#200: Top 5 Listener Favorites (and Why I Think They Hit Home)

We celebrate 200 episodes by tracing the path from a 2015 blog to a no-ads show, then unpack the five listener favorites that keep you coming back. Books lead the way, followed by kids’ reads, cleanup systems, family routines, and flexible budgeting.

Top Book Review Episodes:

1. #25 Paper Palace
2. #104 Lady Tan’s Circle of Women
3. #109 The Collected Regrets of Clover
4. #179 The Wedding People
5. #159 Here One Moment
6. #99 Remarkably Bright Creatures

And Other Top 10 Listener Favorites:

1. #46 Toddler Books We Currently Love
2. #140 Systematically Cleaning Up the Kitchen After a Meal
3. #178 Bedtime Routines with Four Kids Under Six
4. #31 Fluid Budgeting, and a Spending Freeze

Please leave me a review on Spotify or on Apple Podcast!

www.daraboxer.com

Transcript

Milestone And Origin Story

Dara Boxer 0:00

Hello everyone, and welcome to The Raw on the Cooked, a weekly podcast that provides simple routines around the home plus raw and honest book reviews. My name is Dara. I'm a Midwestern stay-at-home mom to four young kids, and I thrive on simplicity. Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode. Today isn't just any episode. Today is the 200th episode of this podcast, which is insane. I can't believe I have a podcast with 200 episodes. But here we are. I actually started blogging in 2015. My blog's name was Peonies and Bees, Peonies as in the flower, bees as in obviously like a bumblebee. And um, that was back when like the something amper stand something business model was really taking off. Like, you know, like like sugar and sand, or like, you know, whatever, like every restaurant and coffee shop and uh, you know, boutique around was like something and something. So I ended up going with peonies and bees. Um, looking back, that was quite juvenile. And I wish so badly that I had just started with daraboxer.com, which is where we are now. Um, and when blogging started to feel a little tired and old uh back in the 2020s, I ended up just switching to a podcast. I figured it would just, you know, be fun to do it. And I had no idea how long I would stick with it. Um, I still don't know how long I want to stick with it, but it's been really, really fun. And I sort of let the blog go. And um now I feel like blogging is back. Like a lot of people are starting blogs through Substack, even though they have their own websites, I've noticed. Like a lot of bloggers that I used to follow back in like the early aughts and the early 2010s are shifting from their blog blog, like with their like actual website, to like a Substack, which is neat. It's cool. Like, you know, I guess it's an easy way to generate income. I don't know, whatever. So I decided to like go back to blogging, but not through Substack. I'm just on Dareboxer.com now. I am dissolving peonies and bees because it's just like adorable, but like so juvenile. So all of my blog posts, I'm trying to blog a little bit more, including like recipes and books and motherhood and just you know the works. So um, all that to say, I have no idea why I shared all that. Just 200th episode. And so today I thought it would be fun to do like a top five listener favorites. Obviously, I have stats and statistics and listens and numbers for each of the 200 episodes I've released. And so I thought I would just kind of like share what the top ones are and why I think they're fun and important, and I guess the future of where I want this podcast to go. So thank you so much for tuning in. You're listening to The Raw on the Cooked. I'm your host, Dara Boxer, and welcome to episode 200. Okay, so category number one for top five listener favorites. It's it's it has to be a category, it's not just like an episode. Um, they're book episodes. You guys love my book episodes. In the top 10 episodes I have, I would say about six of them are book related and they're like single books. I feel like I usually either throw in like here are like 30 books that I've read recently, or like here's a really special book that I loved and want to talk about, or I finally got my hands on this copy of this book, which everyone's been talking about, and my goodness, it was terrible, and here's why. So in the top 10, we have uh The Paper Palace by Megan Cowley Heller and why I despised that book. We have Lady Tan's Circle of Women, which was a really popular one, The Collected Regrets of Clover, and The Wedding People, Here One Moment, and Remarkably Bright Creatures. All of those were in my top 10. And so they've obviously have consistently dominated my analytics, and so I am just combining them into like one big favorite. And so I think these episodes work because it's fun to just like be invited into a conversation, and I think it's always so interesting, at least to me, this is why I started my blog back in 2015. I love talking about books, I love reading what other people thought about books, I love reading reviews, I love listening to reviews. Like I will, I I just love books, and so each time I feel like I want to share something with you, whether it's good or bad or whatever, I feel like um you guys, as my listeners, just really come for the companionship of that. Um, right, like it's just like a book club feel, like we're sitting at a kitchen table or like you know, together at a restaurant. One of my absolute favorite things to do when I get together with my friends that I haven't seen in a while is just to be like, what have you read that you've loved recently? And like tell me why, or like if you liked this, what would you recommend for this category of book? And so I just I just love it, and I'm thrilled that so many books made it into my top 10. Okay, so the next category of top favorite listeners, and again, this is a category. Um, I had a series, it only has like two episodes in it, but it's toddler books we love. And I wanted to really continue that series. I don't know why I've let it go recently, but um, it's something I want to continue. My kids are, well, my older two kids are a little bit older than toddlers now. My oldest turns seven when this episode comes out. It's actually her birthday, which is really exciting. Um, seven, and then my next youngest is five and a half. And so they're they're really kind of starting to read on their own, which is wild. I mean, I shouldn't say kind of, like they can read on their own. They don't always choose to read on their own, but it's really exciting because I feel like their whole world is about to open up, and so we have really been on the hunt for some really excellent books for five to eight-year-old kids, like in that general area. As far as the baby books, we really haven't added a lot of books in our library recently. Um, but it is a series that I really want to continue and um carry on. So, in addition to just like some of the books that I read, uh, you guys love hearing about books uh for our children and what our babies and toddlers and big kids really enjoy reading. So thank you for tuning into those. Um, the third episode that was like ranked pretty high up there, and this actually kind of surprised me. It's an episode about how to systematically clean up the kitchen after a meal, particularly a meal with small children. Because if it's just like you and your partner, you're probably not going to need like such an intense like hose down of the kitchen, like burning down the kitchen, just starting from scratch. Um, so that was actually really fun. That episode was inspired by a book I had read, How to Keep House While Drowning, which I think is just like such a good book for anyone who has a new baby at home and just like trying to readjust to life. And I took away one of the biggest things, and I talked about this in the episode, is that she has like a systematic approach to cleaning up spaces and areas in your home, and it involves like trash, laundry, um, gathering things that don't belong in the room, putting the things that belong in the room away, and just like, you know, kind of going from there. And I was like, oh my gosh, that is exactly how we clean our kitchen every single meal. And so I thought it would be really fun to turn it into an episode, and you guys loved it. So that was really, really fun. Um, and the fourth episode that you guys really loved that were my top again. I it's hard to say like top five because like books were basically in the top five, so like within the top ten. Um, it was the episode bedtime routines for four kids, six and under. And I think you guys just find it really fun. I mean, I always I also think it's like just really helpful to hear how other families do things and what they incorporate, what works for them, what doesn't, and just like listening to their system. I feel like it's just like really interesting. I love listening and reading about other people's routines, particularly when I was single without children. Um, I've always loved reading like this is how I start my day posts. And um yeah, I mean, you know, the thing, everyone has like a little does it a little differently. And so, you know, you're not going to like change everything you do because it sounds like it works really well for this family, but I just think it's an enjoyable episode, and you guys obviously agreed. So it was fun. I also have a morning routine with four kids six and under. Um, things are a little bit more calm and a little bit more stable this year, just because we're not in like the throes of like early postpartum days. Our youngest is now like 15 months. So, you know, things are like pretty calm and it they feel like you know much better. But anyway, so I maybe I should update uh that in the near future as well. But moving on, the last episode that was in the top, I guess I should say top 10, was a fluiding budgeting, a fluid budgeting and a spreading spending freeze. And I think you guys really enjoyed that because who doesn't love talking about money? Not necessarily like investments and like dividends and retirement accounts and IRAs and I don't even know like what it's just like so confusing for me. But as far as like the day-to-day budgeting is concerned, that's my domain where my husband kind of takes the uh he take he takes the reins when it comes to like long-term, you know, more than just like this is what I spent on groceries this month. And so I shared about how I do it, how I budget, and like what that looks like. Um it's been uh several years since that episode came out. So it's probably a good idea for a refresh. Um what I started doing in the last couple of years was having a like this is what we spent, this is like what a real family of six spent in like the month of June of 2025. Um, so that was fun. But yeah, I just think money shouldn't necessarily be shameful. It's just like, you know, it it is what it is. Um, and so yeah, I think that like the nuance of like flexibility and like real life honesty and just, you know, like here's what worked for us and here's what didn't. Um, is just really fun and helpful. Because again, similar to like a morning routine or an evening routine with kids and whatever, it's just helpful to hear how other people budget their money and like how they approach things. And again, not necessarily to like copy it, like no one has a perfect system, but more just like inspiration, or you could pick up a little bit here or takeaway there. I don't know. You know, take what you like, leave the rest. It's one of my absolute favorite sayings. So um, that really concludes the top five listener favorites, and I think what I've learned after looking at my analytics, um, not too hard. I mean, like this podcast is not very popular by any means. Like, we're not talking like millions of hits or even hundreds of thousands, like we're you know, this is no like a Joe Rogan podcast, but um I've learned you guys really enjoy books, adults, kids, uh, overrated books, thriller books, um, nonfiction, books about parent parenting, uh, just you know, all of it. So I'm gonna try really hard to keep the book episodes going. I know it's like so hit or miss with me. I just feel like sometimes I'm like in the throes of reading like 15 books at once and then I want to talk about all of them. And then other times I feel like I just pick up like dud after dud after dud and don't necessarily want to like podcast about it. So I don't know. I'm gonna try to be like a little bit more consistent, but I also feel like it's like run of the mill, like whatever I happen to pick up, you know? So it's hard to kind of like plan that. But anyway, um, that's kind of what I have for you guys today, and I'm just really thrilled that we made it to the 200th episode, and I just feel so honored. And I am begging you guys, please, please, please, if you haven't done so already, I know you haven't done it already because I only have like two reviews on this podcast. Please, if you've been one of my listeners for a while, or even if you're new and you feel like this podcast is really fun, please leave me a review on Spotify or on Apple Podcast. It's a really great way to have the show grow. I am not trying to make any money on this podcast. I you will never hear an advertisement ever. I have no ads on my website. Like I am losing money to host a website, to host a podcast. Like I just do this for fun, but it would mean so much and is such a good ego boost if you guys could leave a nice little review or even just a star rating from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for being here for the last four and a half, five years. I don't know how long it's been, like summer 2021, whatever that is. It's been a long time and I'm just happy to keep going. Um, I don't, I don't know my thoughts. Like my goal is to continue blogging in 2026 and podcasting as well. Um, so yeah, I I I feel like I'll be here for a while, but um, you know, speaking of the blogging days, back like in 2015, I attended a couple of like blogging conferences. Sorry, this is like a complete side note. I attended a couple of blogging um, you know, like seminars or whatever, just to kind of like, you know, see. And I the one woman who hosted this made a very interesting point of that being like all these like social media sites, like, you know, my all the way back in the day from like MySpace and Facebook and insert, like you have no idea which platform is going to collapse with all of your followers, with all of your everything. So never to get too attached to one platform. And I thought that was a really interesting point, right? Because like a lot of people put a lot of attention back in the day on um, you know, just like like Snapchat, for instance. And I feel like now it's like dead, and now it's like moved on to TikTok. Not that I would ever have a TikTok profile, but the point being, like, you just don't you just like never know. And like no one could have predicted that Substack would have like taken off in the way that it did. And so it's just really interesting to me. Um, and like right, I who knows like if podcasts will even still be around in like five years. I mean, I I'm pretty sure they probably will, but you know, where will like the the masses move on to? So I don't know, just some food for thought. Okay, that's probably enough rambling. I just wanted to share my thanks and my gratitude for being here and tuning in week after week. And um, yeah, I'll catch you guys back here next week. Take care.