Soups. I cook and eat vegan at home, so I put together a whole collection of my favorite soups that are 100% vegan and by default gluten-free. So, and they're available through Kindle on Amazon. I write fairly consistently on the blog. I shoot a lot of pictures, so that's part of my creative process is the photography as well. So writing, photography, social media, because that's a skill too. These are all things that I combine to get my message out there as far as as learning to feed yourself, feed yourself well, get your knife skills, get your cooking skills down. I offer culinary coach services through Skype and Hangouts now that I'm learning to use them. And so you can check out my website and read all about that stuff. I love to teach people. I love to do chef demonstrations and teach people how to do this. How to cook. Cooking is fun. It's a joy, and it would be great for other people to learn more about it.

I know. The one thing I found, though, is sometimes you get people that just don't like the idea of cooking, and you can teach them the technical aspect of it, but if their hearts aren't in it—

Our housemates that way. They're like, "Yeah, no." They'll be watching me in the kitchen, and they're, "Yeah, no, I'm not doing that." And my spouse is the same way. She doesn't cook either. So I'm the cook in the house. I'm the chef in the house. So it's on me.

How long have you been vegan?

Recently. I was cooking vegan at home for over 5 years, but because I was working in the industry and I wasn't working at a place that was vegan, I had to— you have to taste what you're cooking. I have known about veganism for many, many years, but I am just recently almost 100%. I'm getting there. I've got 2 more things to cut out of my diet, and I'm there.

Do you find any health benefits from it?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's amazing. My cholesterol levels are down. My stress My weight fluctuates, so I can't say that eating vegan has helped with my weight, because sometimes I go for the junk food. I eat the potato chips. I eat the tater tots. We go to one of our local places here, our local restaurants here in town, and you can get what's called a Big Whack. It's a riff-off of the Big Mac. It's loaded with carbs. You can eat healthy vegan, and you can eat not healthy vegan. That's the huge debate in the world of veganism right now. You've got your juice freaks and your chia freaks. You've got the, "You know what?

Amy's puts out these great meals, and I'm going to eat those." One thing I noticed when I was cooking, I really, before I started working with you, I really was more the mindset of the chef, like the soup Nazi, was like, Eat what I make or don't eat. When I went to the school— I know, it was terrible. When I went to the school and I was cooking for all high school girls, my philosophy changed because I didn't want to see any of them not eat. I brought home a vegetarian cookbook, and Lisa goes, "Who are you?" She couldn't believe I was doing that. Then as I started cooking more for vegans, it got a little more difficult. The vegetarians were easy. The vegans were difficult. What I did see was a lot of times they tended to eat more because it was not as filling. They had to put more food in.

You're supposed to eat 5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day anyway. It's not necessarily that it's more filling. It's that our bodies process the vegetable matter faster than we process meat or bread carbs. You intake more food because your body is using it faster. There's actually a physiological reason for that.

That makes sense. I always felt bad. I always tried to give them things that were more filling because I'd see them come back and eat pasta afterwards if it wasn't enough for them. I felt good just the fact that I was doing it for them. I've learned a lot since then, since now I am— besides being gluten-free, I'm recently dairy-free and soy-free, and not of my own choice. It wasn't like I woke up one morning and go, "I'm not going to eat that damn cheese and butter anymore." The first day they put me on the dairy-free diet, I went back for some other work the next day, and the practitioner said, "What did you do when you went home?" I said, "I ate all the cheese." She almost spit the water out of her mouth that she was taking a drink at that time, but I said, "No, not all." all of it, just a good portion of it. We'll revisit it later, I think, once I get my health straightened out. A lot of people don't realize how much food impacts your health. I know I didn't. I really didn't think about it.

You can get into the whole GMO/non-GMO debate, organic versus non-organic. Under this umbrella of vegan and/or eating organic,. There's just huge dialogues on almost every aspect. Food is political. My focus, I want to feed you well. I'm going to give you recipes that you can duplicate at home. I'm going to give you food that it's going to help you feel better. It's your choice whether you want to buy from Costco or if you want to buy from your farmer's market. I'm not going to tell you where to get your food from. I'm just going to say, here's the food that you can eat. Your choice whether you're going to get it— where you're going to buy it. There's a lot of bloggers out there that are writing about, you know, you should do it this way only, and there is no one true way.

Yeah. You can push people too much sometimes. I think the big turning point for for me was going to ShiftCon where there was so much acceptance, and there was so much ease of telling you how to eat. In fact, funniest thing, they asked me to be— two ladies contacted me and asked me to be on a panel about becoming green in the mainstream. First, I wrote back and said, "Are you sure you got the right Chef Dennis?" I have made a lot of changes, and it's not It's not like looking for you to change overnight. It's about little changes in your life that work for you, make you feel better, and that's all you can pretty much ask people.

One of the things I do in our household is my recycle bin and my compost bin are larger than my trash. So, you know, we do, we do as much recycling and composting as possible so that, so that I'm not generating as much trash as, as, like, you know, a lot of other households would. You know, when I lived at my parents' house, oh my God, the amount of trash they threw away. The only thing they recycled were cans.

Yeah.

You know, so that's the kind of stuff I do to help to be green, you know.

So yeah, it's anything that we can do, and people don't think what they're going to do is enough, so they don't bother. But anything you can do is So that's something to remember.

I just wanted to let her know that I love her name. The Kitchen Shaman is awesome.

Oh yeah, there's a story behind that. The spouse named me. So I was cooking for her, and I was working at this resort, and I had a chef who was just telling me all these really cool things about the food. And then I make really— okay, bragging rights— I make really good food.

Food.

There's something I do in the process of cooking that just transforms it. That goes back to intent, cooking with intent. We call it cooking with love, but I also call it cooking with intent. As the Kitchen Shaman, cooking is a spiritual practice for me. Even when I was working in the industry and it got crazy, I knew why I was there. In my spiritual practice, I employ the concepts of shamanism. So the Kitchen Shaman came to be because of all of these things that I am.

That's awesome. And what a great way to lead to all of those other parts of you that are creative too. It sort of brings it all together.

It does. It does. It's like all of these components that have been a part of my life, the writing part, the photography, the video part, and the cooking part are all just sort of like meshing now into this, into this Kitchen Shaman thing, which is just amazing for me, you know. But thank you.

Yeah, sure.

Well, it's a good time of your life to be doing this then, because you have some time now and you have all these things at your disposal, these skill sets at your disposal. And, you know, people talk more and more about how, you know, YouTube is really, you know, You may not love Google+, you may not want to be on there, but the YouTube side of it is just amazing and you need to get into that more in that area.

I've wanted to do a cooking show for so long, but I've lacked getting a camera person, I've lacked certain aspects of technology. I didn't want to make really bad video. I was trained better than that and I watched a lot of really bad video over the years. And there's great video going on, and now I have this smartphone, I can make video on this smartphone, edit it in the YouTube app, and upload it if I want to. Boom, you're done. There's no reason not to have videos out these days. So hopefully in the very near future, the goal is for the Kitchen Shaman to be making some cooking videos or some how-to videos. And we're going to be doing Hangouts as well.

I look forward to seeing more from you on that. And does anyone— talking about videos, does anybody use Vine?

Not personally.

Okay, you know, I've been talking— I don't do that many other videos other than my own, but I'm trying to learn. You know, this is the old dog trying to learn some new tricks, and with my I got a Mac finally, so I'm hoping that the Mac will help me move into more different types of videos, but I keep hearing people talking about Vine.

It's interesting, but it's only—

was it 6 seconds, 7, 8 seconds?

6-second videos.

Yeah, so it's really for short, quick posts. You can't sit down and make a meal with it. Well, you could if you chopped it up into a shot of the ingredients, you know, a shot of what you're going to use to prepare it, maybe in prep or in, you know, in progress, and then it's done. And then maybe a link to say if you want to learn how to actually make this, go somewhere. But yeah, you don't actually sit down with it and be like, I'm gonna, you know, it's not another YouTube competitor per se. It's just quick little bite-sized entertainment, less than an hors d'oeuvre even.

That's a good idea though, Aaron, to kind of do that, split it up that way. That would be a cool way to use Vine.

I did a couple of breakfasts that way before.

Vine is an in-app feature. I had to find an external application to upload Vine videos to Vine. You're supposed to use your phone and record and then upload through through their app. And in order to upload something else, you have to get an outside application, which I did. And we're going to take excerpts out of my— I have 2 chef demos. I'm releasing one later this week. I have 2 chef demos up on YouTube, and we're going to take 6 seconds out of those. I have one called Spicy. They go spicy, spicy, spicy. And we're going to put those up on Vine instead. See how they do. But I have to use the outside application, the external application in order to upload those. So in order to use Vine, they want you to use their application.

Now I got a quick question for you.

You cook vegan, have you ever heard of the Vegan Black Metal Chef?

Yes, I love him, he was one of the first guys I found. I love him, he's amazing.

He is amazing.

He's been doing a lot of the conference So he's been going to a lot of this stuff. He's amazing, yeah.

Oh, it's so over the top. I mean, it's definitely not safe for work or anything, and it's a little rude, but it is so funny. And he actually makes real dishes, and it's— I saw one he did mac and cheese, and he had Annie's and a few other competitors. He was comparing the vegan mac and cheeses.

Yeah, and he uses like canned product and frozen product. He doesn't He doesn't use like, you know, he's doing it real simple.

He does, it's great.

Have you heard of the Vegan Zombie?

He's the other guy.

No, I haven't watched any. I've heard of him, but I haven't watched anything yet. Oh boy, I'm going to have to watch that.

Well, they say, you know, tastes like chicken.

6 years now, the Vegan Zombie.

I'm going to have to check that out.

I'll make a note of that.

Aaron, are you vegan?

I am not, and it's funny because I'm a People say I should watch my health. I'm a kidney transplant recipient, and I eat really bad. I do cook healthy when I feel like it, but most times if I'm working on a project, I'll microwave one of those cheap Nuke pizzas, you know. But I will sit down and take the time to steam vegetables and make a meal from scratch. I really love making breakfast and stuff like that, but when it comes down to it, I'm just— it's quick in the microwave and then into my gullet, unfortunately. People always look at me and they're like, "Don't you have food restrictions?" I'm like, "No, not really. I can eat whatever I want, but I'm relatively healthy." How long have you been a kidney transplant recipient? In April it will be 13 years, April 11th.

Wow.

13 years. Yeah, and this will be my second. The first one lasted about 8 months, and then I went about another 6 years and then on dialysis, and then I had this one 13 years ago.

Yeah.

Cool.

Still kicking.

Let's hope so. Let's hope you're kicking for a while.

Yeah, yeah.

The idea is to hang in there as long as possible because medical advances come so quickly. You never know. They'll just be able to give you a little pill that'll cure your kidney.

Yeah, like in Star Trek.

I remember McCoy's like, that's barbaric.

Dialysis? We don't have that anymore. Gives the old lady a pill and she's running around at the end.

My favorite part of that though was when they told Scotty it was an old-timey time computer and he picked up the mouse and he's talking to the mouse.

Hello computer. But yeah, I would love to see— you know, there's a lot of controversy behind organ donation. I'm actually supposed to speak next Thursday on being an organ recipient and transplantation and stuff. There was— everyone knows the restaurant Chili's?— I ate there one night. I actually had something healthy. And I was leaving and there was a table set up in the lobby. They often do raffles and benefits and stuff like that, but this was two women from the National Kidney Foundation. So I took some time and I talked to them and I said, "Yeah, I'm a transplant recipient." And she looked at me and said, "You know, how long have you been an organ recipient?" I said, "Close to 13 years." This is like 3 or 4 months ago, and I said, "Well, I'd love to give a talk someday and be a speaker on this stuff because it's near and dear to my heart." She's like, "We want you to speak in March. We'll set you up." That's going to be next Thursday. I'm actually going to speak live in front of people, and I'm on a panel of 4 or 5 other doctors and recipients. It should be pretty cool.

Great. Are they going to tape it? Are they going to video it?

I'm hoping that there will be some kind of video that I'll be able to have access to. I gave one other talk a long time ago to a Jewish community. I'm not Jewish, but organ transplantation is a big thing in their community because they have the most— have the belief that you should be buried with all your parts. You shouldn't give up anything. As far as organ donation goes. I had people crying, and I was crying, you know, because it's just— it's so near and dear to me because there's such a shortage and a lack of organs out there. I would love to see them be able to grow stuff in a dish, you know, and just say, here's your kidney, it's part of you, we grew this out of your cells and stuff like that. But then you run into all these other implications and political and religious and spiritual and everything. It's something that's near and dear to my heart, this whole organ donation and transplantation thing. See what the future holds in the next— they've even made such huge advances in just dialysis since I've been on dialysis 13 years ago. It'd be really interesting to see where we are as far as organs go, you know, 10 years from now.

Getting better and better. We had a question from Rain, and you don't have to answer it if it's not something you would like to, but she wants to know if it would be intrusive to ask why you needed a kidney transplant.

Oh, not at all. I love to talk about, you know, how, you know, why and that kind of stuff. I had a hypertensive bladder that led to reflux, a lot of UTIs and infections and stuff, and just over time I went to get my wisdom teeth out, and they said to me— they gave me a call after they did blood and urine, the workup, and they said, "Yeah, Mr. Wood, you're in renal failure." I'm like, "What? What does that even mean? I feel fine." They said, "Well, 6 to 8 months from now, you will be on dialysis." 6 to 8 months from now, I was on dialysis. Take care of your body, people. You only got one.

That's for sure.

Yeah.

Till they get the cloning thing down.

Yeah, and, and, uh, it's, it's, it's, uh, very bittersweet for me because I have a, um, my transplant is cadaveric, so somebody actually passed away for me to carry on living. So I always, uh, mark my anniversary, you know, I ask for a moment of silence, I write something up, um, and I did write a letter to the family stuff like that is very political. You write a letter, it gets sealed away and stored, and if the family— if there is a family for, you know, the person who passed away, they can go read it. They can choose to respond or not. And it took me about a year to write the letter the second time because the first transplant went so poorly.

I—

when I got the call for the second one, I was thinking about not even taking it. 'cause the first transplant did not work really at all for me, and I had a lot of struggles with it. But then, you know, I sat there for a few seconds and I'm like, you know what, somebody's passed away and they're giving me this opportunity, so I am going to take it. I'm going to take the chance, and I'm so happy that I did.

We're happy you did too.

Yeah.

You're here with us. That's where I answered your question there, Rain. Let's see if we can— I had a couple other comments here I wanted to pull up. Jeremy Murphy is saying, "We'll have to get some insights from you on how to steer clear of soy due to allergies and dairy due to lactose intolerance." Jeremy, I'm not even lactose— I thought lactose intolerant would be a good thing, and it turned out it's cow casein intolerant. I can have As far as we know, I can have sheep cheese. There's some gray area in there that discussing in the medical group I go to that discovered this. They said that there's a way that grass-fed dairy is okay, depending upon the source of it again. Kerrygold makes grass-fed butter, and there's some Italian grass-fed butters out there if you look at Whole Foods. Foods and some grass-fed cheese, and they possibly don't have the same intolerant issues with those. The doctor that diagnosed me said she still uses cream, and she has the same thing. Cream in her coffee doesn't affect her.

Isn't it amazing all the things that— I put a lot of it down to the processing that things go through. I can drink milk straight from the cow, and I'm great. If I drink processed milk, I'm not so good.

Issues.

Yes.

I'd be afraid the cow would kick me if I was down there drinking it right from the cow.

You know what I mean, Dennis Littley.

I have a corn allergy, and you want to talk about a product that's in all of our food, and it's disguised by different names. Like with maltodextrin. There's a new product out there that's come on the market for vegans, and I can't eat it because it is loaded with maltodextrin, which is a corn product. Food allergies are just really huge for people, and avoiding soy is kind of like avoiding corn because there's soy protein isolate in a lot of foods. There's bean curd stuff. To answer this guy's question, there's just so much that you have to be label aware. You have to read your ingredients. You have to know the different scientific names for things that they put in food.

That's the big thing, knowing the names. You have to be vigilant about it because— I actually did find a non-soy recipe for soy sauce that I'm going to try.

That'll be very interesting to find out about.

There's some kind of aminos that you use instead of the soy, so it's probably got a different kind of fermented—

You use Bragg's Liquid Aminos. Is that what you're talking about?

I don't think it was Bragg's Liquid Aminos. I have to go back because I was just— it's one of these things. I'm sitting here, and all of a sudden, something comes to me, and I Google it, and I find it. If I don't write it down or save it or print it, I have to go back. It was some type of amino.

It's funny because in my design philosophy, I always say there's a workaround for everything. And it— I guess it translates into food too. There's always a substitute for something else or something you can use to give it that flavor, that texture, that taste that's not the actual thing. So that's good. There are options out there.

I did buy some Vegenese hoping it was going to be mayonnaise, and it really wasn't. I'm going to be making my own, I think.

Yeah, have you tried goat yogurt?

Has anyone tried goat yogurt? I actually really like goat yogurt.

Goat yogurt?

Yeah, you should get goat yogurt.

Goat yogurt.

That's what happens if you shake the goat and then you just squeeze it really hard, the goat yogurt comes out.

Totally.

It's like go-gurt, but there's an A-T in there.

We have a great goat farm here in Arizona, just outside of Phoenix, and they do all sorts of stuff— yogurt, cheeses, things like that. So it's really good stuff, yeah.

Yeah, they have a nice little tang to it, which is what's cool about it. It's definitely not like your typical dairy stuff.

Well, the doctor did say that goat we weren't sure about, but sheep was probably good. I don't understand. It's just right now I'm just trying to go with it whenever I can. Because I did see some goat butter as well. It was like $20 a pound though, and I went, oh, well, I can stay with Earth Balance. I kind of like Earth Balance, to be honest with you. I'll stick with that.

I like Earth Balance too. Pine nuts. Pine nuts are $20 a pound here.

Oh my gosh.

I make cilantro pesto with walnuts and cilantro because I can't afford pine nuts right now.

Aren't there?

Yeah, we need to get the two ladies from Colorado to go out and pick some pine stuff and then send it off to you. Yeah, there's no lack of pine trees out in that country.

So I don't know why they're so expensive here. It drives me crazy.

Where are you located again?

I'm in Phoenix.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, and we have Pine Forest, we have Flagstaff. I, I don't understand.

Katrina, I think they're just as expensive here too, don't you think?

Are they?

Yeah, I haven't checked specifically for pine nuts, but yeah, there's definitely— when you're looking for those kinds of things, I'm not sure if they're much cheaper, sadly.

I don't know. I think there's some correlation between the price of goat stuff and pine nuts. Maybe the goats are eating the pine nuts, and that's what they make the goat butter out of.

Pine oil, right?

Pine oil is not the same thing as you would think, right?

No.

It tastes different, absolutely.

Have any of you guys—

I was just watching a video last night. Have any of you guys used the pumpkin oil yet?

No.

Pumpkin oil out now. I know it's kind of expensive, but I think I want to try it on a couple of my soups. It looks really black.

I wanted to ask you, Joanna, do you have a lot of recipes on there for quinoa?

For quinoa, I have several, and I'm actually probably going to do a little video series of quinoa. I make quinoa cakes and then quinoa salad, and quinoa is really easy to cook. It takes like 15 minutes or less.

Yeah, I love quinoa.

You can put anything you want in it. There's a— because I haven't been able to cook lately because of my shoulder injuries, I just got a black bean quinoa butternut squash dish, and it's really yummy. I really liked it. So, yeah, quinoa likes a lot of different things. We, when I was working at the resort, we used dried fruits in it. So we would put like figs and cranberries and all sorts of weird little Dried fruits, currants. I had a chef who loved currants. Currants, I don't know. Currants or currants, Dennis?

Depends on how much of a food snob you are, I guess, where you put that emphasis. I'm eating currants right now, don't bother. Right after I eat my pinot nuts.

This is cherry tomatoes.

And my goat yogurt.

Golat.

I love it.

That's funny. This is riffing, this is creativity, right? We're riffing on our own.

Yeah, you have to do an interpretive menu so people have to actually guess what they're eating.

That would be awesome. That would be great.

Speaking of that, have any of you seen— I know there were some people doing that.

You guys excuse me, I'll be right back.

Okay, no problem. Have anybody seen lately the Last year there was a lot of talk about where you eat in total darkness.

Whoa.

I did hear about that.

I haven't experienced that, but yeah, I've heard about it.

Actually, a friend of mine in Boulder was the one that told me about it. They lead you in. Someone leads you into where you sit. You sit down, and there's absolutely no light. It's not dim. It's just completely devoid of light. Eat your meal in total darkness.

Wow.

How do you make sure you're getting it in your mouth?

Yeah, well, that—

yeah.

They give you goggles. They give you protective goggles, I'm sure.

But that would be an interesting experience. I guess it would heighten the flavors of the food.

Yeah.

Maybe.

There we go.

All the senses working together.

You could actually hear the food. Really well.

Sorry about that, guys.

Food will talk to you if you give it an opportunity. You just have to really listen to what it's saying. I mean, all kidding aside, I know when I first started learning to cook, I did not go to culinary school either. I actually went to a school that became a culinary school while I was there, but I was in an apprentice program, so we continued with that. But one of my first tutors in it was, you know, just to listen, to hear, to feel what goes in is kind of what it is. So it's maybe not listening into it in the traditional sense, but it's listening to what it needs to complete it.

So yeah, that's intuitive listening. You're getting all that intuition in there.

Yeah, that, that along with the fact that no matter what pot I was using, I always managed to put enough into it that would fill the container, like when I was changing it over. Over. So it was like kind of— it spooked me out a couple times. I'd make something, I'd go put it away, and it was like it perfectly filled the container every time. It's like kind of a sixth sense.

It's cool when that happens.

I love it.

Well, we are coming close to the end of the show. It's been a wonderful show, and I would like to go down our guest panel now. And if you have any calls to action, anything you have coming up, shows, projects, anything you'd like us to know about, now's the time to talk about it. So, Katrina, anything for us?

Yes, I am currently working on some classes that they aren't put together yet, so hopefully in the next month or so those will be up and online. And I'm really looking forward to doing that because I like working with people one-on-one to sort of get through their creative blocks. And I'm also co-hosting a show with Miss Arizona that she can tell you a little bit more about when it's her turn, but it's going to be today at 5:00. It's Thinking Out Loud, and I'm really excited. I love collaborating with her. She's fantastic. So that's what we'll be doing later this evening.

I love that you called her Miss Arizona. It makes it feel like a beauty pageant.

I know.

Alright, well, thank you for that, and please leave links in the comment bar for anyone that needs to know where you are. Chef Donna, thank you so much for joining us, and through all the technical difficulties and any calls to action you have for us?

Yeah, today is National Frozen Food Day, and I wrote a blog about it, so I wrote an article about it, so you can go over to my blog and you can read about National Frozen Food Day and what foods are appropriate for vegans. The market opened up wide for us in the last 5 or so years, so check that out. And I'm going to be Probably over the weekend releasing the chef demo video I did a couple years ago, a party in the parking lot for a vegan grocery store we tried to start here in town, and I catch myself on fire. Wow.

That's worth looking at.

Yes, there is a clip on— I got my pans too hot with oil in them, and I opened them, and I blew a ball of fire in my face. There is a little couple-minute clip on YouTube for that. You can go watch it. Other than that, just keep reading. We're going to do Google Hangout testing tomorrow. No, Sunday. Sunday at 5:00 PM. Then after that, hopefully starting in the next couple of weeks, I'll line up some guests and we'll be doing Google Hangouts. Keep an eye out for the HOAs from Kitchen Shellman.

Very good. Thanks a lot for getting through all the technical issues we had and joining us today.

No worries. Thanks.

And Miss Arizona. So for your portion of the video. So anyway, so any calls to action for us? I know you'd like to talk about the show you have coming up later today.

Yeah, we have a show coming up this evening called Thinking Out Loud, and our guest this time is Tim Brownson, who is a renowned life coach. I'm thrilled to have Katrina now joining the team. Raindow kind of took me by the hand and trained me really well, and, and now I have a beautiful co-host joining me on it. And then on Tuesdays we also have Talkin' Art, which is a show where we try to interview different artists, and we throw out monthly challenges and try to get the community really involved.

Very good. Well, I'm thrilled that you could join us, and I'll be watching more of your shows. And I love Rain too, she's such a nice person. Just really great.

Awesome. And thank you so much for inviting me on.

Oh, my pleasure. And then Aaron, any calls to action? Anything fun going on? Anything we should know about?

Well, it's convention season for me coming up soon, where I go to comic book, anime, gaming conventions and sell my art. So I'm running a special in my Etsy shop right now. If you go there and use the coupon code CONVENTION2015, you get 10% off your order. And my Etsy shop, if you want to find it, is Just One Scarf. So J-U-S-T-O-N-E S-C-A-R-F. And you can find all my propaganda art there.

And what is the significance of the name?

I knit. Or I know how to knit. I haven't knit in quite a few years, but I do know how to knit. And when I started, I was just going to make one scarf. And there's a whole story behind that and someone famous from the knitting community, but I'll spare you the details. But yeah, that's the short story. I was going to just make one scarf and it turned into a lot more.

Well, good. I'm glad to hear that. And yeah, it's never as easy, you know, when you say one thing, you're going to do just one thing. If there's any kind of connection at all, it's never just one thing.

I'm just going to eat one potato chip.

There you go.

I'm just going to have one package of goat yogurt.

I'm just going to write one blog article, really, just one recipe, that's all.

Yep, just it, that's it.

I'm only going to do one of these shows ever.

You stole my line, I was going to say that.

But it was great, thank you for having me on the show, Chef. —my pleasure.

Yeah, it was so fun. I really had a really great time.

I'm glad, and I hope you made some new friends today.

Thank you all. Thank you.

Great to have you all on, and thank you so much to all my watch— the people watching the show today live, and those of you that are going to watch it in replay. So we couldn't do it without you. It's always nice to have people in the house watching. So have a great day on Google+, enjoy your weekend, and if you're out where it's snowing, stay warm and stay safe, and we'll see you all real soon. Bye-bye.