Susan Mendelson

0:00Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Mies and Plus, the podcast. I'm your host, Robert Belchim, coming at you from the Bargain, Ellingsen Building, the Commons, 1250 East Georgia. Please come down and take a look. It's for you. It's for the hospitality industry. If you're not in Vancouver, please come down when you ever get to Vancouver. Please check us out on our website, thechefstablesociety.com. There's a lot of tools on there for you to use as well. I wanted to talk about that a little bit. There is the restaurant culture shift toolkit that has been released. It's free 34 tools that are HR related to help you build culture within your restaurant or any sort of food service business, whether it's cafe, catering outfit, restaurant, you name it. All these tools will help you achieve better

1:03culture and build better culture within your space and with your people. We also just released two reference maps. One map is, they're all on Google. You can get to them through the website, but one map is, it's CTS approved or CTS. It would be the best way to put it. CTS, it's farmers we love. How about that? I don't want a better way to say it. I don't want to say approved because that's the wrong way. But it's farmers we love. So from, you know, milleness don't be paradise to Susan and the gang at glorious organics and a bunch of other ones. In the Okanagan, up the island, up the sea to sky, you name it. We also have a reference map for people to help you with your business. So if you need a new refrigeration tack or a new electrician or a new architect or a designer or somebody like that, these

2:05are all bedded and people on the CTS board and people who are friends with the CTS have utilized the services of these people and they will bulge for them. So there are good reference for you if you're ever looking at needing something fixed or you're going to build a new restaurant or whatever. These ones, this is a good place for you to start. Lasting Cokescam tickets on sale now, September 16, 17, 18. We just announced that Tushar Tonvoker of Kavita restaurant will be leading the cultural meal. Sorry, a bit of a brain fart there. We're going to be celebrating the culture of India and its significance across Canada and how it's so greatly influenced the culinary fabric of Canada and North America really. Tushar is an amazing chef, young guy, doing really great things and he's bringing

3:07regional Indian food to Vancouver, which is really special. All right, onto today's podcast. Now, this is a special series of podcasts that we're producing in conjunction with La Damsa Scaffier, which is an amazing organization, a worldwide organization. We're going to get into it a bit when we get into the conversation. But it's about empowered women in the industry, hospitality industry. And this is the first one and I'm super excited. I've never met this person before and I've seen many of your cookbooks and I was going through them all this morning and one of the her cookbooks is my son's favorite cookbook growing up. So I'm very excited to have Susan Mendelson on the podcast. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here. Very happy to be here. Can you, let's get, I would love, one of the things I love about this podcast is getting to know people who I don't know in this industry. Like, you know, as you know, very well, you, you meet, you know, hundreds of people every year and you, but you never really

4:08get to know who they are, where they're from and what makes them tick and why they go into the hospitality industry in the first place. Now, I read a bit about, you know, about you, but I'd love to hear your own words. Like, where did your love of food come from and why did you end up going coming to Vancouver in the first place? Okay, good question. Thank you. Well, my love of food was really for my grandmother and my grandma, she was a wonderful baker and a wonderful cook. My mother always said it skipped a generation. Hence, my book, Mama, never cooked like this, which was my first one. Oh, okay, that's really good. And my first book was also dedicated to my grandmother, Grandma Faye. So she really instilled love and cooking and baking and food in all of us kids. And we all took it on as, you know, a wonderful challenge to make food for our family. I was also very fortunate in school. There was a home economics program that we had starting in grade seven, seven, eight, and nine with this extraordinary woman whose name was Mrs.

5:10Carzwell, who I also referenced in my book, Let Me In The Kitchen, which was a kids' cookbook, which your son loves. And Mrs. Carzwell said, said, you can make anything you've eaten anywhere in like the finest restaurants or anything you've even a candy bar that you've picked up. Somebody made it so you can make that too. And that was just a whole new world to me. Like, you can make anything. And, you know, I was young at the time. And so she's just said, we're going to learn to make anything you want to make in class. And I was one of the only kids who was really as interested in food more than the other kids. So all the things that I've wanted to learn how to make, she taught. So we learned everything from Italian cooking to Chinese cooking too. I mean, we're talking the 60s. That's hard to believe. How old you must have been in your teens? So I, yeah, I mean, I guess, no, we were, I was like 11, 12, 13. Oh, wow.

6:16Okay. Yeah. Yeah. That's a, that's a, that's a very, like at that time that all those, those types of cuisines, nobody really knew beef or guignon. Like really? And Luzon is. And I mean, just extraordinary. So then I, I was just fell in love with cooking. Certainly never thought of cooking as, as a career, like for sure, 100%. I came to Vancouver, kind of, I met a boy when I was 15 and he'd always said, come to Vancouver. And there was just great arts one program at UBC. And you have to take it. And, you know, I convinced my parents that I needed to move to Vancouver to go to UBC. The relationship never went anywhere. But the love of Vancouver was, it has lasted all these 50 plus years. All these years. You're from Toronto. Well, I was, I was born in Toronto. I moved to a small town in Saskatchewan, Nippewan, Saskatchewan. My dad was the town doctor there for six years. And then we moved back to Toronto where my dad went into specializing in anesthesiology, lived in Toronto for a short time while he went

7:21to school. And then he taught medicine because anesthesiology was just a technical position in the States before they realized you needed doctors to do it because people were dying. And, but when he got to the States and he saw the corruption of the medical whole industry, he just hated it. And thought we got to go back to Canada. Right. And don't forget, he was in Saskatchewan, you know, in the 50s. He was one of those advocates for socialized medicine. A lot of the other doctors didn't like him too much for that. But he thought it would be really good to be paid because we were, he was paid with, you know, cows and sweaters. There was a lot of cash exchanging hands. I get that. Anyway, at 19 years old, I moved to Vancouver and I was studying for a while. What were you studying? What was the thing about here? Well, I went originally through this arts one program. Oh, the arts one. But I was studying French because I was advanced in French from Ontario. And I, and I, I was fascinated with my French teacher who was also partners with

8:28John Brockington, who was the head of the theater department. And I thought these were fascinating people. And so I decided to go into theater. And I studied theater for a couple of years. And my dearest friend and soulmate was a man named Larry Lillow. And Larry went on to become, you know, the head of the Vancouver Playhouse. And lots of other things. And London, Ontario, and everything. But he was one of the founders of Tamanus Theater, the experimental theater company. And Larry, and I wanted to always impress Larry. And he loved cheesecake. He said he had had a girlfriend when he was going out with girls at the time who made a phenomenal cheesecake. And I didn't never met this person when I was jealous of her. And my job was to make a cheesecake better than hers. I didn't actually like cheesecake. But it didn't matter because I just wanted to impress Larry. You had a mission. So I had a mission. So I'd make a cheesecake. It's getting close. Oh, another cheesecake getting closer needs to be a little lighter. Okay, maybe a little bit more egg white.

9:31Anyway, before I knew it, I had the cheesecake of his dreams and, you know, the cheesecake that went on to. And were you testing it on him at the time? Oh, well, yeah. I was a student at the time. Yeah. Anyway, he said to me, Susan, you make a fabulous cheesecake. But a career in theater is not in the cards for you. He was very subtle, but he was very kind in the way he said it. And so I had in the meantime, I had been working summers running a summer program. And I ran a summer program called Baby Summer Odyssey. It was the first year doing that. The NDP government had provided money for schools to no longer just run 10 months of the year, but to run 24, 7, in fact. And the concept was to be called a community school. So they wanted to run a program in the summer, 100 kids. And I had worked for a social worker and another program the year before. And he asked

10:36me to run it. I was 23 years old. I had 100 kids that I was responsible for. And it was really exciting. And in fact, I hired Larry to teach theater in the summer. I mean, we had, we had like grant money and everything. It was phenomenal. Anyway, by the time I finished it, I thought maybe I should become a social worker. And so I decided, I traveled for a bit and I came back and I applied to UBC in social work. And I was rejected. But I learned that you never take rejection. You just go and say, no, you need to hire me because I'll make a great social worker. So I did finally get into the school. But by then, I was, this was 1975. So I was 23. So maybe I was 22 or 21 when I ran that program. Well, you were running all this program. Oh, my God. Yeah, I was younger. So I came back at 23 and I went into social work. Yeah. But I was supporting myself at that time. And I could not go to school and without working. Yeah, of course. And now at this time,

11:37Tamanus theater was becoming the resident theater of the Vancouver East Cultural Center. And Larry sent to me. They were looking, they needed a house manager to work at night. And I thought, great, I'll apply for it. And it was really because of Larry that I got the job. And Chris Witten actually was on holidays at the time. But I was hired by his seconding command. And I mean, and it was just because you wanted to be still close to the theater, even though you didn't think that you were going to. I needed a job. And that was what it was. Just needed a job that was going to work. And right place for time. Yeah. So I could go to school during the day. I could go and work at night at the Vancouver East Cultural Center, which it was eventually named the college. And in my time, just around the corner. Yeah. And I was paid $350 a month. Now, $350 a month was not really enough to cover all my expenses. Of course. I had to have a car then because I had to drive back

12:39and forth. I was also in my early years of social work. I was working on the psych ward. That was my placement at Lionsgate Hospital. Oh wow. So I was, you know, having to go over the North Shore. I was at UBC. And then I was working all over the place. Yeah. So I talked to my boss, Chris Witton. And I convinced him that I would be able to make carrot cake, cheesecake, and an animal bars, and that I could sell them at intermission at the college. Yeah. So I worked all day at school. I'd work all night. I'd come home to my little tiny apartment with a very, very small oven that was big enough for one large cheesecake. I had one of those great big pans. Okay. I mean, I don't even know where I got it. Probably at a second hand somewhere. And, but I could also sneak in three cheesecakes. But one night would be carrot cake, one night would be cheesecake. And an animal bars, of course, didn't need the oven. So 50 cents a slice for

13:41whatever it was. And I was kind of on my way. And that was the beginning of it all. Yeah. Your first business. That was my first business. So then one day, and Petri from the CBC radio called me and said, all these people are talking about your cheesecake. Who are you? And what's your story? Well, you come on and give your recipe. Yeah. I said, well, you know, when my recipe is putting me through school right now, but I make a really great chocolate cheesecake. And I could explain how to do a chocolate cheesecake and do something and give the recipe for that. She said, yeah, come on. So I went on the show. It was just before New Year's. And I did a kind of cheeky show about chocolate cheesecake, champagne, bedroom, midnight kind of thing. And she said, all of a sudden, they got all these unsolicited responses. Who is this person? Get her on again. She's lots of fun. So they phoned me again and said, would you, this was like just in a New Year.

14:41Could you come on and do a show for Valentine's Day on Afro-Dizzy hug recipes? Of course. I didn't know the first thing about it, but we had a library at UBC. So I said, sure, I'll do that. Give it a try. And so I came on and I, you know, cinnamon and oysters and you know, all these other things. Those are the two that I remember. And the next thing I know, they call me again at the culture and say, you know, I don't have a phone. I don't even know about a phone. But could you come on and do it again? In the meantime, Chris Witten is in the office. And I don't know if you remember, you might be too young, but there were line-ups of phones and everybody, each phone had line one, line two, line three, and line four. And anybody could interrupt, could just walk in on somebody's call. So Chris went to the phone next to mine, clicked into line one and said, excuse me, this is Susan's agent. She's not doing any more shows until you pay her. And I'm like, Chris, don't do that. Don't do that. I like doing it. They said, yeah, I don't know. We were thinking about it.

15:42We were thinking about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We, yeah, we, okay, we'll, we'll, yes, we would like to pay her. We'll pay her $25 a show. And we'd like her to be a regular. Wow. That's how it happened. That's how it happened. So I became a regular on CBC, CBC's Ace in the Kitchen Thursday afternoons, drive home show. And so I did that for a number of years. And then people started writing me letters and saying, I've got all your recipes. They're piled up everywhere because CBC would send them the recipes. Oh, yeah, yeah. I would type them up. CBC would type them up, send them out to people. Yeah. They would, you know, pull over to the side of the road, write down the recipes, or then they'd write down the address or they'd phone and say, send me the recipe. And CBC would send it out. Right. So after a number of years, I put all those recipes together. And that was what mama never cooked like this was. And that was the compilation of recipes from CBC from 1975 to 1979. Oh, wow. I know. That's so crazy. Yeah. That's a lot of recipes too. And that's a lot of

16:47Well, it was the bad. I mean, I thought kind of the best of the recipe. Because I would go on the show like if it was a week of there were lots of green beans in the market. I would remember this is 1975, 76, 77. There wasn't a lot of food stuff happening in Vancouver at that time. It was just before Grandville Island. And, you know, there was, there was rest days, there was Chinatown, there was Japanese food, and there was Greek food. Now, forgive me if I'm, that was my narrow sphere. I'm sure there was much more going on. But there wasn't a lot of sophistication. I mean, and then Umberto's opened and everybody was talking about Umberto's. And and there was Cosmos and again, Greek. But it was that era. And so yeah, and there was a lot of frozen vegetables or canned vegetables and stuff. So green beans would come in the market and I would tell people what to do with them or any fruit or vegetable, what to do with them and interesting recipes

17:47or preserving that type of thing. And people were like, Oh, let's give it a try. So when mom never cooked like this came out, which I'll get to that in a second, people came into the store because by then I'd started a business, but I'll get back to that in a second. People came in and said, Well, this is the first time I've ever cooked in my life. And those recipes are really easy to follow and I can cook. And I said, Well, how did you end up being 35 years old and you've never cooked in your life? That's impossible. And most people said to me, when I was a kid, my mother never let me in the kitchen. Really? And hence, my first, my second book was called Let Me In the Kitchen, a cookbook for kids and other first timers, just kind of step by step. But to go back, if you don't mind. No, please, please. So I was at the Colch and there was a and I would start at doing opening night parties. Chris Witten would give me a $100 budget to do a party for 100 people. And we would go down to the docks at steveston. We would get salmon

18:48for a dollar a pound. We'd make a big cold, cold poach salmon or sometimes hot salads, vegetables. We just, I don't know how we did it. And then of course, the big carrot cake and it would be a party. Yeah. So people from all over, you know, the city. Were you doing this whole by yourself at this time too? Yeah, so yeah, of course. Yeah, out of my dog kitchen. Yeah. Anyway, Ernie Fledell was the head of social planning. And he came up to me one day and he said, Susan, I have a concept and I need your help. I want to bring 350 performers from around the world to create a festival of theater, dance, art, music for children. And I'm going to call it the first international children's festival because it will be the first in the world. And I want you to cater the food for all the performers. And I said, Ernie, I'm not a caterer. I don't know the first thing about catering. He goes,

19:48no, you are. You're a fabulous cook. I know you can do it. I said, Ernie, honestly, thank you very much. But, you know, I do little parties here. I mean, I love to cook. It's like my tiny apartment. Yeah. Yeah. He said, no, he said, I'm going to get you an LIP grant. And it was a local initiative's grant. I like the local initiative program. Okay. And it was $90 a week for six weeks and you will learn the industry. And I said, Ernie, he said, you're going to do it. I said, okay. So I had a little car then. You're driving around gathering information. I went, there was a dairy called silver with dairy over at, um, can be kind of in the same area as a savvy of bull pain. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Did I get that right? Or is it? No, uh, uh, they liable, they liable. Yeah. I can't, I can't be a 15th. Yeah. Around there. Yeah. I can't be in 16th. Yeah. Anyway, I just want to, are you still doing your social work at this time,

20:49too? Like for? Yeah. Well, it was summer vacation. Oh, I see. So this was just before the festival. So I guess I finished exams. Yeah. Um, the festival was the second week, maybe second, first and the first week in June. Yeah. So I had six weeks between the end of school till the festival to learn it all. The city allowed me to get a giant big freezer in my, in my kitchen. And I started making all the banana breads and breakfast loaves for, I don't know, I don't know my house. I mean, I could imagine three hundred and thirty people, three meals a day. No, no, two meals. So it was breakfast and lunch for the, um, all the performers. And then dinner for the Casanoco group, which was from Japan. And, um, the Moscow musical theater, which was about 50 performers. Now remember, we're still in the middle of the Cold War. So we had KGB agents with these guys. Wow. It was, it was, it was pretty incredible. Anyway, the woman who was to become my partner in the Lisi Grimei Deborah Wrightberg had a house just

21:49down on, um, Creelman, right across from the planetarium where the first, the children's festival was at that time. Okay. So we hosted the Russians on her lawn. So she, she did the food for them in her, in her lawn. I did Casanoco at my house, these beautiful Japanese people went to this, the most extraordinary experience of my life. Oh, they all were. It was all extraordinary. Anyway, and I, I made lifelong friends, like, you know, Sharon Lose and Bram and Rafi and like, just, you know, I was, I, anyway, so I, I, I did it. I hired out of work actors to help. Just to do the serving and helping. Yeah. No, and help, you know, like, make bagels and cream cheese, we had to make all the lunches. Of course. And I don't know how I did it. Like, I don't, I mean, it, it, it boggles my mind because even that, like, I don't know if I would take that on. Like, that's just so. Yeah. And I've been in the business for 30 years. And you're like, you don't know, you don't know. Yeah. Just don't know. That's it. So anyway, I did it. It almost killed me. I mean, it really, it was so. So much work. So much work and so exhausting, exhausting.

22:53But at the end, I just thought, you know what? My grandmother had always talked about having a little tea house, bakery, but she had four kids. She lived in another era. And I just thought, I don't want to be 80 years old and telling my grandchildren about my regrets. So I thought, you know what? I think that, and I was friends with Deborah. I think we should just start a little take out gourmet food restaurant, a place and see if it goes. I can always fall back on social work. Yeah. I already, by then I had a degree and, but this was my passion. Mm-hmm. And I thought, let's, let's just go for it. Why not? Yeah. That's amazing. So yeah. So you started your first, you first shot like what? So it was on fourth avenue. Okay. We took over a space that was called the bean and cream that hadn't quite made it. Fourth and fourth and what? It was where tear our breads just left. Oh, look over by the safe way. Across from the safe way there. Yeah, between Basement Vine for 2380 West Fourth Avenue. That was our first location. And before that, it had been a plant shop. So it didn't have any, it didn't have insulation. It didn't have,

23:57I think we had to put in a furnace. And the back, so the bean and cream was just really the first maybe 30 feet. The rest was just an old plant shop. Okay. Storage and things. Storage and, you know, cedar shelving. And that was it. Right. So we had to kind of put in everything. We got a loan. Deborah and I had catered an event for, oh my god, my mind. Exactly. I'm 74 years old. Oh my god. That wonderful group of people. It's, well, before, I mean, pre-lay down. Oh, wow. Okay. But there's like the shendish version. Thank you. Thank you. How embarrassing. So the shen had asked me, John Levine, had asked me to cater an event for les chants. Oh, wow. If you can believe it. Anyway, we went, Jeffrey and I went out to this estate in Langley, this old kind of castle and we catered this whole dinner for these really important people. We knew everything

24:58about everything and we knew nothing. Anyway, it was a huge hit. And they sent me an incredible letter about how wonderful it was. And I took that letter to the bank to get my first loan. You're kidding. It was that letter. And I should have remembered they shened at Road to Serve, but it's my aging brain. But anyway, that letter got me a loan at prime plus a quarter. I could not get a loan at prime plus a quarter today. No. Nor could I have at any other time in the history of my business. Wow. But this guy who was at the corner of 10th and Alma. Okay. Yeah. At the TD bank. Yeah. This lovely, lovely man where I had banked gave us a loan at prime plus a quarter in 1979. Wow. Yeah. You couldn't even talk to a person about a loan note. His love loan. Yeah. Get that kind of a loan on a letter. Yeah. Yeah. No, it was just amazing. And the letter was to outfit the business and get the space up to stuff and all that.

25:59Yeah. I mean, we did it all very slowly in increments for sure. We had some pretty old equipment there for a while. But partly because we've been on CBC radio at this time for four or five years. Well, we opened in 79. So four years. Right. People never saw my face. So people who had been listening to me who were kind of fans, you know, that I'm going to go show up and try our food and meter. So did you, was it, did you open it as a catering outfit or as a little cafe or as a restaurant? We opened it as a new concept. Take out gourmet foods. You, the lazy gourmet, the concept was you bring in your dishes. We'll fill them with our food. You take them home and pretend you made them yourself. That was the concept of the lazy gourmet. I love that. Wanted gourmet food, but you were too lazy to make it yourself. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. And so you know, there were a lot of pretty funny things that happened because we had this big display. And we we also used up, for example, we had a one of our items was a chocolate mousse trifle,

27:01which really was just started out by being filled with mistakes. Like, you know, a chocolate cake that didn't quite rise properly, kind of dip it in liquor and a little bit of milk and layer it with whipping cream and sauce and nuts and all of a sudden you have and chocolate mousse and all of a sudden you have a chocolate mousse trifle, which we just made up the name and created it. Well, one day it was beautiful. I'm sure it was delicious. It was in a big glass bowl and we had it in the display to show people what we do. Yeah. And then this poor woman took it home and to serve it at her home and pretended she made it herself. And then one of her guests came in the next day and said, I was at her. I was for dinner. She pretended she made it herself. But I saw it in your display in the afternoon. I'm sure that happened quite often. Yeah. No, it really. It was very lots and lots of wonderful, wonderful stories. That's that's that's such a cool idea. I mean, it's like taking the idea of a just a simple deli and just elevating it to another level. Yeah. Yeah. And there was a company in New York called the Silver Palette. And it was also two women. They were

28:07in the upper west side. Yes, I'll bet you do. Yeah, they were terrific. And so we went to New York after I guess when we I don't know how we were able to get away, but had a little break. And so we saw or maybe I was there on my own because we couldn't have taken holidays at the same time. And I was kind of blown away by their whole store in New York and the concept. So a few years later when we had a little bit of money, we hired an architect to help us kind of really elevate the look of the store and stole some ideas from the Silver Palette. Yeah. So you were like constantly upgrading and and trying to make the business better every time you had a little bit of money stocked away. The most important way that I spent money that we were able to make was by hiring consultants to teach me about business. Because I knew nothing. The first of all, I had no background in cooking. Yeah. I had no background in business. Yeah. So I needed consultants to train me and teach me. And I had a fantasy going back to school. But you know, there was no time. I was working

29:0824-7. So I hired the first consultants who came and it's actually a cute story. The way it happened is there was a couple who had just graduated from the culinary school in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which at the time was one of the best hospitality schools in the country. Okay. And upon graduation, they went to New York and they were part of the hiring team and the team that put together the Grand Hyatt in New York. And when they finished, they thought, well, okay, we kind of got that down. But we'd really be interested in smaller businesses. And she's a third cousin of mine. And her mother had told me about my business and she sent me a letter, must have been a letter in those days and said, I am your cousin Susie. You might not remember me, but my boyfriend and I just did this and we did that. And we would love to drive to Vancouver and work with you for room and board. Yeah. Because we're really interested in your business. Yeah.

30:10They drove across the country. They moved. I had a two bedroom apartment at that point. I'm luckily. They moved in with me and they worked and they set up my systems. But then I realized, of course, I can't do this for free. So I hired them back every year for about maybe seven or eight years. Wow. And I actually was just talking with her. I continued to hire her even when many, many years later, 30 years later, I went on to start a kosher catering company and I brought her in to help me set up the systems for that too. Wow. So yeah, they came back year after year. And it was a humbling experience because, of course, they would tell me all the things I was doing wrong. And well, because, you know, how would you even know? Well, that's the thing. I mean, I'm a big advocate for hiring people who know what they're doing to help you expand your business. You wouldn't, I say this all the time, you wouldn't hire, sorry, you wouldn't think that, oh, I'll just look, look on YouTube to how to set my arm if I break my arm. You go to a doctor

31:10or, you know, I need to write a contract. I'll just do it myself. No, you go to a lawyer. The same thing, you know, you start a business, you know, nothing about it. You hire somebody to help you get it going. It's pretty simple. And the business really was able to grow with all of that input over the years. And then after about seven or eight years, Debra and I parted ways. You know, there was a lot. It was really intense and it was not for the faint of heart and she went to go on and have a family. And so we parted ways. And then I was on my own. And I discovered just that it was okay. Yeah, you know, that you just you just keep with on the same path. And you just surround yourself. So then I started creating edicts for business. You surround yourself with people who are more talented than you. Absolutely. That's the greatest piece of advice you can ever give anybody. You surround yourself with people who are smarter than you. Yeah, like you just get learn humility because otherwise you're not going anywhere. Absolutely.

32:14And so those were two really important edicts for. And then just learning about team building and understanding that to build a team of people, they have to be like minded. They have to be simpatico and they have to be trusted. And so then it's it's not the mistakes you make. It's how you cover and you cover as a team. You'll cover for me today. I'll cover for you tomorrow. Right. How do you teach that? I mean, that's something that that's such good advice for it doesn't matter when it is like whether it was, you know, 30 or 40 years ago or it's today. It's like that's the the whole thing of it still rings very, very true. So how do you how do you teach that? Like how does that become, you know, we talk about culture all the time now. And that's really what you're building when you talk about that sort of stuff. So how do you do that? Well, it's it's hard because I look I look back on the early days and I'm surprised that people like like me because you know, like really like or that even have like really fun

33:16memories of me because it took it was a learning process, you know, and I wasn't good at it for a long time. You know, I was very stressed and I was, you know, I'm sure I snapped at times, you know, and I tried not to, but you know, it's overwhelming when you've got bills to pay and people to pay and I always said, yeah, and I always said, if your staff's happy, your clients are happy, your customers are happy, your suppliers are happy, then you can sleep at night. Yes. You know, and that really was what a boil down to. But yeah, you learn, you learn to surround yourself with people who, you know, kind of have the same values as you. Right. You're growing in the same direction, kind of thing. Yeah. And I have the same passion. Right. Who really have the same passion and want to be part of the journey. And, and I think, you know, I, as I said, I mean, people come back to me after many, many, many years and just talk about their experience at the Lazy Gourmet and it's very

34:17heartwarming for me. I mean, it's, it's, it's funny. It's always about people and the, the people that you hired to represent your business, they, you know, they become the heart and soul of it all, really at the end of the day. You're just, you're a facilitator or a maestro of it all. Yeah. But they're the ones who are the heart and soul of it. So, I mean, you know, Lazy Gourmet is, it's just, it just continues to grow as time goes on through the 80s and, and I mean, I, and you continue to write cookbooks. I saw, I, I saw this morning, I remember 1986, Expo 86. And I saw the, you had the official cookbook of Expo 86. It is not to tell that story. He's too. No, I mean, I was, I was like, are you in a space suit when you're on that cover of that? Yes. And that space suit was sent to us on January, the, the, the, the shoot was on January 31st. The space suit arrived about three days before the shoot. And if you look at 1986, in January, you know what happened if they blow up of the space suit. Oh, that's right. Yeah. So NASA sent us that space suit.

35:23That's a real, of their turmoil. Yes, that was a space suit sent from NASA. Yes, yes, I was in a space suit. I saw, I saw it online. So I don't have a copy of the book, but I mean, that's insane. I will give you a coffee. Please, please, please tell the story, like, how did that, how did that all come about? Okay. So it's kind of a bizarre story. Yeah. So I, I did, mom, I never cooked like this. And then the kids cookbook. And that kids cookbook was, um, let me in the kitchen. And then Deborah, who was my partner, was feeling like I'm getting a lot of attention, but you and I both working really hard, you know, and I said, well, let's do cookbooks together. So we did two cookbooks. Um, and, and she, okay, anyway, we did two cookbooks one was called nuts about chocolate, which was all chocolate in that recipes. And we love desserts. And then the next one was called fresh tarts. And that was all fruit recipes, you kind of whipped cream fruits, but all fruits of the season. And, um, and then I was asked to do a class kind of

36:24seminar at Simon Fraser about writing cookbooks. And so I wrote this, I did, you know, I, I did this evening where I talked about the cookbooks and the process of writing cookbooks. And yeah, helping people who might want to self publish to or, you know, how to go about it, how to go about testing recipes. Um, when do you know you've perfected it, you know, those types of things and talked about what we did in the process. And then some writer for the Vancouver son wrote this article kind of tallying up the kind of money that I must have made on these cookbooks with his own or her own imagination. And, and I was embarrassed by it because first of all, it wasn't true. Right. And second of all, um, it was, I worked, you know, when I was, you know, in the early days with the business, you're working hand in hand with people. You're not, like, overseeing your, you're there in, in the mud and the weeds with everyone. And everybody's looking at me and thinking, like, I'm a, you know, millionaire or something. And I, I found it embarrassing. I was upset and I was thinking, well, what, what can I do? What's, what, how can I retaliate? Like,

37:28how can I make this right and everything? And I was, you know, it was really embarrassed by it. And then I get a phone call. Hello, this is Ron Meyer from, uh, this, so and so company. We're looking to do a cookbook for Expo 86 when it comes to Vancouver. Wonder if you'd be interested. I read this article about you and the Vancouver son. So that's how you got the gig. So I thought it was phony. So I thought it was phony because happened in the early, in the years, leading up to Expo 86. Everybody was asking for freebies. And, you know, and if you do this, we'll do that. And I got ripped off left, right in the center over that. So I was skeptical. So then I said, well, where are you located? We've just set up in gas town. And so I got a whole bunch of Nanaimo bars and stuff. And all different flavors. I had a whole bunch on this, in the display. And I picked them up, put them into a box, drove down. And I see in the window, Expo souvenirs. And I was like, it's the real deal. So I took them copies of the, I had copies of

38:32cookbooks with them, the four books up to that point. And we sat and we talked. And there were other people that he was meeting with as well. I might add, who did not like me after that. Understandably. Yeah, thinking that you're some million, you know, driving your rules. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, I got the gig. And I had dated a lawyer at one time and he negotiated the deal for me, which really helped because with cookbooks, as you may or may not know, you generally get paid about two years later. And they're just the amount of work that's put into you don't get paid for when you actually get into it. So he, but it was going to be the only cookbook on site. Oh, is that right? Yeah, the only one on site. So and it was the official souvenir cookbook of Expo. So it was, it was a pretty good gig. But the deal was that it all had to be paid out by the end of the summer. By the last day of Expo, they had to write me a check for the full amount. So I, you know, as it turned out, property values went down, down, down,

39:38when people thought they would go up during Expo, but they actually went down for a while. And I was able to buy a little house at the end of that as a down payment on house. So it changed my life. Yeah, it really changed my life. It was amazing. Why? Why a space suit? That's because the theme for Expo, that particular Expo was transportation. Oh, yeah. And that don't forget science world. Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, that was, that was the pavilion. I was, I went to Expo and I bet I didn't. Oh, yeah, because that's when the Skytrain first started too, right? Exactly. And then don't forget that, that, that a sculpture of cars and everything. I mean, it was, it was all around transportation. That's right. I totally forgot about that. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's amazing. So yeah, no, so that, that's when, and I get, to this day, I get emails from people all over the world. Now, another thing about that book that's funny is that there were a lot of restaurants in this town that had recipes that I loved. So I contacted a lot of these chefs and said, I'm doing this cookbook called the Expo 86 cookbook. And it's going to be on site. And would

40:41you like to put this particular recipe into the book for me? Yeah. Yeah. So Mr. Tojo did the California role. Um, um, um, um, um, Barato didn't get the book. So he wouldn't, oh, it's, oh, I see, he won. Yeah. Okay. I see that. That makes sense. So that, but I loved him, Barato. And I love him. Barato to this day. He's one of the most phenomenal human beings on the planet. But he, my first publisher went on to publish a bunch of books with him. I'm sure. But yeah, he has, yeah, he has a bunch. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, that was David Robinson. Right. But anyway, um, uh, just a second. So I lost my train of thought. Expo. Oh, yeah. So I got, yeah. And um, Mark James had this fabulous, uh, layered white chocolate mousse and dark chocolate mousse and this dome that was just extraordinary. So there's a lot of really great little hidden recipes in there, uh, Indian cooking. Uh, I think it was from the Raj, maybe. Okay. Remember, anyway, um,

41:44yeah, there's some fabulous recipes in there. And then we did four different kinds of an animal bars. And this wonderful, wonderful, um, photographer Derek Murray did the photographs. And David Robinson came back as, so it was David Robinson. And I think white cap worked on it. Oh, okay. Yeah. So, um, yeah. So, and, and with Derek Murray's photographs, it was like phenomenal. The photographs stand up today. Oh, wow. Absolutely. You'll see. I'll bring it. Yeah. I look to see a copy of this. I love that stuff. The history of that is just amazing. I mean, it's, um, uh, yeah, it was a time, time and place. And I had no way, I didn't even put the two and two together about the, about the, the space shuttle blowing up. Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. Live through history. Yeah. No kidding. No kidding. So I mean, at this time too, I mean, the lazy gourmet must be like the preferred caterer around Vancouver. Like, you know, it's, it's growing and growing. And I'm sure you're growing it every year, yes? Well, yes. And no, because I sold the company five years ago. No, I know, I know, I know,

42:45but at that time, oh, at that time. Oh, yes. So, okay. So what, what took us over the top? The next thing was we, I was approached guy showed up at the lazy gourmet. I was happened to be a good day. Lots of great food. A guy named Jim Friedenberg. And he was scouting around because he was bringing, doing all the food and beverage for the most nindy Vancouver. Oh, wow. Okay. So he approached me to be one of the caterers for the most nindy. And over the years, uh, we, I mean, in the early years, it was, I was the smaller part of it, but eventually we did the whole thing. And, um, that was huge. We did, we did $1.2 million in sales in three days. So that was how we grew. Yeah. Yeah. That is insane. Yeah. Insane. And then I had to, you know, create, I actually had to create computer programs to execute it. Because we could, we had seven kitchens on site. Yeah. And

43:46you know, I think 400 people. And by the end, and it was just a massive, massive undertaking. That, I mean, I couldn't even imagine. Yeah. What year was that? It was in the 90s, wasn't that? So, yeah. So, um, so it was for, we did it from 1991 until the end. And then the last year, yes. I didn't, I didn't take it on because it had shrunk so much that they still wanted the upfront fee for doing it. But the upfront fee was now closer to 50% of what real sales were going to be. And I, I understood that. Yeah. And so I walked away. Yes. All of your years of, of business development, and he really had, he became a, a, a business person, supposed to just, oh, absolutely. There had to be. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I had to be, or I wouldn't, I wouldn't have grown the, the business. And then I really, I, I mean, I'm a, okay cook, you know, I'm pretty good. I mean, some people say I can call myself a chef because of all the books I've written, but I'm just an okay cook. But I hired really good chefs, really, really talented,

44:51chefs talented, pastry people, um, at bakers and, uh, pastry and, you know, it, so that was how we were able to grow the company and to get the reputation. When it was out, it's been, when Lazy Gourmet was at its biggest, um, and you were still running it is like how many, you know, I don't know, would, would it be a good metric that people would understand? Like how many different or how many, uh, cooks did you have on staff? So we had 200 staff when, at, you know, just before that pan down, I can't, yeah. You'll give it, you'll, you'll, you'll give it. Yeah. And I think that our survival was about the pivot. We did some really brilliant things, which I will not take full credit for, or any credit for maybe, but like the team just pivoted and we started doing parties in a box and we started contacting all the nonprofits and, you know, basically set to them. You can still do your fundraisers. We'll take care of it for you. We'll send food, really phenomenal food to people's homes. They can do the fundraiser on Zoom and the companies were making a lot more money than

45:54they did by putting on big gas. Oh, wow. And so we just got a reputation for doing that. Of course, other people started copying us. That's, you know, I mean, uh, copying is the highest form of flattery. Yeah. And, um, but it really, we survived. And so then in the middle of the pandemic, when we were actually doing pretty well, I was approached by the Compass Group. Um, I don't have it. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And I was, uh, just about to turn 70. And I'd always thought, you know, uh, you know, maybe 70, I should think about retiring or slowing down. I certainly haven't retired. But, um, it just seemed like maybe now's the time. And, um, many a few years, oh, maybe 10, I don't know how many years before, a number of years before, we had done a proposal to be the caterers for Simon Fraser University. And Simon Fraser was in three, four different locations. And it was a big presentation. We had a big tasting before it. And I flew back from

46:58vacation, you know, to shake hands and talk to people. And we, one of the trucks broke down. We were running a bit late. And they said, if you're not ready up and running by 12 o'clock, you're out. You can't even do a presentation. And everybody scrambling in the background. Kevin Mazone, who by then was my partner, I'd made him a partner. Um, he said it was the only time in the history of business that he wanted to cry. He was like close to crying. And we just like, oh my god, this is not going to happen. Anyway, I ended up schmoozing with everybody and, you know, holding everybody at bay, just talking about, you know, the company and the history in the past. And, and, and, and the chefs and everything. And Jenny, Hughie's in the background, getting everything organized, 12 o'clock ready to go. And I see, like, we're set up. Our food is really good. But there's another company that's, you know, the guys are all in tall chef's hats and their aprons and their chef's jackets are pressed perfectly. They're probably brand new. Excuse me. And, um, their signage was extraordinary. And their food looked pretty good.

48:04And I just said to Kevin, well, they're going to get it for sure. I mean, like, our food's great, but, you know, everything else is a little bit foxy. And then we got it. And I just thought, at that time, I thought, you know, with what they have to offer and what we have to offer, that would be a really interesting combination of companies. So they were really at the back of my mind, although I never acted on it, because I wasn't really interested in selling them. And when they approached me, and that was compass group, yeah, sorry, that's a compass group. And so when they approached me, I thought back on that. And then when I did my first Zoom interview with them, also I had an incredible guy who mentored me through the process. And, um, he had just sold a, a huge company in the States for, I think, $50 billion. No, no, six billion, whatever, huge amount. Yeah, huge amount of money. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for a huge amount. It was a big lumber company, but he coached me through the process. I think that's so cool that you, through all these years and

49:04all your experience, you still are humble enough to like, I need help on this. And hey, you know how to do this? Well, can you help me make this happen? Yeah, I think that, that, that is, that is so amazing to me. Because so, you see so many people in this food business who think they know it all, and then their restaurants come and go every day. I will tell you one story about that. But, um, but anyway, I told the story. I wasn't sure if I should tell it. And he said, yeah, tell it. It's human element. So when I first met the, the, these intimidating people, I told that story. You know, of the, yeah, but, um, yeah, no, sorry. No, I was just, I was just, I think, um, so you, you get, you get to the point where, you know, you're going to sell, sell to the compass group. And was there something, was there something? I mean, was it a personal thing? You know, you had mentioned that you're, you, you were going to hit 70. Maybe it's time to go, we just had this pandemic, you know, what, how do you know when it is time to step away from the

50:08company? I talk about this all the time, because I do a lot of consulting work is the first question I ask that everybody who is starting a business is, okay, what's your exit strategy? Like, what, how do you, how far do you want to take this business? Yeah. And nobody, like, nobody has a clue. Absolutely. I had absolutely no clue. Yeah. It, part of it just kind of felt right. And it's there's, you know, intuition is a big part of, of running a business too, which I haven't really talked about, but that's a really big part of it. Um, I, I'll tell you the company agreed to keep every employee on. Yeah. And to give them the seniority at compass at which they were at, at the lazy gourmet, every single person. So somebody had been with me 30 years, they had 30 years seniority and the status that comes with that. That's amazing. So, and everybody got the salaries or more than that they were getting. So I felt like they were really going to take care of my team. And that, and they hired me on as a consultant for five years. Okay. And I guess when I think

51:12about it now, actually, I hadn't really thought about it. Um, I've been doing it for five years, I, I think they want to keep me on. Oh, you're still doing it. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah, I think it was 19. Just trying to think if I've got my timing right. 2021 ish. Uh, yeah. I'm, I'm feeling pretty dumb at this very moment. But yeah, I mean, so I'm, I'm staying on. Yeah. That's amazing. And I, I like being a part of it. And I'm still very connected with my team. Yeah, I was going to ask you are like, are you, are you helping with the consulting with the, I don't know, is it, is it, lazy gourmet is still its own entity? Correct. Yeah. It's name. It's name under the umbrella of the council. Are you consulting with lazy gourmet? Are you consulting with all of the different ass? Yeah. You're doing good. Oh, yeah. So I've done a couple of interesting things. Yeah. Um, first of all, I like my, my description is to develop recipes, which of course I love to do. Mm-hmm. Um, to work on closing big deals and connections with, and, you know, with corporations

52:17or companies, which I've happily been able to do. And then of course mentoring the senior people. Right. So though, though, that's kind of my job description. Yeah. And it's only three days a month. Oh, it's, it's a pretty good game. Yeah. Yeah. It's very nice. Yeah. Um, so I, I love that. And, um, honestly, you know, it's just in there yesterday. And like, there's just a lot of love. Like, there's just, that's great. Um, it's a team. And I feel very close to all of the people there. And, uh, and there's, there's a real connection. And I, I love that connection. I just, you know, I just love being a part of it. That's fantastic to hear. Because you don't really know, like a lot of people in the restaurant industry, they hear of the compass group. And they think of it as this big, big huge corporation that does all these big, huge operations. But they don't really think of the human element of it. Let me, let me tell you this guy, um, the, uh, CEO of Canada, this guy named Sarjeet Khan. And he, Sarjeet, um, sent me a letter after the sale.

53:21And he said, I thank you for entrusting your baby to me to this company. And I promise you, we will do everything in our power to maintain the integrity and the values that you've set up in that company. And when he came out and met with me, he said to me, I meant every word of it. If we screw up in any way, I want you to call me personally. This is a guy who manages all of Canada. Extraordinary. And I think that was part of it. And he had of course come out and met with me and with Kevin earlier. So I had a sense of who he was. And I had a sense of what the company was. I mean, my original sense was old men and suits. I was actually old white men and suits. But I was approached through LinkedIn. And I don't look at my LinkedIn. And I didn't respond. So I looked like I was playing hard to get, which I wasn't. So, so this guy, um, who was, as it turned out, um, was, this was his first acquisition. But he told us that later. He contacted

54:24Kevin and told Kevin that, you know, could he contact me? Could we be interested in my support? Let's meet with them. Yeah. Of course. And again, I just expected old white man in suit. And this guy came in and there was just something very approachable about him. And then I said something about, you know, living in Toronto. And he said, well, actually, I live outside of Toronto and strapped with my partner. And I thought, oh, he's kind of not the old white straight man in the suit. So I said to him, well, do you by any chance know Cedric Smith? He goes, oh, yeah, I know Cedric. I know his daughter Maddie now. And like said, and then one other person, it's Grafford. And I said, you know, Lorina McKenna, he said, oh, we're best friends with Lorina. You know, we do every, I just like, okay, this guy's friends with Lorina McKenna. No, Cedric, Cedric's daughter. I only know two people in Stratford. And he knows him. He knows him. Like there was an instant kind of simpaticol.

55:24Yeah, connection. Absolutely. And that this wasn't some distant, you know, cold, poor, poor, poor, poor, yeah, yeah, in a race suit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's that started the conversation. And it's like it just progressed and just felt it just felt right right from the beginning until the end until until until today. Until today. Well, I mean, that's amazing. You were able to build a company to a point where it actually gets acquired by another like multinational like that. Who would have thought? Yeah, really? Absolutely. Yeah, you know, when you're driving your dynamo bars to the to the couch, who would have thought right? A long way from that. Yeah. A long way from that. Yeah. That's that's amazing. So one of obviously one of the reasons why we're here today is talk about LaDombs and your work with LaDombs and what the organization is all about. So if you want to quickly give a quick overview of what LaDombs is for people who maybe don't know who are listening and you know, you work with LaDombs and and what type of organization it is. Well, it's an incredible

56:25organization that supports women in the hospitality industry on pretty well every level of the hospitality industry. Whether you are in food or and wine, food, administration, leadership on every level. And it is such a rewarding experience to work. First of all, to connect with all these inspiring women, just each and every one of them so passionate and so inspired by each other. But what we do is we fundraise and and I'm fortunate enough to be on this scholarship committee. So every year we meet as a committee and there there are two committees actually one that's in beverage and wine and one in food and I'm always just in the food industry because I'm not very knowledgeable about wine. And women from all over apply for scholarships to help them on their journey in the hospitality industry. And I remember

57:31maybe a year ago, maybe two years ago, no a year ago, I was driving to the airport with my husband and I had been trying for days to tell this to contact this woman to let her know that she had won this scholarship. And this was a woman who had moved up from Mexico. She had moved up to this cold into the North cold area and had a job and a child and was working her ass off and then had come down to Victoria and had gotten a job in Victoria. But really wanted to learn more and to grow more and hopefully eventually to have her own business. And she was so inspiring. And my job was to tell her that she got this scholarship and it was hard to get a hold of her because she was working all the time. And anyway, I finally got a hold of her and my husband overheard because it was in the car, our conversation. And he was almost in tears. He just said, what you do is so great. This is such amazing work. This is so meaningful and so important and

58:34to see the results of collaboration. And really, when we get together as a group, we just had our first meeting last this week. And some people are new to the committee. I said, you know, don't worry about it. You do your own grading, but we all are kind of on the same page. We've never really had any arguments over all the years that I've been involved with that about who should or shouldn't get, who wasn't deserving or not deserving. And every time somebody is turned down, they're always invited to apply again the next year. And so we have different fundraisers over the course of the year. We have a dine out program. We dine around, it's called. We have which I love to be involved with. It's really fun. And then we've had garage sale. That's the one I think it's the coolest one. Yeah, it's phenomenal. Yeah, I mean, it's like, you have a bunch of old equipment donated to be donated to you. And then you have a

59:36big massive garage sale for everybody. And they can get all this really great equipment for, you know, great prices. And all the money goes to such a great causes. Well, Mickey Major from Age of the Grumei went, she shut down. She donated all of her Martha's dirty. Oh, oh, I donated it all to play down. And I'm telling you, I was having so much fun on things, so in that off people were lined up and the grins on everybody's faces as they left there. All these gorgeous Martha's dirty platters that she used over the years. Yeah, and if you don't know who that is, please look her up because some of the most beautiful artwork around. Yes, and she's not doing it anymore. Yeah, exactly. And actually, collectors items. And there's a family connection because we have our cook's camp event at North Arm Farm, which is Jordan Sturdy, which is is that his, no, what is that? That's her daughter son. Yeah, that's just Martha's son. Yeah, Martha's is, yeah, the mom. Yeah, sorry, I'm trying to remember the connections. Anyway,

1:00:36and where is that at North Arm Farm? Up in Pemberton. Well, that's where she lives. That's where Martha lives. Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's very cool. Yeah, yeah. I love to hear that. I want to hear more about that. Well, well, I'll tell you all about it. Let's finish up here. I think that what the Liddoms does is so incredibly important and the support that you that you just give the the women in our community, I think it's just absolutely phenomenal. If for any woman out there or meant to learn more about it, support it how you can. And the women, please try to join or become part of the fundraisers or look up what some of the, some of those programs that they're doing. Maybe you could benefit from them for a million different reasons. Yeah, I think that, I think that's a great place to end it. Actually, the talk about, to talk about the work, the great work that Liddoms does, I think, is a perfect place to end this. But

1:01:41I really want to thank you for being here and telling, you know, a abbreviated version of your story. You have a very deep history in Vancouver and I could just, I want to talk about like all the different restaurants over the years and the history of the food in Vancouver and all this sort of stuff. But that will be for another time. Happy back and I loved it. Thank you very much. Thanks everybody. We will see you next time or you'll hear me next time. How about that?