Good Day Google+ - One Day at a Time

Everyone, I'm Chef Dennis Littley and welcome to Good Day Google Plus. It's always a good day on Google Plus when you get to spend it with your friends, and today is no exception. We have a lovely panel for you and we're going to talk about a variety of things, very varied. We're waiting for Mia Voss to join us, but she's finishing up her show and she'll be checking in a little bit. But it's a beautiful day in Florida, so The sun is shining, it's a little— well, it's about 80 degrees, so we're not suffering too bad, I think, somewhere around there. I haven't been outside yet, so I can't tell you for sure, but it's a great day. And let's say hi to everyone, and we'll get back to the comment tracker in a bit and say hi to some other people. But first, let's go across my panel, and coming to us from Texas, I have Ifat Cohen. How you doing, Ifat?

Hey, great. I was about to say that I'm actually in Santorini, but yeah, I'm in Texas.

Yeah, you know. That would be a nice place too. I have loved Greece ever since I saw a movie called Summer Lovers way back with Darryl Hannah in it.

Yeah, that's really what you loved about it, Sheffy.

I know, that was it. That was it. Boy, oh boy, was that a good movie. Thanks for popping in just in time, Thelma. Glad to have you here today, and we'll get back to you in beautiful Santorini too. Moving across, be good to Patty. How you doing, Patty?

I'm doing great. How are you? No sand creek here, just Philadelphia kind of gray and gloomy.

Well, that's one of the reasons we moved from Philadelphia, because it was always kind of—

I know. But you miss the cheesesteaks, don't you?

Actually, I started making them for myself, so I was okay.

All right.

All right.

And the bread in Philadelphia is so bad— I mean, in Florida is so bad, it almost replicates Amoroso bread.

Amarosa would not be happy to hear that, but—

I know. I grew up on Atlantic City bread, and the first time they put a cheesesteak on an Amarosa roll, I went, "What the hell is this?" It was not quite what I— if you ate it when it came off the grill, you were okay. If you wrapped it up and took it home, it was a soggy mess.

That's the thing. A lot of people think that Philly cheesesteaks is like Pat's Cheesesteaks downtown, if anybody's gone there. And to me, that's just like the worst representation of our city, but whatever.

And I never put Cheez Whiz on a cheesesteak. I mean, not that I don't like Cheez Whiz, but I just never did.

Okay, now you've just blown my whole thing about what I think. Chef Dennis, what's this with Cheez Whiz?

I don't— yeah, well, I don't— I mean, there's a time and a place for Cheez Whiz and cheese in a can.

Like at a frat party.

Yeah, or even Velveeta. There's a time and a place for all those. They're cheese foods, I think they call them, because they're not allowed to call them cheese because they're not.

Cheese foods.

Like, food, I guess, is anything you can ingest, so that could be bugs and the like, too.

The first time I saw that on my favorite American cheese, I went, "What? It doesn't say cheese anymore. It says cheese food." It's not right.

I don't care.

Give me a pound of it.

It should say like cheese approximation.

Yeah, almost cheese.

Glad to be here.

I can't believe it's not cheese.

And I can't believe I ate the whole thing.

Right, I know, that's it. But anyway, that's a whole other story. But thank you for coming to us from the city of brotherly love.

You got it, we got it, we're here, baby.

Before I get to my sister Thelma, let me jump over to Esther in beautiful Florida. How you doing?

I'm doing fantastic. I just learned how to put smooth all over my whole face. I'm thrilled.

If we could carry this outside of Google, that would be wonderful. You could be at a party and you could be all smooth.

I want to hear more.

Oh yeah, that's our BFF, the smooth function.

Yep, I know.

I said, Chef, how did your skin get to be so smooth? So he just taught me how to do it. I have the secret.

Yeah, false food. Now you don't ever want to hit the other buttons, actually. I mean, you can just to freak yourself out a little. There's some ugly-ass settings on there. So be careful what you push. But we'll get back to talk to you in a little bit, and I see your piano behind you too, so I was going to talk to you a little bit about your music.

Oh sure, that sounds like fun.

And then my sister Thelma, Mia Voss, is here to us from Denver.

Yes, I'm in the middle of cleanup on aisle 5. We just finished our show, it was the Animal Happy Hour, and I have a little— I have a guest in my studio here. This is— you know Cameron Young? So Cameron brought— hey, Cameron! So Cameron brought his snakes, and he has a snake named Mia who immediately took the biggest dump on me known in the snake world. This is not Mia, by the way. We actually named this snake on my show. This is Slidy, the rosy boa constrictor. And Slidy just literally slid off me. So I had to go change my top.

OK, so I want to see what does snake poop look like?

Oh, it's already gone.

There's the naughty Mia.

There's the naughty Mia. Kind of appropriate, don't you think?

Yeah. She did.

I'm sure there's a few people who would agree with you right now, too.

He said there's a few people who would agree with you. He said he actually held her last night so that she wouldn't poop during the show. I think she was in her little container going, I'm going to work something up for that girl.

We just had a python hunt in Florida where they're trying to— because the pythons are taking over the Everglades a little bit. And I think they got like 80 of them, which is not even a dent.

I'm not even going to let Cameron hear that because he will kind of come unglued. Because that's his whole thing is snake conservation. But it's tough. Yeah, if you have pythons that are either killing animals, like, yeah, so you don't want to hear this one. He just said that. He said there was a big python snake. So yeah, I would not want to wake up with one. Anyway, but I like how the conversation went all cheesy there for a little bit with the cheesesteak thing.

Conversation on Good Day Google+ is oftentimes cheesy.

Random, and I like it.

Random cheesy.

Getting all snaky on me, huh?

It is getting all snaky, yeah. So there's actually 4. I think we have 3 or 4 here in the his house. And the beagle. So wait, let me show the beagle. Hold on. Boring.

Aww.

Look, she's not afraid to bite me or boss. I don't want a snake near me. I know. That could be interesting.

Well, I am of the— I don't like snakes. I'm sorry. I don't.

Me neither.—

and I am of the opinion, Bill Ingwall or one of them talked about a time he met this girl at a bar, went home, and she had a boa constrictor. And, you know, she says, "Oh, Fluffy can wrap herself around us while we make love." And he went, "No, she can't." No, she cannot.

That's right. I have to admit though, because Cameron brought them over last month and a couple people were here, they really are, they're pretty chill. I know you're scared of them, and I don't want to talk anybody out of it, but I gotta say they're, they're, they're pretty chill. They're kind of soothing. So maybe I'm that weirdo. I would not do the wrap us around it while something was going on thing though.

Well, I'm happy to hear that.

That's a little too kinky.

That's, that's a little— yeah, I'm weird, but not that weird.

Mama don't roll that way.

Mama do not roll that way. That's absolutely right.

So here we go. Kim Baltman's just putting up snakes. Why did it have to be snakes? Indiana Jones.

That is the name of my profile picture on Facebook because I have the picture that camera took. So Yeah, that's my favorite line. Kim Chase posts some great pictures of her dog, too. Oh, there's Elena.

Yeah, Elena's here. Misty Lynn, live snakes, very cool. No. Snakes on a plane, no, not very cool.

Snakes on a plane.

Karen's here saying hi. Michael Thomas is here.

Hey, Michael.

Jake Heath is here. Ifat's face. There we go. There must be something behind that. I don't know what.

Well, I put— when I shared the event, I shared it 30 minutes before we started and I said I'm getting my face on. Very cool.

That's my girl.

This is a lot of work here too for me, I'm telling you.

Yeah.

Who else? Candy is in the house. Hey Candy.

Hi Candy.

Looks like Dave Pipe is here. Hi Dave.

By the way, Candy is the one who named the snake, so shout out to her.

Very cool. And Coach Moore is here, and we've got some other people in the house saying hi. So thank you all for coming. Oops, what the heck's going on? Little quick fingers there, too fast for my own good. But, uh, have a great day here. If you've got questions for our guests, please leave them in the comments section and we'll get to them. And, um, here we go. Oh, like Michael Thomas says, never, never, no rapping while etc. No rapping while anything, I'm telling you. That's one of the reasons I don't ever want to go to the jungle because there's snakes. I watched Tarzan growing up. There are snakes everywhere.

That's the hardest thing I had about Florida when I was doing some projects down there because I live in Colorado and there aren't a lot of bugs. And then I go down there and those things have friggin saddles on them.

They do. You could like skateboard on them.

Good one, Patty.

I saw one.

Georgia, no thanks.

And it was more like a worm than a snake, but I looked at it and said, you get the hell out of here. I wasn't going to kill it, but I said, I said, "Get out of here." You showed him the door? I showed him the door. And you know, there's lizards everywhere, and I've gotten used to the lizards. The lizards will jump on you while they're moving to something else, and they freaked me out a little at first, but now it's like, "Just get off of me." You know, it's— 'cause they're— and they come in so many different colors too, so I keep waiting to see a brightly colored one, 'cause I know anything associated with brightly colored is poisonous, so those are the ones we stay away from.

Dude, I woke up one night to go do something outside, and I have a little chair on my porch, and I reached to grab the chair, and this little thing was like, like— freaked me out, ran back in, called my little son, go like, oh my God.

You got Learda to come out?

Took a picture, put it on Google+, going like, is this dangerous? And everybody was like, no, it's fine.

Well, there was an article in the paper— and this is only in Florida things like this happen— where some moron captured a cottonmouth, which is illegal to do. He put it in his pillowcase, fell asleep, and the snake got out of the pillowcase and slithered on over him and bit him in the lip. So they got him—

This is called karma. This is like instant karma.

I mean, really? You put it in your pillowcase and then fall asleep with it on the bed with you? It's like there's something wrong with you there.

Like falling asleep on a gun, right? A loaded gun. What?

I had to have Cameron listen in on that, on the snake story.

Yeah, so they did capture the cottonmouth and they released it back in the wild, but I'm like, oh my God. There's just— some people don't have sense they were born with to do things like that. Anyway, let's move on now to some discussion now that we've had a nice little talk about lizards, snakes, and all kinds of things.

Creepy things.

Oh, here we go. Is Ifat Khan really going for president? Go girl!

No, did you see how the rate of aging once you become a president is like exponentially faster? Gray hair, lines, everything just doesn't work for my skin. You know, there's no smooth effect.

Now listen, you are Israeli though. You can pull it off a little bit more than whitey here.

However, However, no.

Right? It's like that machine in The Princess Bride when they put it on and like, you just took 5 years off your life. I think that's the presidential state.

Yeah. No, but I am going to the White House next Thursday, so if you are in DC, come visit. It'll be awesome. My first time in DC. And I'm going for a women empowerment conference that's happening, and we're actually giving away 2 Good day.

Well, why don't you— let's lead into that, and why don't you tell us more about it? But I have to put this up real quick too. Where is it? Before we get it— oh, I lost it now. Here we go. I meant watching Ephraim's face while Mia was playing with the snake. I don't want to even go there, but Mia—

that sounded weird.

Let's lead in with that, so it's all yours.

That totally leads into the whole men and women in the snakes thing. Right? A good thing. So let me share my screen for a second, and let me show you what you guys are getting tickets for. So there's an event taking place next weekend. It's called It's Time, and basically it's men and women coming together to say that it's time to change many things. It's time for women to get paid equally. It's time for gay and lesbians to be recognized. It's time for human rights to— a bunch of stuff. The speakers— where are the speakers? Here are the speakers. So some of the speakers are really, really cool, like Rosario Dawson. But I'm kidding. Some of the speakers are really cool. One of them is the former lady of the house. What's her name? Mia knows, I'm going to get to her.

You're going to get me to say it? Oh, who was it? Yeah, there's somebody that was in there. I mean, look, but I love, I mean, I clicked through a lot of these profiles too, Ifat. There's just some really cool people.

Yes, Wendy Wallbridge, is that? From TEDx. It's really cool, and I can't find the former lady. But anyway, really, really awesome people. It's a 3-day event in Baltimore, so please make sure that you can join. And so To win those tickets, what I've asked people to do is share what do they think it's time for. And we used NodeX to see how many shares we actually got for posts that other people created and some other shares that people did. And the one that shows up the most is my friend Christine Drysdale. And actually, I think I have— let me see. So now you see Christine bigger than anyone. And Zeke is up there. I don't know if you guys can see it. Can you see it?

Love me some NodeX.

NodeX. So the winners, as you can see, is Christine. And there's one post here that for some reason was shared very, very weirdly by Rachel— can forget her last name— and it was shared a lot. And the way that she shared it was kind of weird, you can't see it when you're not logged into Google+. So it did not show up on NodeX. But you still win a ticket, Rachel. So Kristin and Rachel, thank you so much for spreading the word and really diving into it. It is time that women get to speak up. And I hope you make awesome connections there at the conference. If anyone wants to go still, you can get 25% off tickets. They're not expensive. They're like $100 for 3 days. You can still take 25% off and show up in Baltimore, and I'll share the link and the code in, um, in this event. So you have to be in this event to get the 25% off. But I hope you go meet wonderful women, and hopefully that affects your life in some way.

You know, some of these conferences are really life-changers, and, you know, people don't understand it until they get there and they're impacted by the speakers by things that are brought up that, you know, maybe they knew already, but sometimes it's just how it's presented that makes you really stop and think more about what you're doing in life. And it's really a time for people, for women especially, to really be heard above all this inequality that we've had for so many years. You know, although being married, I can— and even though it's only been a couple weeks, I can tell you that women are always heard, sometimes more than you. Oh. Or they want to.

What do they call it, like in my Greek fat— big fat Greek wedding, right? The man is the head, but the woman is the neck, and she turns the head any way she wants.

That's true.

Love that. My favorite.

Sam Kenneson used to have a remark of why that is possible, but we won't go there right now.

Put it in the chat. I don't know what that is.

Anyway, but it is a very good cause, and it sounds like you have some great speakers, some very influential people. And I think the new head of Google is a woman too. Google, isn't it?

Didn't they—

The head of YouTube is a woman.

OK, OK.

I know Google, which is huge.

Yeah, she was number 5. They started Google in her garage. And she said— actually, I think she has 5 kids. And she said every kid was born in a big Google major event. Like when YouTube launched, there was like one baby. When they did something, there was another baby. She goes like she grows with Google. But yeah, she's the head. She's the head, and I think she became the head of YouTube while she was pregnant or something, and she had 3 months leave off or something.

Didn't they just hire somebody new too from Wall Street or from somewhere?

For Google?

For Google, I thought. Yeah, I thought I saw that too, that there was a new leader. I don't know, I could be mistaken. But I want to, you know, it's a position of power, it's a position of authority, you know, they're there for a reason. You know, we may not be that far off from a woman president. And although I don't know if it helped her.

Well, we just had a new Attorney General, was actually the first African-American Attorney General, was appointed yesterday, so that was pretty cool. I think it's Jenny Fields or something like that. I was like, thank God. So we're getting there. But you know what I love too, you're mentioning that, I mean, that's such a huge deal, the fact that she was pregnant during, you know, and still running this, because that's something that women have just taken so much crap for over the years of not being able to you know, handle family and handle this, and then it's shown, it's seen as like this detriment of like, oh God, because I've been watching a lot of Mad Men lately, which they really do kind of show what it was like.

The man that had to carry the baby and the man that had to do all that, he would not get out of bed. You would be feeding him at his bed, he'd be watching TV, and there'd be no running anything but his mouth.

There would be once-a-month holidays for when y'all were on your period. Because you know you bitches can't handle it.

It's true.

For all we whine and complain, women are really much stronger of the two of us, whether it may not be always physical strength, but in being able to take things and do things and multitask and manage things. It's like, pfft, no. We're the hunter-gatherers. Mungo kill food.

It's the power of the hoo-hoo, Sheffy.

That's it. Thanks to the Happy Hoo Hoo, we can have a nice clean and healthy hoo hoo.

Shout out to the Happy Hoo Hoo.

I saw a post for men's cancer and now they call it Save the Doodads. That's the new one. I thought that was kind of cute, Save the Doodads. So anyway, since we're saving the doodads, let's move over to Patty and let her talk about death, which can happen if you don't save the doodads.— anyway, so let's talk to you about—

Yes, and death happens. Oh my gosh, well, how are you guys? So yes, I'm one of the Deaf Chicks. We have two Deaf Chicks, myself and Misty, who was on your show last week, and basically we came together to talk about the kinds of things that most people aren't talking about when it comes to deaf Dying, Grief and Loss, and we really wanted to talk about traditionally taboo topics. The fact that people really don't start these conversations or have their wishes made known prior to end of life. It's something that we wanted to do and brought it to the Google format, and thank goodness for all the help out there, because really, when we got started, only probably— I think this was our 11th show yesterday. 11 weeks ago, we like had no idea. It was like push button, hope something happened. So, but it— no, so far it's been great and we've been growing viewership. Now both Misty and I have our own websites and our own businesses. Mine is an online video-based training program for end-of-life training program for hospices, colleges and universities, and we also have opened it for individuals. And the idea is that, you know, I want to take this experience of death and dying that for many, and understandably so, can be overwhelming and completely sad and just a very different experience. We want to be able to honor those emotions but also transform it into one of meaning, one of great connection,, and at times possibly healing, if that is possible, relationships before someone exits. We also want to do it with a lot of lightness. What we say in kind of our tagline is, "We're not making light of death, but we are making death lighter." And so what we're doing is bringing on guests and different authors, speakers, innovators in the field to help us do that, help us with resources and create a community. Who knew there was a death space now that we have out there? We're like— there's a woman out there by the name of Caitlin Doughty who does these hilarious— she's a mortician by training and she does— I highly recommend it— Ask a Mortician, it's her video series. And it is irreverent and goofy and crazy, but always very informative. And so there's lots of people contributing in many different ways. To death and dying and trying to get people to come together and talk about it. So that's what we're doing.

That's a good topic. And you know, you, like you said, not to make light of it, but it's something that we all do and it's something that we all face. And if you've got friends, you know, you face it many times throughout your lifetime with friends or relatives or even, you know, your pets. Some people, you know, I thought of my dogs as family and You know, you face it, so learning how to accept it, how to talk about it, how to be able to share sometimes is really good.

And so that it doesn't immobilize us.

Yes.

Because these losses, the older we get, they mount up. You know, and it may not be just the loss of our pets or our humans, it can be loss of dignity, a loss of a job, loss of a body part, somebody going through cancer. There are so many losses that mount, and what I find is many of these places can be sticking points and places that shut people down. And if we can use these places as sort of springboards, you know, kind of like if our heart is breaking, let's let it break open. And let some of the light in so that we can heal, we can be with others, and find new ways of framing it.

That's a good way to put it, let some of the light in, because it's the darkness that keeps us from moving forward. And so many times we trap that darkness within ourselves, and that's what just eats away at us. We have to let it break open and start anew. So that's a good philosophy.

It can be very isolating too. And so, you know, when Misty and I came together to create a community and a forum, and lots of people are doing this in different ways, is, you know, what we find is some people really talk about things that they haven't shared with anybody else because either they were dismissed or they felt that they wouldn't be understood. So when we can create forums like that, and even little mini forums with our with ourselves, being able to look at these things in the presence of ourselves, to then maybe take it to families or those, you know, with whom we feel really safe.

Yeah, sometimes sharing something with a person, even a stranger, really sets you free. Just saying it out loud sometimes is enough to understand that there is a problem, because you are saying it out loud. It takes a very strong person to be able to do that because it's not always easy.

And you know, it's funny that you say that too, Dennis, because sometimes it is easier to the stranger, and you're right, sometimes it can set a whole different path of release when somebody says that, maybe to a stranger, maybe to a family member, but that burden and that release is, can get cleared when we share. And then I think, you know, with other people's perspectives and support, you know, miracles can happen and openings can happen where there weren't any before.

A lot of times a stranger will have a much clearer, better perspective than someone that's close to you. An unbiased perspective that, you know, really either agrees with you or disagrees with you, and that's the good thing.

I think that's really true. And sometimes, you know, in our own inner circle, there's a lot of— what would be the word— sort of tendrils or energies that can kind of keep us closed and keep us sort of appearing the same way that we do in a family dynamic. That's the word I was looking for, I guess, is dynamics. And so sometimes it is safer to go outside of that.. And then maybe bring that back into a family scenario when, when it feels like the right time. That's a very individual, individual thing. And I think there's lots people can do, and there are lots of resources now. Gosh, years ago there weren't— there wasn't such a thing as a grief coach. Now there's grief coaches out there. So it is fascinating to watch this, this industry start to grow and break out and create new niches that are really needed.

And speaking of grief coaches, I think that's going to be the new nickname for Chip Kelly in Philadelphia, the way he's going lately.

So I hear. I'm not as close a follower of that as my husband is, but yeah, that's probably a really good title for him.

I think they might be missing Big Red after a while. I don't know.

Oh my gosh, oh my gosh.

Anyway, although I will give him credit, I like Tim Tebow. They just brought Tim Tebow on and I think he is really a cool, quality guy and he's a hell of an athlete and he's just a little bit different in his perspective of playing football, but I think he's a good quarterback. He's not like Peyton Manning, but you know, he's got his own qualities and his own merits, so I'm interested to see what they can do with him. If anybody can, I think they might be able to.

I just came in on Peyton Manning.

You can take yourself out of Philadelphia, but you certainly can't take Philadelphia out of you, huh? So you still will track Philly sports?

I do, but only to watch the Eagles lose. I'm a Dallas fan.

Okay, there you go. So how did that work out for you being a Dallas fan in Philadelphia?

It was not always easy. We had some very painful years, but I would always show my grief by holding up the 4 Super Bowl rings Oh gosh, that's bad.

And I'm sure if you were in person at a stadium, somebody was gonna bop ya in the head for that one.

Let me tell ya, I found out a very interesting fact. My girls at the school I worked at bought me 50-yard line tickets one year for the Eagles and Dallas, right behind the Dallas, on the first level. And I found out when you sit in the first level, they don't throw things at you. They very nicely ask you to sit down and to be quiet. But up in the upper levels they heave stuff at you.

Really?

Yeah.

Well, that is the City of Brotherly Love. You know, we just want to make sure that you're feeling the love from the contact sport up here.

Oh well. Yeah, they make football a real contact sport in Philadelphia and the stadium too. Let's move on. And that being said, I still do love the Flyers and the Phillies. It was just those Eagles, that's all.

All right.

Let's move over to Esther now and say hi to Esther. And I don't know if you're a football fan or not, but living that close to Tampa, I don't know if they consider that football or not.

I would say I'm not a football fan, so I couldn't even comment on the discussion. I figured I would keep my little mouth closed.

No problem. Well, let's open your little mouth now and tell us about Esther. And, you know, I I read a lot. I know you from ShiftCon. I know you from all the comments you made while we were there. We've talked, and you're close. I had no idea how close you were to where I am in Florida. You were a big non-GMO activist, which is a good thing. You're also a fledgling— I looked back and saw some YouTube videos of you singing.

I went, "Wow!" Oh, you did some homework, did you?

Yeah.

Well, that's where my love started, is with music.

Well, when I was looking for a picture to post, I found all these other pictures of you in another life when you were a singer.

Oh, I wonder what you dug up.

I didn't share anything. I figured I'd leave that.

I have stories to tell you about that one.

Talk to us about you now, what you're doing and how you got to where you are.

Okay, well, I started out as a musician, as a singer. I'll share my screen just to show you a couple photos if you want to see. Um, here, just a second. I, I taught public school for 8 years. This is me. I'm a clinician. So I'll teach a children's chorus for the entire weekend and I'll just spend all day with them.

You're sharing, you're sharing your—

Yeah, you're sharing just the—

Okay.

We're getting double Patty and that's not a bad thing either.

Not a bad thing.

Double Patty?

Yeah, two of me Patties.

Two Patties in one.

You know, I'm still figuring this out but—

Tell us.

I started as a music teacher, and so, you know, I loved teaching kids, and I would spend all day teaching children in school. It would be the entire school. It would be like 900 children a week or something like that. So I really love kids, and I love working with large numbers of kids, like in the hundreds, or even in just small, a small amount. So that's something that I really enjoyed, and I did that for 8 years. And I sing and play piano. And, you know, I transitioned into becoming a mother. So I teach private lessons and piano lessons, and I still get to be in people's homes every day while they're eating dinner, interestingly enough. And when I became a mother, I started getting interested in what we were eating because my son was having some challenges, and I realized that food was affecting him. And I started digging a little deeper, and I realized You know, there's a real issue going on here that I was oblivious to my entire life. So now I'm, you know, now I'm really into it. You know, I want to make sure that I'm not feeding my son something that's going to make our life more difficult, basically, just to be really, you know, general about it. I try not to be hardcore, you know, but that's pretty much like a summary. If you want a summary.

How is your son doing since he changed diets? Has he seen improvement, and have you seen improvement?

I would say there's definitely improvement. We don't eat any artificial dyes because they're made out of— this is so crazy— they're made out of crude oil and petroleum. I did not know that. When you eat an artificial dye, you're actually putting a fossil fuel into your body.

That does not fuel you.

If he would eat something with an artificial dye, he will actually in the middle of the night have screaming and nightmares. We took it all out, and he stopped having these night terrors and these nightmares. The other day, my husband got him something in It was an accident. It wasn't on purpose, but he was up in the middle of the night screaming again. It's one of those little things. It does make a big difference. We're better off without it.

Oh, yeah. No wonder the people at Earth Balance were not real happy when I told them I love their product except they could put a little yellow food coloring in it because it was brown.

How'd that go over, Chef?

That didn't go over. Now I can't work with the Dennis Littley people or the Earth Balance people.

They can use a plant-based dye.

Yeah, there you go. There are plant-based dyes and there are natural dyes you can use.

Right, just made out of vegetables.

Can you talk about, can you share what you just shared with us in the green room because that was shocking to me.

Sure, if I can share my screen appropriately.

Yeah, I can share my screen. So if you bear with me.

Okay.

You can walk us through it.

I'm going to try this real quick. I'm going to see if this can happen. Okay, here we go. Can you see this?

Almost. There we go.

Yeah, we got it.

This right here is the EPA's website. So this is the United States Environmental Protection Agency. At the top here, you see this blue bar? It says pesticides, regulating pesticides. See that right there? You'd think, oh, well, this is going to be like RAID or or wasp killer, or, you know, the things we use when we have termites. Oh no! When you scroll down, you look here, this is all corn.

This is—

it's called BT corn, and it's engineered so that the pesticide, the insecticide, grows as a part of the plant. So these are all patents of corn that we are eating. Or they're being fed to cattle.

Look at my face. I know this already, but every time I hear it, I'm still like, oh my God. Doesn't it blow up the bubble?

I didn't know they put it as a pesticide. That was a shocker to me. I didn't know that this is listed as a pesticide that is in our food. That's insanity.

Right. And that's the simple thing I like to teach people is corn is a pesticide. It actually, when the bug eats it, the bug, their stomach explodes. And so a lot of people are having a lot of digestive issues and all kinds of autoimmune things and skin issues. And so just a simple thing, I'm gonna cover up the product name. So this right here would be a patented pesticide, okay? So what the heck?

Monsanto sucks.

I know. So what I like to tell people is instead, all you do is just get some organic corn, and then there you go. This is my favorite brand right here. This is Whole Foods 365 brand, and it's— that was— this is $1.99 right here. And so I just tell people, replace it. Replace the, you know, the other brands. With organic corn.

There's certain foods, and corn is probably the worst offender, and things like corn chips that you don't think about. If you're not buying organic, you're getting them in there. You're getting them in all kinds of products, and it's a little bit crazy.

I know, and I just started looking around going, "Oh, where is the corn in my life?" It's everywhere.

I think it's easier to say, "Where is it not?" Right?

So I started looking up all these— I know, I looked up all these corn derivatives. So, you know, corn and I have an interesting relationship. I'm just keeping my eye on it, like corn.

Corn's like that really crappy boyfriend.

I could drive up by cornfields and I'd go, "Corn." He tastes good, but you know he's bad for you, that kind of boyfriend.

Yeah, I like that analogy. Go Patty!

Well, we all haven't been there to some degree. I don't know who has.

I haven't been there, but that's okay.

Well, you may have been a corny girlfriend at some point.

Corny girlfriend, yeah, but not boyfriend, so that's okay. Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just that I don't bat for that team.

There you go.

I have friends that do, and that's fine. Moving right along.

Just like Jerry Seinfeld says, yeah, not that there's anything wrong with that.

That's right.

I believe in the right to— people can eat GMOs and die if they want to. That's fine. I'm not complaining.

Well, I want to share, like we shared that in the green room, and there is this app. It's free, guys. Called Fooducate, and it will tell you what's in your food by basically just scanning the product, and automatically you can see if it's B and A, you can buy it. If it's C and D, don't buy it. And this is really interesting because look at this. This is like cashew. You would think this is health, right? And you buy it and thinking this, you're eating a healthy bar, and actually it has a bunch of sugar and it's highly processed. So rather than, you know, trying to figure out which part of the product is good for you or bad for you, just scan it, and not only will it tell you whether to buy it and what's in it, but, you know, some alternatives. And so what Esther was saying in the green room is that they don't list GMO. So if all of us here on the Hangout can write to them and say, hey, list that stuff too, maybe that will be added there. But this is step one, and it's very, very, very easy. So—

That's a great point.

Thank you for mentioning that.

Esther, I had a question.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Oh, mentioning what, writing to them?

Esther, about the rest of your diet, like if you did grass-fed beef or obviously organic and GMOs as much as possible, but how about beef and fish and chicken? How do you manage that for your family?

Okay, meat can get expensive and we're trying to reduce our meat just in general. But we do— if I do meat, I get organic because what the animal is fed is important. Because if the corn has a pesticide, then that will become a part of their tissue. So I make sure that it's organic, organic chicken. I go to Costco or something like that. Costco's got a lot of organic.

Costco's been very good lately.

Oh yeah, I'm super impressed with Costco. Fish I'm having some trouble with. Because I'm right near— I'm in Florida. So if we get local fish, I'm a little concerned because we had the BP oil spill right off the Gulf. And I don't really want Asian fish where the fish are fed feces. So it's a really tough situation for me. I'll have wild-caught Alaskan salmon or something like that. But we don't eat too much fish, I would say.

I actually found that Costco also sells some really good sourced frozen fish. They have a wild-caught Alaskan coho salmon. Up to that point, I did not like salmon before. The coho had a really better flavor, and now we eat salmon regularly. I also found some other products. Sourcing seafood is difficult, but you're right. You do not— I don't want to make it sound like I'm against Asian water seafood. Food or third world country seafood, but they're farmed most of the time, and what they do to them to let them grow is just— you don't want to eat that stuff. You really don't. So true.

I just think people are wanting to know exactly how it's raised. We just want to know the transparency now.

That's not a lot to ask, I don't think. Also, Trader Joe's and Whole Foods, although those Those guys are more expensive, but Trader Joe's, you can get a lot of wild-caught fish fairly inexpensively compared to, say, Whole Foods.

Check the label, though, because wild-caught has become a buzzword, just like natural was. You'll see wild-caught, and it'll be wild-caught from Vietnam. It'll be wild-caught from other not really good areas. Just because it says wild-caught doesn't necessarily mean that it's sourced from a good area.

You know what's really funny? You're bringing it up and it's kind of like people just put these names in front of everything, right? Like I can call myself Healthy IFAAT, and now that's the name of the product, right? Healthy IFAAT. And so I was thinking about this, I was like, you know, back in the '60s, going natural was, you know, the norm. It did not mean anything clean or, you know, tidy or anything like that. It was just like the opposite. Today, natural is Well, it's natural, but it doesn't mean anything, right? It's just like, it's on the bag, it's natural.

In the '60s, I remember going natural meant you were going to a nudist colony.

I don't know what that means, right? All natural, no deodorant, no nothing.

But now there's a really funny video on the word natural and how you can use it. And actually, didn't the FDA just jump all over— what bar was it? The Kind bars, because they were saying they were healthy, and it was like a candy bar, really. Some of them, not all of them, but some of them were just like eating candy bars, so they had to take that away from them. So, you know, it is—

Very interesting, because, you know, like we were talking just about sugar, right? Sugar is like huge. It's horrible, the way they make it, the way they process, all that stuff, and it's in everything, like in ketchup. So how do you get the sugar out of your diet? It's impossible.

That's Label Detective. Okay, so IFA, yeah, I am in this Hangout. So here's the problem with being an experiential ambassador. You guys have noticed me going in and out. I have a car that's Mitsubishi. They dropped off for me that I've been driving all week. Well, they just texted me during the show. They're like, we're coming over. To get the car, and I was going to do a little video for it when I had makeup on. I thought they weren't coming, so this is what you get sometimes when you actually are a brand ambassador. You got to get some shit done. So it was my little— I'll post a picture of it. It was kind of fun, so that's why I've been running in and out. So sorry, everybody. But it sounds like you guys got it all covered between corn and sugar because we could talk about that for 8 hours.

I did let them know that you had to go out to get your car. I said you were having your car repositioned. Possessed though.

Did she say I got it repo'd? Mia is out crying in the driveway.

Exactly.

So tell us about your trip to Italy now that you are back.

Well, speaking of, that's part of my experiential brand ambassadorship was the trip to Italy. It was 3 weeks and part of that was actually, actually most of it was sponsored through Winerist. And then I also had some amazing Italian ambassadors, Nazim Balthran and his wife Elisabetta, that was my Milan leg. Pio Dalsin was the Venice Prosecco country leg. Hello!

Hello!

This just in, you don't get sick of Prosecco.

No.

Maybe you will at Betty Ford Clinic, but you really don't. And then Adelaide Hornlein and her husband Mark were my Umbria/Tuscany ambassadors, and then I had people in Rome that were two hotels, the Hotel Dei Mulini and Borgognoni, and then Then Nazim and his wife also took me to Kemaleyi. I had 3.5 weeks pretty much courtesy of Google+, the relationships on Google+.

That's great.

Wonderful.

It was really, really fun. I will do a screen— Hello. Let me do a screenshot. This is another thing I love about Google+ is that as I did the pictures and put them all together, look at me in wine heaven. Hello.

Oh my gosh.

3 sides around you on one.

Look at me.

I look like I'm in awe. I just can't even speak. But I love it that Google+— Pio took me to this— I finally had to teach him what cut the cheese means in American slang. He thought that was funny. So we had— yeah, this was like this cheese maker thing. So this is what I love about Google that does the auto awesome. Isn't that fun? So it's kind of fun when you do albums on Google+ like you can do, like look, you guys, Italy is that friggin' charming by the way. Wow. It's that. This is at Cattopoggio. This is in the Prosecco Hills as well. So just absolutely beautiful. Yeah, we didn't get sick of it. But I love how, yeah, this one cracked me up because you know, why not? Exactly. Exactly. Let me do, Venice was amazing too by the way. Venice was absolutely beautiful. I love them all. I will say Rome really, really, really did thrill me quite a bit. Rome, the energy of these ancient places, you really can feel the story. It's pretty, especially if you're kind of empathic, you sort of pick up on it. You know, pretty much the running theme is that a lot of the rulers of any of these cities were total a-holes.

That's how they got—

Just like today, huh?

Yeah, wow, it's funny how things don't change.

Some things never change.

Yeah, some things never change. Top of the food chain white guys.

Coke brothers.

And I actually had a GoPro as well. I haven't done— Cameron's going to help me out with that. I did a GoPro from standing in a Fiat, like a 1972 Fiat, and driving through Tuscany, which was fun. And then one of the guys took me on a—

what do you call it—

a scooter tour. Of Rome on the back of a scooter, and I had the GoPro the whole time, you know, kind of doing that. So there might be a little kind of nail-biting action, but it was sort of fun to try out the GoPro too.

Are you going to call that Driving Miss Mia?

Driving Miss Mia is absolutely right. These are two examples of Driving Miss Mia.

Well, you took the route in Rome though on the scooter that was in that movie, wasn't it, with Audrey Hepburn?

Yeah, A Roman Holiday. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Actually, one of the— I met just these really interesting people. That was a cool thing, is everybody loves to tell their story or tell a story about it. So that was a huge running theme. The restaurants you'd go to, the hotels you'd go to, the people you'd meet, everybody has a story about either their family, the history, the place you're at. It's pretty amazing. I kept having to remind them, like, you guys do know how cool Americans think you are, right? Because there wasn't one person I'd say, I'm going to Italy for this long, and they were like, No thanks. So guess what's next on my little adventure tour?

Tell us, tell us.

I'm gonna go hang out with Ifat down in Austin and kick it.

I am so looking forward to this. I already told her it cannot be a quickie. She has to come and stay.

I don't think mama does quickies.

I don't roll that way, boys or girls. And I roll both ways on that, you know, with trips.

So Austin, get ready.

Yeah, Austin, it's in the his house. When I would go, because they prepared it, they're like, the Americans here. I don't know what they're going to say in Austin.

I'm sorry, but this is making me think a little bit of Harald and Kumar do White Castle.

I think it is going to be a lot of Driving Miss Daisy, because IFAW doesn't drink, and Mama likes her booze. So it would be like Driving Drunk Mia.

I'm the designated non-drinker.

She is the D, yeah, the D squared constantly. So it'd be like, she's going to have a dashboard cam.

You see all the shot glasses on it, on the way to the bar, out of the bar, going to the other bar.

We call those roadies here in the States. Can I take a roadie in the car?

Yeah.

Mia likes to raise the bar.

I do like to raise the bar. And it's so funny, you thought you'd stay here, I talk a big game, I'm in bed by 10 o'clock every night. I got no game anymore. I'm excited though to check out, because I know you've already checked out some places in Austin, and Debbie Davis has been too, of like places that we can go and say, hey, you know, do you want to be on the Mia on the Go road show and do some weird fun stuff? I need some fun adventures.

We have some stuff. Sheffy, I think you got it, right? You got the COVID Yeah.

I have the kava.

I've been waiting for you to drink it though.

Well, I'll go down there and we'll do the kava show.

Yeah, a whole ceremony with a plant that's supposed to calm you down. So we'll see how calm Mia can get with shots of kava.

My kava's been patiently awaiting.

The kava. Love kava.

Yeah, it's a controlled substance. I'm kind of digging it.

I was gonna cut a couple lines of it.

I double dog dare ya. Let's see that on Instagram.

Go buy sponsorship.

And your pupils are like huge, like, hey, sponsor me!

Now for you, we have vultures.

I think what I'm going to need is one of those little mister fans if we're going to be there in the summertime, though, Yifat.

Actually, you know what? The weather has been changing so much that I think Texas might become a tropical place to live in. It's been wonderful, raining almost every day, which is wonderful for dry Texas. So we might actually have a view of the lake when you get here. We might have a lake. We might have.

You see if you can work up a lake for me by the time I get there.

I'm working on it. I'm getting all the men in there.

Can you do some work for California, get them some water?

Yeah, next I'll go to California. Let's see what we can work up then.

They really need some water.

I know.

So that's the deal. Before Mia gets to a place, it gets filled up. The tourist places are becoming awesome. So yeah, the weather is nice. Actually, we might really enjoy it when you get here.

Good. I'm not—

I'm the rainmaker then, too.

The rainmaker, yeah.

The rainmaker?

All right.

Not Rain Man, rainmaker.

Or the freshmaker. I'd rather be that, too. Right?

Patty, is it true it snowed in Philadelphia yesterday? I heard there were some flurries.

No, not that— I wasn't out much, but it was actually pretty nice, in the 50s or 60s. Maybe it was another section.

One of my friends up a little further north going more towards Allentown said there were flurries.

Yeah, it probably could be up there. It's always a little bit colder up there towards the Poconos.

Yeah, I was feeling real bad for her too.

I bet you were.

Such a snob.

Yes, and that's probably when he took pictures of himself grilling in shorts on the patio. Is that what you did?

I did, yeah. I actually did a show Wednesday at a friend's kitchen, Chef Bob Onks. We did it all, and I forgot, you know, in my kitchen you can never see that I have shorts on because I always shoot from here. Well, we were shooting far enough back, and I put my leg up on something and said, "Oh crap, I'm wearing shorts. This isn't really a good look." Chef's coat and cargo pants.

That's a surprise what's on the bottom, chefy.

What's on the bottom?

Chefy. Oh, I'm doing the Florida Hospital gourmet soiree next Sunday, and I'm actually one of the chefs that's cooking. I got— they asked me to do it. I'm like, really, you want me to do it with all these super cool professional chefs? And Robert Irvine's gonna be there, so I will wear big boy pants for that day though. I will wear—

oh, that's good.

I can imagine. That'll be fun. And also I have my, my conference coming up. I want to throw a plug in for that, and that will be June 12th through the 14th. It's a little early this year because mom is dragging me back to New Jersey the following week for 5 weeks, so I had to get it in while I knew I had good bandwidth and could do it here. But that's coming up, and that's going to be an awesome 12 regular sessions and our cocktail party Friday night. We'll actually have a chef doing a demo then, and I'm I'm hoping to have some music and having a little bit of a party then too, so it'll be fun.

That was so fun last year, Chef Biggs.

Yeah, that's right. Just gotta—

yeah, it's pretty cool, it's fun. And then after that, I may be taking some time off for a little while because I'm tired.

Yeah, should we add ourselves?

You're a married man, you should be celebrating marriage.

Well, she wears me out, I'm telling you. I got to read books just to to keep up with her.

She's a smarty pants and she's a hot little number.

Yeah, that she is. What she ever saw in me, I don't know, but I'm glad she did. Now that I finally have a ring on my finger.

Oh, you like it? Put a ring on it.

Yeah.

Got it.

Are you going on a honeymoon or have you been?

Actually, tonight we're doing a little quick mini one. Friends of ours gave us a night at the Grand Floridian. And we're going there. We're having dinner at the top of the Contemporary. They're really— it's an amazing restaurant there. It's probably the best meal I've had in Florida since I've been here was there. And then we have Albert and Victoria's for breakfast, a character breakfast tomorrow morning. So that's it. And then I'm heading to Madeira Beach to review a beautiful seaside cottage. So that'll have 3 nights there. So that'll be it. And then if we go to Europe in in the fall. That'll be the real honeymoon.

Sounds great. See, worth getting married for, just for the trips, right?

Just for the trips. But anyway, that's about it for us. So we're going to do a real quick run-through, say hi to everyone one last time. If you have any calls to action or anything you'd like to talk about, now's the time. And then we'll say goodbye for the day. But, uh, Ifat, are you ready, or you're juicing your little guy?

Little guy here. Okay, so, you know, there was a birthday a while back Ester, you're going to kill me. And we got this junk, junk, and we haven't got rid of it yet. And so every day it's a fight. Can I have this now? Can I have this now? And I'm like, come on, finish them already. Don't buy it already.

But I will finish it.

If you give it to me, I'll finish it, Mom.

Come on.

He's like, oh no, you did not. Just tried to take away my juice.

Don't out me on air, Mom.

I'm not laughing at you, Liori. I'm going to be muting now and then you guys keep going.

Wait till she starts speaking to him in Hebrew. I'm always like, "Is she talking to me?" Oh good, I love it.

Alright, so Patti, any calls to action, anything? Your show's coming up, what do you got going on for us?

Our show, Thursdays at 3 o'clock Eastern Time called The Deaf Chicks. We hope that you stop by and You can also go to DoingDeathDifferently.com if anybody has any interest in end of life. If you're just called or drawn in that direction, we'd love to share what we've got going with you. But all is well in this death space.

Can we refer people to you that perhaps we're not happy with and want to hurry along?

Yeah, you can do that. We'll take care of them over here.

Probably shouldn't say that out loud, but oh well.

Oh, but everybody's thinking it, so let it fly.

And Esther, anything happening fun in your life? Performing anywhere live? We can come watch you sing?

Oh, I'm gonna have my piano recital, but you know, it's just gonna be the kids and the parents. You can find me at GMO Free News. That's one place. A call to action: there's a new film out called Merchants of Doubt. It's a Sony film by Food, Inc. Director Robert Kenner. It's all about PR and how they spin things. I was going to say that's my call to action. Check that out, Merchants of Doubt.

Merchants of Doubt. Is anybody big in it or is it an indie film?

It's about climate change and how they hire these PR firms to make it appear that it's not happening and it's such an awesome documentary. I would say That's my call to action.

Very good. You remember an old movie called Wag the Dog?

Oh yes.

It was about PR, how they put a spin on things. There's always a good spin on something, make it completely different.

Get started that way as they did in that movie.

Yep, gotta love it. Alright, well thank you very much.

Can I do a call to action?

Yes, yes you can.

Okay, I think you definitely need to go check out Doing Death Differently. I'm sorry I missed that I apologize for jumping in and out, but I know after losing, you know, my cats, and especially Bob went in such a gracious way, and I've always said, dude, I'm going Bob style. I'm going to have a little bit of a little cocktail and wrapped up in a blanket and check my happy ass out. So I love that. I'm sorry I didn't get to— I do have eyes like when my other cat, one of my other cats, Gigi, I'm like, I want to go Gigi style, like, woo, everybody loves me.

There you go. There you go.

So I love that.

We'll trap you in a shoebox for a while, alright?

Pretty much. And will you guys go subscribe at themiaconnect.com because I'm going to be putting out some fun blog posts about the adventures. You know, things like how to flush a toilet, which always, you know, I never knew what was going to happen when I was in Italy. So go to themiaconnect.com.

And I'm out. Did you have any of the holes just in the floor?

I had one with the footprints, and there's a picture of the footprints.

Not—

it was pre— And thank God I was only number 1. I would have been like, I'm out.

You miss that hole, you're screwed.

I'm telling you.

Hey!

We won't go there. Okay. And then Iffat, any calls to action? You're going to your conference.

Yeah, so we are actually doing the first thing, I'm trying a new thing, guys. I think that gamification and live engagement like this can actually change lives and make us do things for ourselves and everybody else much more in a fun way. So we are launching with Andrea Albright, who is a fitness magazine cover model and a fitness coach, 4-day— 4 weeks, I wish it was 4 days, 4 weeks body makeover. So if you've ever, like you know me, I want my trophy wife body, but nothing worked until now. So we're going to gamify it and give you points and rewards and connect you with other people and have a community, but you also get the Hangouts. Face-to-face, come in and talk to Andrea and ask her anything that you want. So like my question was, she's talking about mini meals, you know, if you break out your meals during the day and just make small mini meals every 2 hours, that keeps your sugar blood level and you don't get the cravings and you start eating healthy and all that stuff and you lose weight. And I was like, okay, great, so does a big bowl of salad count as a mini meal? So questions like that, like, you know, hummus, is that good for you? Is that too much fat? Or should I be eating nuts throughout the day, or is it too much? Stuff like that that you're doing every day and you think, well, it might be healthy, maybe not. You can come in and actually ask her face to face whatever it is that's on your mind and have a community to—

what was that? We don't want you to say it.

I swear to God, my brain, your mouth.

For those of you that don't know, Mia Voss just texted, "Eating hummus, not homos." I never know if she's saying bed sheets or bullshit.

Go to andreu.com.

I'm just going to put the list below.

If anyone wants to join us, we're there. Roger and out. Roger and out.

Roger and out. Roger and out. Roger and out is what Cisco says. Oh well. Okay, I can see. There we go.

Oh my gosh.

Just getting into it. Well, thank you all for a fun, happy show, and I know I can always count on some mirth and merriment when you guys are on. Love you too. Gotcha.

I know.

Yay! We'll sing you a little happy song. So have a wonderful weekend, everyone. Enjoy your time and Go party! Everybody's getting into it now, and I'm going to stop repeating them before I get myself in trouble with some coalition. See you soon.