Good Day Google+ - Social Media, Bloggers and Good Food

Hey there, I'm Chef Dennis Littley, and today we're here with Good Day Google Plus. And as I always say, it's always a great day when you're on Google Plus, and it's even better on Fridays because I'm here with my friends, and I get to introduce some of my friends to you that you, if you don't know them already, or if you do, you can say hi, give them a shout out. But today we're gonna have a nice little talk, and I have some of my friends in here with me. I'm gonna introduce them real quick, and then we'll come back and talk to them. But first I have Diane Baldwin, and I have known her for a long time. She's a fellow blogger, and you are in Washington, right?

That is correct, yes.

Yep, Washington State. So I'm glad you could join us today.

Thank you for having me.

Oh, my pleasure. And then next to Diane, we have Aslan Bloor, or Lynn as she likes to be known to her friends and family, and that's much easier. And she is also a fellow food blogger, and you may have seen her with Larry Fournier on some shows and some of her own shows as well. So Thank you so much for joining us today, Lynn.

Hi, Jeff, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited. My first of your shows.

Yes, it is, and you are coming to us from— are you in the UK?

I am in the UK, yes, in the south of England.

Very good. And then next to Lynn, we have Andy Nathan, and he has his own show, Startup Gap, on HOAs, and he's been gracious enough to join us. He's a little under the weather today, so don't pick on him too much. —so we're going to say hi. And Andy, you're coming to us from Chicago. Chicago.

Yeah, thank you very much. Yeah, I appreciate you protecting me there. My pleasure.

I'm glad you could come on today, and I enjoyed talking to you and being on your show, so we had a good time. And we're waiting for Wade to join us, and hopefully he'll be on in a little bit. So if he pops on, we'll give him a quick shout out and introduce him and then move on. But right now we're just going to start talking to our friends, and you get to know them more as real people on the Plus and you'll get to know what they're doing, what some of their passions are, any projects that they might have coming up. If you have questions, like always, please put them in the comments section and we will hopefully get to them. We're just going to start her up. Dion, I am going to let you start since you're next to me and tell us what you've been doing. Oh, here comes Wade. We'll say hello to him in just a second as soon as he gets on. We'll let him get on. Why don't you talk to us and tell us about what you've been doing. I know you've changed your blog a bit. You've done some things over the past year or so and some other projects that you do. So why don't you tell us a little bit about what you do? I want to know.

All right, Dennis. Well, thank you. Yeah, we did do a minor facelift on the blog over the past year, and we've been doing it a little bit more because it's really more of a family project that I kind of started when my daughter was really little. Wanted to find something that we could do together no matter what the budget was or what our time limit was, was cooking and baking. It's really evolved So a lot of what we've done lately is coming up with a lot of seasonal recipes. We participate in a local farm share, and a lot of the people at the share are really kind of puzzled as to what they can do with recipes. So we've actually been working on a lot of recipes that people can use that are very seasonal, that they can make for their family for dinner that are easy. So we really like that. It's a really fun project.

And have you— I've seen as your children have been getting a little bit older, how things changed in the kitchen for you?

They, their opinions have changed from, "Yeah, I don't really like that," to, "I don't really like that flavor. It needs a little bit more of this, or it needs more balance." Their critiques have been a little bit more sophisticated, and it's a riot to go out and eat and have the server listen to us. I'm like, "What kind of people?" We just like our food. Don't mind us. But it's really cool to see them evolve, and they use it to kind of as an outlet for creativity sometimes too. Create something in the kitchen, have at it, go for it, you cook tonight. So they have a freedom. Oh yeah, they really do.

Are they eating things that they wouldn't have before? Yeah, yeah.

The kids tried for the first time, they tried raw oysters. And then I was surprised Taylor was grabbing at them. I'm like, you better slow down, this is your first time, but she loved them. That was the most recent thing that they tried that I was surprised surprised how much they liked those livers. I was a little bit surprised, but I was impressed.

How about that? Well, that's great that you're getting them trying different foods, and you must have some really good access to some fresh seafood being where you are too, I hope at least.

Yes, we do, and we really like to kind of take advantage of that because then we can kind of— and I know my background comes with a lot of seafood, and I don't have a ton of experience prepping it, so we're kind of getting into that realm now, so it's really fun.

Cool, very good. We will come back to you later. Let's say hi to Wade, who's joined us. How you doing, buddy?

Glad you could make it. Hey, I'm so sorry I'm late. This California traffic, I still can't gauge it yet.

Oh, that's right, you're still in California.

Yeah, that's right. Yes, I thought that it would only take me 15 minutes to get to where I need to get because the internet at the hotel is not, you know, up to par. So I have to drive out a little ways to a friend of mine's place, and man, see, it's 1 o'clock where I'm from, so I was thinking lunchtime, you know, now that no people are going to work.

10 o'clock there, so they're— yeah. Oh my goodness. So we got a great group here. We're going coast to coast, across the pond. So we've got a good group with us. So anyway, well, thank you. I'm glad you could join us, and we will come back to you in just a minute. And hang tight and we'll have a little chat. So let's move over to Lynn. So Lynn, why don't you tell us what you've been doing and what some of your projects are.

Gosh, well, I'm a homeschooling mom of 4, so I try and divide my time between that, G+, and giving Kukri classes. I also have my own Kukri school, and I love G+. I'm sure you guys do as well. You're all here. It's fantastic, the opportunities that are there if you know how to use them and how to capitalize on them. But there is still so much to learn, isn't there? Always.

It keeps changing. That's one of the interesting things about G+ is that it keeps evolving and changing. And you really have to keep up on it. I don't envy new users coming on sometimes because of that.

Someone said to me just this morning, actually, the only constant about G+ is change.

That's it. Just when you think you've got it figured out. That's the world around us, so it's just really mimicking the world. Everything changes. But tell me a little bit about your homeschooling. I am always so interested about that. Now, are there any differences in the UK, you think, than the US on how we homeschool?

I think your homeschooling movement in the US is is so much greater than ours. Ours perhaps in the last 5 years it's gathered momentum, more and more parents are looking into it. I think we weren't very happy with the schooling that my eldest was getting. I mean, you know, most parents think their kids are clever, but my eldest was doing sort of 12 times tables when he was 4, that sort of stuff, you know. So we got to a stage where we thought, right, he needs more. So we took him out of school school just temporarily to find a new one. And then we realized we loved it so much, took all our kids out of school and we homeschool. And it's, it is such a, so much more relaxed. You know, you don't have the school runs in the morning. You study what you want to study when you want to study, you know. And like Dion's kids, my kids love cooking. Every, my 13-year-old has been making Sunday dinner for about 2 years now. And now he's got his 10-year-old involved in it. So, you know, it's very good. It gives us a sense of freedom. One of the best things is we go on holiday when no one else does. I think that's one of the best advantages of homeschooling, personally.

Oh my God, that would be wonderful. You can go when you want to go anywhere. You don't have a school calendar.

So now during the holidays someone calls us up, "Hey, let's go to the park." "Oh yeah, don't know about that. It's a bit busy right now during the holidays. All the normal folk are in the park.

We'll just go when nobody's there." And I guess they can't complain about school lunches either then.

No, no, no, we don't actually— school lunches aren't a big thing here in the US. I think just as many schools don't have school lunches as they do, so packed lunches from home are pretty common here in the UK.

I think they're getting more common in the US. It's just that we have so many children that don't have access to food at all, so they depend on the school lunches at breakfast. Absolutely. Well, that's good to know. So, and you're a— but you were a teacher as well, so you have a little advantage of some people that are homeschooling.

Perhaps, perhaps, yes. It's when my kids are being a bit lazy, it's like, I said now, right now, you know.

You've got that teacher voice. My wife tries it on me.

Right now, and that's it, off they go doing it.

So perhaps that's the only advantage I've got, the teacher I know Lisa tries it on me because she was a teacher for 27 years, and I'm going, do they really buy that?

You've got to have the right depth, the right tone to carry it off.

You can scare a 10-year-old, but you're going to have to try. She does have— she can scare me too. I'm not saying she can't. She has to use a different kind of voice. Yep, definitely. All right, let's move over to Andy then. Andy, thanks so much for being here, and I want you to tell us a little bit about what you're doing. What some of your projects are that you have going on.

Okay, very cool. Yeah, definitely. Well, first of all, by the way, Lynn, as a former teacher, that's amazing. I never developed a good teacher voice, so the fact that you can do that is really kind of cool. Before I get on to that, one of the things I'm working on right now is a project called Startup Gap, and I was fortunate a few weeks ago I had Chef Dennis Littley on the call, and every week what I do is I like to profile the stories of people who've gone from dreams to success and talk about how they did it. Because I think there's a large part of entrepreneurs where we think that you all of a sudden start up a business and then you're successful. And you hear all these cool stories about how people did it, but they don't really talk about what happened in between and how they actually did it. So I want to actually focus on that, that gap. And that's one of the things I've been working on, and part of that is that I'm actually helping out entrepreneurs with getting over the curve. And one of the things we're doing, we just launched this today, our first book, uh, we're actually doing group book projects with people. So instead of actually just saying, hey, yeah, you should learn how to do this, we actually work with them. Because one of the big things that entrepreneurs have is they want to build authority and tell people that they're a trusted resource. So we actually had a book that's out on Amazon today. It's actually free for the next 5 days. It's called Learning from Failure. And it's the first book in a series that we're doing, and just talking to entrepreneurs and talking about how they learn from those failures and how they now succeed from it. So that's— I don't know. I can't cook, though, as well as anybody else here, so I really feel like I'm out of my league.

We're lucky. We have a food-heavy panel today.

We'll get Wade to make dinner tonight. What's that? We'll get you to make dinner tonight.

Oh, no. I'm actually going out for dinner tonight. That's how I'm making it.

Yeah, that's my, my wife's favorite way to make dinner, it's reservations.

So yeah, I was raised on reservations, so like, that's, that's how you were told to make dinner.

All right, so let's move over to Wade. And Wade Harmon, thank you so much for, for doing what you did to have to get to us. And talk a little about what are you still doing in California? That's everybody's big question here too.

Number one, I'm out here just seeing the sights. I love, I love this country. I mean, when I say this country, I mean not only the United States but California. I've had the experience to drive from Virginia all the way to California. I've seen some awesome things. And, you know, it's been, it's been a little over 2 years since I first started blogging, and now my income is kind of supporting myself and my family so that I can just take these long vacations and and we've just— we've been out since February, and, and I don't know how long we're gonna stay out, you know, just whatever.

I'd like to go up— we're out that long, that's wonderful.

Yeah, I'm thinking about going up to San Francisco and seeing Google, and, you know, just, just kind of ginning around. We're, we're doing a relationship marketing boot camp that's due to be released in June, and looking forward to that. Of course, we have the Relationship Marketing Weekly Hangout, which you was on with, with myself and Craig Chamberlain yesterday. That was fun. Yeah, it was. I just like, you know, I've been, I've been very blessed as far as the blog goes, and so now I can actually extend myself and work on other projects. There's, there's other people that are, are kind of reaching out their hands. Actually also been asked to speak at some different conferences too, so, so even, even that, it seems like once you can get past a certain point people start to notice you more, and then that ball just starts rolling. And you can kind of pick and choose what you, what you like and want to do. So yep, I love it. I'm thinking about moving out here.

I'm telling you, I couldn't move back up north again. You know, my wife wants to move us back up part-time. I said, well, it's gonna have to be in the summer. There's no way I'm spending another cold winter ever again.

Yeah, well, there's actually some snow on Yosemite, in the mountains up in Yosemite right now. And, uh, it's really— well, I mean, it's 90 down here in the valley, but you can drive an hour and a half and it's, you know, there's snow up there. We went and saw the big sequoia trees, and my kids— if you guys want to check it out, it's in my profile photos— my kids just went crazy. Over those things. Beautiful.

The only sequoia tree I've seen is a cut-out bit of it, slice of it, at the Natural History Museum in London. That's it. Flat, huge, massive thing smack on the wall.

The funny thing about it is they said that sequoia trees, they only grow in two parts of the world, and one of them is up there in Yosemite, and the other part is somewhere in China. Yeah, I thought that was interesting. It's either the sequoias or the redwoods. I'm thinking they said the sequoia was the one that, that only grew in two places. So yeah, it must be the type of earth or ground, whatever they're in. So it's pretty interesting.

Well, China is such a big country. I think, God, so much, so much of the food we eat today originated there. It's just wild when you go back to roots and you see where things started. And it's like, oh, you know, it's first grown in China or derived from something in China, just like our Meyer lemons.

But everything's made in China though these days.

Well, now, yeah, that too. Now everything you pick up, you got to look on the back. I have had the hardest time looking for china that didn't come from China. Yeah. Because I worry sometimes about some of the plants the stuff comes from and how they're painted or how they're coated. I don't mind things for general use, but if there's food going on, I'm very specific about what I do put food on. So that's one of my little anal things.

I tell you what, they make good— well, I'm sure there are lots of other things, but one stuff that I— thanks, Mia— stuff that I love from China are their shoes. They make some really good ladies' shoes. They make a lot of things really well. No takers for shoes? Ah, no shoe fans. Any shoe fans out in the audience? Come on, Mia, I'm sure you love your shoes. Sorry, Chef. That's okay.

You know, I'm— I know shoe buying. I go in, I pick up the same pair of shoes I have on my feet, I get a new pair, I go to the counter, and I'm done. And this is not how women shop for shoes.

Hey, you know, actually, I'm a pretty easy shoe shopper. You know, it's my husband I hate. I hate going shopping with him. The guy spends hours trying to find just one pair. I can get everything online. I have the perfect feet, I suppose. All shoes fit me. So there you go. My husband's useless.

They had a high heel event in Orlando where the men were putting on shoes and doing some kind of walk. And I said, if you can find a pair wide enough to fit my feet— I've got such fat feet. I'll be happy to join in, but I don't think you're gonna find many women with shoes that are wide enough for me.

Didn't Greg Triolo do that? Yes, he did.

Greg went out and he actually— Carolyn did a little like a video picture series of him dancing around in them. I think he enjoyed them just a little too much too.

What was the event in aid of? Was it in aid of something, this shoe walking thing? It was for women's abuse.

Dinner. So it was for a very good cause, and the mayor of Orlando actually came out and he had someone, and they had a lot of people that were really involved in it. And it was during the middle of the day, it was during the week too, so it was kind of a strange time. But yeah, they have a lot of fun in Orlando, let me tell you. I've been out, we had a nearly naked run one day. Oh my goodness. And we go into town for a beer festival that night, and there were more men in red dresses than there were women, or whatever else that they were having some cause for going to this beer, you know, back and forth to different places for these different type of craft beers that they were having. So I mean, they, they have way too much fun in town, you know. I'm really enjoying it.

I'll tell you something funny. It's been about 6 or 7 years ago, we went to Orlando to Disney and didn't have any idea, you know, I'm from Appalachian Mountains, I don't really watch the news or anything else, I'm not connected that much other than, you know, my business. And so I just, I went to Orlando, I have this red shirt that I love, I love this red shirt, it's actually, you know, short sleeve shirt just like this, button up, and I wore it that day to Disney and I noticed everybody was wearing red. Turns out it was the, uh, if you're gay wear red to Disney Day.

That was pretty fun.

I got all kinds of discounts on everything.

I bet you did. Wait, wait, don't feel bad.

I actually was in New Orleans a few years ago. This is like right after I graduated college. And I was walking around the city, downtown, in the old city. And it started pouring rain. So I saw this bar. They had an umbrella hanging there. And the bartender said, come on in. He said, have a beer. I said, I don't have any cash. He said, it's OK. I'll pay for your beer. And I started sitting there and drinking, and then I was about to finish, and I started talking with this guy, and he said, "I'll buy your next round." I said, "Great!" And after about an hour and a half, and guys kept buying me drinks, I'm like—

I'd have got out of there, man.

He said apparently this was a gay bar, which, you know, I don't really care, but it's like, I'm like, "Oh, this explains why I'm getting so many free drinks." I'm like, you know what I mean? It was a good flattering thing, but you know, I'm like, oh yeah, I don't really go that way.

This bar is really lovely.

I always say live and let live. I have no problem being anywhere. It's just fun. People are fun no matter who they are. But you know, you were just a cutie in town and young and fresh meat, and everybody was getting excited.

Absolutely. Fresh meat.

It reminds me of a time I was in the Philippines. This was years and years ago before I got married. And we were on a scuba diving trip. And I was there with the guy I was going out with. And we were in a bar in Manila just before we took the boat to go to one of the islands. And he went off— oh, it was a bar, but they had a couple of pole dancers as well. And so the guy I was with went off to go to the loo. And this lady, one of the ladies who was pole dancing, decided to put on a show for me. It's like, oh my god, where's this He must have taken all of 5 minutes in the loo, and she was going on and on and everything and taking stuff off right in front of me. Ooh! Not an experience I want to repeat.

Sure wasn't amateur night there. They weren't having people come up on the stage.

Audience participation.

Thank goodness it wasn't.

We have some people in the house I just want to shout out. Mark Seidel makes a good point. I don't know if it's true, but Orlando equals Sodom and Gomorrah. Well, don't tell the mouse that. And my sister Mia Voss is in the house, and we're trying to get her down here so we can do a live hurl with her. So hopefully she'll get down to Orlando sometime soon. I see, here we go, Yasin, and I'm not going to pronounce your last name because I don't know how to say it. Aslin, any help with that?

I don't know. Yasin, how do you pronounce your name? Make it up phonetically. Agi? Agi? That sounds like a good choice.

He says, China guys work for all the luxury brands. They have, like in the Western world, normally working people and making great quality as well. Good point there. I'm glad to see you here. I think— I don't remember seeing you, so it might be your first time. Maggie Unzueta is in the house, and she is a shoe fan. As well as Mia said the same thing, she is a shoe fan. Some shoutouts to a few people that are in the house today. Thank you so much for being here. Dion, we talked about kids and school lunches there briefly, and I remember you were doing something on that, weren't you? Are you still involved in children that don't have enough to eat up in your end of the woods?

Absolutely, we are. We kind of started a community project, and we call it No More Hungry Nights, and we really get the community— anybody, anyone who will actually help out, whether it's in your local area or ours. A lot of the kids in our local schools, they go without lunches, and if they for some reason don't get the free school lunches, or even if they do free school lunches and breakfast, sometimes that's all they get. And it's really hard to imagine until I was volunteering in the classroom and I would hear these students tell me this. And so of course you go running to the counselor and figure out what you can do. And just gathering donations is a great, you know, has been a great thing that we've had help from the community with as well, just to kind of give these families a boost. And then another thing we've also doing is people that need jobs, they want to end the joblessness, and they're able, we can connect them with local jobs in the area to kind of solve the problem. So it's really been a great thing to connect us with the community.

And you find these people are looking for work. It's not like they're just looking for a handout. They're looking for a hand up just so they can get, get their lives back in order. Well, right. They are.

And I know that some people with a single parent that's terminally ill, they're not able to work. You know, just being part of that support system to help them get what they need. And, you know, if there's people in place trying to find them a permanent solution, sometimes they just need a little bit to tide them over, and we're always really happy to help with that. So it's It's really sad when you think about it, but when you connect with everybody else that's willing to help, you can do— like you say, together we're stronger, so we can help more people when we pull together. Something we've been very passionate about, our whole family really gets involved when one of us, even the kids, when they find out that somebody needs something, and they go to us and say, "What can we do to try to get some donations to them?" So it's been really great as a family and as a community. That's good.

Thank you for what you're doing.

It must be pretty heartbreaking though, coming across kids like that, families like that. It is. Does it affect you? How do you separate yourself? You know, how do you not get personally involved?

Well, part of it is I know that I can't, and I know if I approach the children or the family, I won't— you know, the school kind of has rules about that. So it really does affect me emotionally. So the only two ways I can handle it is the first way is to go to somebody at the a school that can kind of, you know, if they're not already figuring it out, just kind of report the information so they can do what they do. It's a really great school. A lot of them in the area are out to help. And the second thing that I do to deal with it is just get donations, or, you know, if somebody needs a job, you know, try to connect them with what I know is available that they might not have heard about it. You know, find them resources for job training if they need to learn a different skill. So basically just taking action against it, because if I sit here and cry about it, nobody's getting better. So taking it has affected me, and I don't think even over— when she, my daughter, was in first grade, she's in fifth grade now, so even over that time, it really hasn't— I don't feel like it's really changed me at all. It's still really heartbreaking to see that, but if you can do something, it helps.

Yes. Yeah, I think it would be— well, it's a good thing it hasn't changed you. You haven't hardened over it. Because I think that would be taking away part of you as a person. I mean, you know what you can do and you know what you can't do, but it's still gonna affect you. It's gotta affect you. If it doesn't, I think there's something wrong.

Yeah, and I think a lot of it, maybe one of us doesn't deal with it in a healthy way, or like if we get, you know, really hardened by someone else's reaction, the kids and my other half, we're all really good at working together and kind of saying, "Well, but what about this?" and kind of thinking about it together so we have a really well-rounded approach to what how we might want to think about it and go about it. So it helps.

That's good. Good. You have a good strong support team. Absolutely. It's important. We have, uh, Mia Voss just shouted you out here too. She found your Pinterest board, No More Hungry Nights. Well done. So she put that up for us. And Cheryl Deuce, what a great project, Dion. So important to take care of our children. That really is.

And actually I've had a couple people ask in different parts of the country, can I kind of start something? And they've kind of talked about ideas and I'm like, okay, Awesome. Let me know what I can do for you.

Well, if you want to put any information up in the comment board later, if anybody is interested or wants to get involved or how to start something in their area, you know, maybe help them get something started or tell them which direction to go in.

Absolutely, kind of brainstorm a little bit.

Yeah, absolutely. Might be a good thing to even think about if you can find enough people interested in starting a community for it to try and start some kind of a Google+ community.

Yeah, great idea.

—give people a place to go where they can brainstorm and get ideas from other people.

Yeah, this is really cool, just looking through here.

Tim Longwell is in the house. He stopped by. He's finally getting to see a show live. Good to have you here, Tim.

Thank you.

All right, so what else is up on the Plus? Anybody got any exciting plans for the next coming months or anything anything you guys are looking forward to doing?

Well, yes, actually. Can I plug?

You can, please. Feel free to plug anything.

Otherwise, Larry Farnelli will want my head on a platter. Oh no, and we love everybody but Larry. No, no, no, everybody loves Lynn's head. Not Larry Farnelli, we love Lynn's head. Well, that's kind of tasty looking too. We don't go there. Bad Chef. Larry and I have got a new show actually this Sunday, 8 PM GMT, so what's that, 3 PM EDT? It's called Simply Singapore. I was born and bred in Singapore, so it's a collaboration between Larry and me. So he'll be trying to look cool while hosting, and I'll be in the kitchen. So if you guys are looking to get to know more about Singapore and its food, come and join us this Sunday, 3 PM EDT.

Is that mostly what you cook nowadays? Do you have a strong Asian influence?

Well, actually, my family is very multicultural. Singaporeans and Malaysians actually generally tend to be multicultural because we have 4 official languages, 4 official races, if you can say, you know, if that's not politically correct, I'm sure. And there are 4 official religions, and so we sort of— there's a lot of intermarriages going on, and no one from my family a couple of generations back have actually got married into somebody from their own ethnic background. So we are extremely mixed. So I've always grown up eating Malay, Chinese, Indian, Middle Eastern food. So You know, to me, that's what home cooking is. So Italian, same as, you know, that as well. And so yeah, our dinner is very varied from day to day, but then that's what I grew up with, so I'm pretty much used to that. Yeah, but I do have a very strong Southeast Asian influence, more than Asian. So more towards the Thai, the Vietnamese, the Malays, the Indonesians. If I were to pick a route That's what it would be.

What would some of your typical meals be from that area then?

Okay, um, lots of— if you know that part of the world, lots of iconic dishes from Singapore and Malaysia like laksa noodles, beef rendang, Hainanese chicken rice. So those would be— those of you— anybody in the audience recognize any of those names? Let me know. So those are some of our dishes. Beef rendang is an Indonesian dish, but it's been adopted by the Malaysians and the Singaporeans. And the Hainanese chicken rice again came from Hainan in China, but we had a massive, huge Chinese population. 80% of Singaporeans are Chinese, is Chinese, and you've got the Malays, the Indians, and the other lesser proportions of other ethnic mix. Was there any British influence at all? A lot. We were a British colony and yes, a huge British influence. We have got an official race called the Eurasians in Singapore, and while traditionally the Eurasians have Portuguese origin, these days a lot of that is British, a lot of that is also Dutch, the French, But yes, we have a massive British influence. In fact, we study the British English in school. English is the first language in Singapore, followed by the other three local languages. Hmm? English is the first language? It is. It's my first language, and many of us grow up being trilingual because we have our own so-called mother tongue, and then we have a second language in school. And of course, if you're lucky enough to take a third language in school, most of us speak more than 3 languages. So yes, but English is the language of business, language of education, language of politics in Singapore.

That really seems unusual that it would be the language to speak, but I guess blending everyone together.

Yes, that's right, because I'm giving bits of my show away now.

What am I going to talk about on Monday?

What am I going to talk about? No, because we've got so many different types of languages, you had to find a common ground, didn't you? So English was the obvious choice.

That's one of the things I see. Like, sometimes I'll be at Disney and I'll hear people from different countries talking to each other, and English always seems to be the common language that they're trying to communicate in because they don't really understand each other's native tongue, so they're speaking in it. And it cracks me up sometimes to hear that. And hear how they change the words. English is a very difficult language. We do have so many strange ways to say things. One of my favorite was when I worked— I'm half Mexican, and in my kitchens a lot of times I had Mexican workers, and we would serve duck. And, you know, I learned to call out pato whenever I needed duck, but I had to teach them that when someone— if they were out on the street and someone yelled duck, not to look up because it wasn't going to be the same thing. It could get them severely injured. And the other thing, teach them that duct tape was not for repairing ducks.

It's the same thing. I mean, on G+, most of my friends on G+ are obviously Americans. And things like, OK, pants. Pants are underpants in the UK. So much. 'Put on your pants.' 'What? What are you talking about?' And oh, there's so much, you know, so much to get used to. Not to mention the spelling. People, color is spelled with a U. Let's get this straight.

You know, I try to spell it with a U because I think it's cool, but the dictionaries won't let you. They just keep wanting to correct it, you know. Auto-correct, yes.

I get the American spelling auto-correct on my Mac. I mean, what's that all about? I don't know.

Lynn, I have a number of British clients, and I actually have an editor in the UK because they kept telling me I was spelling things wrong. So she goes through and she British-fizes it. I don't know how to exactly say that. But yeah, I've had that problem because they're like, you sound too American. I'm like, well, I swear I don't.

I have this, this, this, this. A popular phrase I like to use when people argue American English and English English with me. I'll go, well, you know, you might have taken football— soccer for many of you— football away from us, you might have taken cricket away from us, you might have taken rugby away from us, but the English language will always be English. Let's get that straight. It's official. I say that to everybody.

The Queen's English will always remain the Queen's English. There you go. I know, we have really— the English language is just strange. And living down here, you know, being Hispanic, Florida is like so full of Hispanics, and I crack up at the words that don't get changed to Spanish. I'm listening to a language, you know, listening to a discussion, all of a sudden you'll hear something, something that we use in English that just doesn't get translated. And, you know, it just hysterical. I have a good time. It's nice to not look Hispanic so they don't think you understand what they're saying all the time too, which is always fun.

So you understand— so you do understand them then? I— not—

you know, my Spanish is rusty. My mother didn't speak it at home that much, and I had to learn it pretty much just because of working. I learned more, but it's rusty. And when they start speaking really quick, then I lose everything. It's like When I learned some Italian, I learned some French, when they would start speaking really fast, I was out of luck. You know, it's just like, "Oui, la bibliothèque," then. You know, you give them something really stupid so they understand that you're really not understanding enough. No, yeah, I can appreciate that.

Yeah, yeah. I'm one of the minorities growing up, I was. In Singapore. I spent some time in Malaysia as well, and I don't look like any of the locals. In fact, growing up, my siblings and I were called— it's a Malay phrase called matsale celok. Matsale is the term they use for white folk, Caucasians. Essentially, we were called dipped Caucasians. That was the phrase we were called, you know, because we didn't look local. You know, we had lighter colored skin, lighter colored hair, although this is dyed. And half my family members have got green eyes and that sort of stuff, you know. So, okay, fine, we'll play the role, we'll pretend we don't understand you, you know. So we had a lot of fun growing up with that, like, no, no, no, go on, talk in your language, we don't know what you're saying.

But you did, though, that must have been embarrassing in some way.

Yeah, it was fun, it was fun, so I can appreciate that.

And Wade, I guess you were talking the other day about some of the ways you learned to say things in the South, and I am a Southern boy, I just have learned to not have an accent for the most part anymore from trying. But you were saying— I love it. I told my wife, says, "You know, Wade's there, and he says they're talking about a ranch in California." She says, "Well, hell, that's what we use to tighten up a pipe in West Virginia, right?" That's right.

You've got country people, and I stress to people that I'm not country. I'm hillbilly. This is a hillbilly talk. And Appalachian, and this is true, the country people are, you know, I think country people are Georgia, Alabama, parts of Florida, these are country people. Mississippi, and even, you know, there's country folk out here in California. But if you want to see a hillbilly, go up to the Appalachian Mountains. And everybody talks like this. I had to actually clean up the way that I spoke once I actually got into college. I learned words that people didn't say when I was growing up. When I was a kid, I used to put on your paints or ranch. It's just a real lazy, drawn-out talk. I've hopefully kind of cleaned that up a little bit, so we can understand you.

The only thing I know about hillbillies is Beverly Hillbillies. That probably shows my ignorance, doesn't it? Really? I like my ignorance.

I'm living their life right now. I'm out here in California.

We were just talking about them the other day, and I forget what it was about, but it was Food and how Jed had gone out skeet shooting and he brought home a mess of skeets and Granny tried to cook them. I remember that. And they were still so tough, but Jethro came home and ate them and says, Granny, those was good, but they was a little tough. Eating them clay pigeons. I love that show. That was a good one. But, you know, living— moving up from Texas, you know, I didn't have that much an accent, but I had enough that, you know, kids will always make fun of you. So I would learn to enunciate, and I would pronounce things and slow them up kind of when they were coming out. And you just— but growing up there, there was a few words in the Philadelphia area that used to make me crazy. Like, people would call a sink a zink. I'm going to the zink.

Where's that?

Or The water, the body of water was a creek. I says, "No, you have a crick in your back.

That's a creek." Wrong dialect.

One thing that made me insane that they use, and it wasn't that they said it wrong, it was their use of a word, was they would call spaghetti sauce gravy.

No.

Gravy, you have gravy on turkey or beef. That is spaghetti sauce, but that's gravy. Every pasta they eat was macaronis. They're having macaronis. I said, "No, macaroni is the thing you put cheese on. That's linguine, or that's shells, or that's ziti. No, they're having macaronis with gravy." Just crazy. I know my wife will call it gravy all the time, and she'll stop herself now because she knows that I'm ready to smack her in the back of the head. Not really. I want to. No, there's no spousal abuse here.

I feel like doing that to my husband all the time.

Well, there was a movie out called— what was it? The Real Life of Dennis Littley. I'm trying to remember. And they're all sitting at a table with the kids, and the guy looks up and goes, sometimes I could just kill you. And he goes, did I say that out loud?

I mean, just kidding.

You guys, do you guys, um, I did it. I'm a huge Mark Harmon fan. Do you guys watch NCIS? And I love the way he goes and smacks the back of everybody's head. Oh, sometimes I wish I could do that with my husband. I love that.

He is so good at that. That is really nice. Well, I always said people, when people say really dumb things to you or if they're just getting on your nerves, to always go, look, Elvis. And they'll turn and look because there's Elvis sightings all the time. So if you go, look, Elvis, look, him, as hard as you can in the back of the head. Look, people are gonna look because you never know. I remember watching a movie that was set like in 22 200 or something, and they're watching some old film of Elvis, and the guy watching it goes, "I think I saw that guy down in the lunchroom." So even 200 years in the future, they're still having Elvis sightings. That's funny. I want to try that on the kids.

They'll probably go, "I thought he passed away," but they'll look, I bet you.

People will look.

I'll try to get it on video.

I was going to say, don't try "That's Elvis" on your kids. Kids are going to go, "Who?" Oh no, they know.

They better know. A few years ago when George Harrison died, they were doing some Beatles tributes, and we were at some friend's house, and their daughter's like, "Who are the Beatles?" She was like 12 years old. They were like, "Oh, that's just unacceptable." It's like, how do you not teach people who the Beatles are?

Well, yeah. I've got a Boogie Wednesday series that I started recently to go with my Me Tea Monday series. You guys know about my Me Tea Monday series? Hunk of the day, usually shirtless. Got to catch it up. Anyway— Is it on your website? I started Boogie Wednesday, and just this last Wednesday I put the Beatles on there. And pluses, just lots and lots and lots of pluses. I think over 200 pluses. So it just shows you how popular they are. Who doesn't love the Beatles?

You got to. Even watching Paul now though, I knew there was going to come a day when you— none of you will probably know this name, but when I would think of Paul McCartney as the new Perry Como. When I was a young child, Perry Como was a big singer my father loved, and he'd always sit on a stool with his button-up sweater and great voice. But I'm thinking, when Paul was in his 70s, I said, that's going to be Paul if he would take over that role. But he's really, he's still hanging in there having a good time.

Yes, he is. It's quite funny because, you know, growing up I absolutely adored the Beatles, and when I came here 20 years ago, almost 20 years ago now, and now living here you get to read about the day-to-day lives of these people who are my, you know, who are up there and you go, oh my God, they're normal people? They're normal? Oh dear, I'm so sadly disillusioned. Forget about their normal lives, just listen to the music. But it's bizarre, it's bizarre coming here and actually being in the same country with them and reading about their normal boring lives, divorces, marriages, da da da da, you know.

They're ordinary people with extraordinary talents. I mean, you'll never find a band like the Beatles, ever.

No. When you go back and you look at how talented all four of them were, and you listen to George playing the guitar, and it was just— and even Ringo's drum riffs, I mean, they were incredible. Paul's lines. Absolutely. You know, they were just really, really very talented individuals, and the voices blended together so well. Absolutely. I'm actually going to see another one of my favorite bands growing up, The Four Seasons. Oh, really? Oh, I love Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. And I'm going to see the Jersey Boys next weekend. They're coming to Orlando, so I'm looking forward to that.

Oh, I used to listen to them when I was little. My mom used to play them all the time, and I loved it.

Yeah, I was fortunate enough I did see them at the world-famous Steel Pier once when I was little, so this will be interesting.

Maggie Unzueta just said, I look forward to your Meeti Mondays every week, Aslan Law. And yes, she had withdrawal symptoms Monday evening. I was so tired I didn't do a Meeti Monday post, and I had about half a dozen people, hey, where's your Meeti Monday post? No naked men on G+. It's not quite the same.

I did remember seeing something, what were we on, the Cape Town thing when the guys were coming on, you guys were like drooling on your computers there when the young men, the servers were coming up the bartender.

Oh yes, yes, the chef, oh yes, Maggie and I, yes, Maggie and I in one room with a cute guy, ah, no hope for him, right Maggie? No, it's all good fun, it's all good fun. Oh, absolutely. You know who I'd like to see in concert, talking about music? Bruno Mars. I'd love to go watch Bruno Mars in concert. Bruno, are you listening?

He is very talented, and I love the name. You know, every now and then I do— I still listen to contemporary music. There's very little music that I don't like, and it makes my wife insane sometimes too when I'll have on Metallica followed by George Strait, you know, or— and then my favorite Italian singer, oh my God, who was an opera singer and I can't think of his name right now. My mind is mush.

Puccini?

No, no, Puccini. Wasn't that— Andrea Bocelli.

Andrea Bocelli. I was almost there. Andrea Bocelli. So I mean, I go from one extreme to the other and, you know, I have these things on my iPod iPod, and my neighbors must think I'm crazy because I'll be playing it on the porch and they'll go from one thing. You'll hear Black Sabbath, Queensryche, and then, you know, Bocelli will pop in. You know, so it's quite an eclectic blend. And my love for what I never thought I'd say is I like both kinds of music, country and western.

You know, I quite enjoy the old country music. Of course, not the new ones. Afraid. I mean, this is going back to the '80s now. You know who I liked? Eddie Rabbit. I liked his music.

Yeah, love a rainy night.

That doesn't help my rep one bit, does it? I don't think so. I did like his music though. I love A Rainy Night. I mean, who can you— who doesn't like that song?

You know, Linh, it's okay. I actually had to do an article on One Direction I don't find their music that bad. I felt weird actually admitting that first. That song that they have about like, "This is the story of my life," it's actually pretty good.

It's not like the bebop stuff that Justin Bieber does or whatever.

It actually was kind of good. I'm not a 12-year-old girl. I thought it was a good song.

Actually, you're right. Some of it's quite good. Some of it's not too bad. You can listen to it.

In moderation, as long as it's not 24/7.

Yeah, that will go for a lot of things. But I have enjoyed them too. Everybody has something that they can sing well. There's a lot of good in a lot of the music. I've never gotten quite into rap. That was one music that kind of escaped me a little, but I know there's There's some very talented rap artists out there, but just— I look for something— you can't dance to it sometimes, that's all. Not that I'm that good of a dancer.

Mia Voss, if you're listening to this, when you get up to Orlando, that's it. That's what we want. We want a hat on Chef Dennis, and we want him rapping, okay?

Rap!

Oh my God, that is kind of scary. I have sung. I don't know. I always tell people, you want to see why my wife never makes me go go dancing.

That's why she never makes me go dancing.

Every now and then I'll throw in one of these, you know.

Oh dear, Maggie Unzueta loves Justin Bieber. Yeah, sorry Maggie. Does she really? My apologies. I think that's probably facetious. Well, he is pretty, I guess.

Yes, we'll give him that, but I don't know about talented, and that's the same thing with Like a Wrecking Ball, which actually isn't that bad of a song if she just didn't ruin it with the video.

Yeah, don't watch the video. I like Hulk Hogan's version of it better. I haven't seen that.

I didn't even know about it. I have to do a search. Really?

Cool. I am dying to meet up with the Hulkster too. He's in Tampa. He's not that far away. When he first got on Google+, I messaged him and I asked him to come on the show. He's like, "What's cooking, brother?" I'm like, "Well, actually nothing's cooking on the show. It's a talk show." I'd love to get him on. One of my friends— he's not far. He has a restaurant. Isabelle Lacy says, "I run into him all the time in the supermarket and he's so nice. He's so friendly." I'm like, "Geez." But the Hulkster would be pretty cool to have on. Yeah, if you're out there listening, Terry, hey, when you get him on—

I actually sent him a message also if he wanted to be on Startup Gap. That was just a complete shot in the dark, so I figured, you know, oh, you never know until you ask these people.

You know, most of them, most of them, you know, I've asked a ton of people to come on my show. Some of them you know, are just like the people you think they are. They're up there with their head in the clouds. And other ones are, you know, down to earth. And the ones that are down to earth will, you know, reply back and will comment and usually come on your show.

Yeah, I'm trying to get Kevin Bacon on. He's the one—

oh, did you see him on the show? How do you guys say his name? Jay Leno? Jay Leno. Yeah, did you all see him doing Footloose recently on that, just a few weeks ago?

No. He still remembers that?

No, Kevin Bacon, he reenacted the whole thing.

Did you see it? I did see that.

It was cool. It was cool. He's still got it. The feet can still move. It was good. I wonder if he practiced that. He's good in The Following, isn't he? He's amazing in that.

Yeah, what a great show. He's really done some very good stuff. And I did love his wife in The Closer. Brenda Lee, thank you, thank you very much.

Oh, his wife, okay. I never quite got on with that movie.

They've been married for like 20 years. Is that right?

Yeah. I saw him and his band one time too, the Bacon Brothers. Oh yeah? They were actually in Disney. I saw them on Disney perform on New Year's Eve one year, and exceptional musicians, incredible vocals. Their songs were a little weak, but when they did somebody else's songs, they were very good. But they had really good harmonies, you know, being brothers, and really good musicians too. I was amazed. But you can see why they don't have top 10 hits when they do their own material. That was the stumbling block.

Check Maggie's latest comment, Chef. I haven't got the comments share thing on. Here we go.

New hashtag for Chef Dennis: homie in Orlando. Nice one, Maggie.

You remember Vanilla Ice.

I don't know if I can do that. You can do that, can't you? You can just sing to it.

We want to hear you sing Ice Ice Baby before we leave the show.

I have to get some bling first, you know, okay? No, just sing it.

Just have the Yeti like hanging around your neck or something like that.

Yeah, that's right. Actually, lift the Yeti up and, you know, just go— I'm sure you can do that. There we are, there we are.

I don't want to get Mia Voss excited. Every time she picks her Yeti up, I think she's becoming emotionally attached to it, so put the Yeti down. Step away from the Yeti. Better not get that. No, I have sung a few times on the show. Last week I did Love Is in the Air and my mic wasn't on because I forgot there's a blinking light on the Yeti that means it's on mute. No, I can't get that.

I can't ever get that right. When it's blinking, I think it's on. No, blinking is mute.

I figured that out because when you guys came on today, it was blinking and you couldn't hear me. I went, oh, blinking. Blinking bad. Blinking bad. Well guys, we're coming close to the end of the show. It's been a lot of fun, but I'm gonna hit the panel one more time here. If you got anything you'd like to share, any thoughts, or any projects you want us to be aware of, now's a good time to do them. So let's go right to Wade. And Wade, what do you got planned coming up in the future we should be aware of? Anything?

Relationship Marketing Boot Camp is due to be released on June 1st. I'm going to show people how I, you know, 7 months ago I didn't know Jay Baer. Now I'm speaking with him on a regular basis. So if you want to know how to approach these influencers, these people of authority, take this boot camp and it's going to show you step-by-step processes of how etiquette is and what your responsibility is to Google+ and these people. It's going to be a series of videos and and homework. And I'm actually in beta right now. I've got 5 people, and I'm looking for 5 more people to join my beta program. If you're interested in that, you can go to weightharmony.com/coaching and check that out. Sounds good.

Make sure you leave us some links in the comments. People are interested in that. And I don't know Jay Bear, but I think I know his cousin Yogi.

That's right. That's right.

My favorites. And boo-boo. Mr. Ranger, sir. Okay, Dionne, any other projects you got coming up besides your ongoing blog or anything you'd like to share with us?

Well, in addition to the blog and No More Hungry Nights as well, you can go ahead and follow us on our YouTube channel. We are taking a lot of reader requests for seasonal recipes and things they can make for a family on busy nights and things like that. So you can stay up to date and get to know us. Out on YouTube.

I think one of your first YouTube things was the bread you made, wasn't it? The no-knead bread?

Yeah, a long time ago, and it's got a lot of attention too. So we've been doing a lot of that too. We've had a lot of reader requests for different bread recipes and some questions. I love baking bread, so I'm always happy to do things like that. So we're doing more videos and making things a lot easier for people that want to start cooking and baking in their own kitchen.

Very good, thank you. And Lynn, I know you have your show coming up, and is that going to be a regular series now?

It is. Pardon me. We're going to do it just monthly for now and see how it goes. And I also host a show of my own for the Foodies Plus community, and that's fortnightly, but we're skipping this next weekend because of Easter, the Easter weekend. So we always have a monthly theme on Foodies Plus, and currently it's world street food. So if you guys fancy checking out some world street food, come on over. And yeah, regular HOAs on that community as well.

Now for us non-Brits, fortnightly is— 2 weeks.

2 weeks. But the next Foodies HOA is on the 4th of May, and we've got our vegan expert doing something vegan. For that show.

How did fort, which would be fourth, equate to two, every two? What's the reasoning? Fortnightly, I would think would be once every four weeks or fortnight.

That's a good point, isn't it? I hate to say this as an English teacher, I have absolutely no idea. Okay, but we have enough questions. We'll have to Google that one. What did we ever do before Google?

I'm telling you.

I know, I know. We just didn't know as much.

Look at the walls going, why is it that color? Okay, we'll move on. Andy, anything you got coming up besides your HOA?

Anything new? No, right now I have some cool guests coming on next week. I have Bill and Duanne Twyford and then Digo Dino Dogan next week, so I'm kind of excited, as long as I can pronounce it right. And then just the book, just, yeah, Learning from Failure is like— Oh, your book, yeah. Now when will that be available, and where can we get it? It's available now. Actually, I just did a blog post on StartupGap this morning about it. Also, if you go to any single social media profile of mine, you could find the link, including Google+, which is plus.google.com. Www.plusandynathan.com/+andyNathan. I actually did a link on that this morning, so it should be on there. Yeah, that's available for free for 5 days.

Cool. Well, get it while you can then. Yeah. Yeah, Dino's pretty cool. I talked to him before, and his partner in crime at Triberr I met last year at a conference.

I've talked to him on— actually, I think I talked to him once or twice on a Hangout but I've actually never had a one-on-one conversation with him, but I've been a member of Triberr since like 2010, 2011. So I mean, I— his site has probably generated so many contacts and so many— so much traffic over the years, it's ridiculous. But I figured let's have him on because I want to talk about that story.

Absolutely, absolutely. It's always good to make some new friends too. So guys, thank you so much for stopping by. Good day to Google+ today. I hope you had a good time and got to know some people and learn some things about our friends here on the Plus. I'll be looking forward to seeing you next week. I also have my new show with Susan Sara every Monday, and that's called Around the Kitchen Table. This Monday, I will be making my version of a Tex-Mex jambalaya. I hope you stop by to see that and listen to Susan talk about her trip. She's still in Milan. And talk about her trip in Milan. So I look forward to seeing you for that. Have a great weekend and enjoy your day on Google+.

Thank you, Jeff. Thank you.

Bye-bye. Thank you.