#37: Debbie Brosnan is Back! Cookbooks and Culinary Retreats to Italy

Debbie Brosnan is back on the podcast because she is publishing a cookbook! We always love talking to her about food and cooking and this episode is no exception. She tells us about the process of creating a cookbook from recipe edits to self-publishing. We also get a sneak peek into her Fall cooking retreat to Abruzzo, Italy! We hope you enjoy and don't forget to purchase your copy of The Effortless Kitchen Cookbook on Amazon on October 21st.
 
Buy Debbie's cookbook here:
Amazon US:  https://www.amazon.com/dp/1946694851
Amazon CA:  https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1946694851
Amazon UK:  https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1946694851

Find Debbie Online
Website: www.theeffortlesskitchen.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theeffortlesskitchenbydebbie

AND it's the one-year anniversary of The Plan to Eat Podcast! This show has been a great joy for me and Riley and we can't thank you enough for listening and sharing the podcast.
You can find our customer go-to recipe blog here: https://www.plantoeat.com/blog/2022/10/37-go-to-recipes-from-plan-to-eat-customers/

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Transcript

[00:00:00] 

I'm Riley and I'm Roni. And this is the plan to eat podcast, where we have conversations about meal planning, food, and wellness. To help you answer the question what's for dinner. 

Roni: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Plan to Eat podcast. Per usual. We're so excited today because we have Debbie Brosnan back on the podcast. She was on episode number nine and number 19. In those episodes, she talked about her business. She's a virtual cooking instructor, and then she also talked to us about getting her older kids interested in cooking and in the kitchen.

And today she's back to talk to us about some exciting things she has coming up.

Riley: Debbie is launching a physical cookbook and we could not be more excited for her. Um, it's such a labor of love. We talked to her about all the details of putting that together, how she chose recipes, um, how she edited them in a way that makes them so easy to use and learn how to [00:01:00] cook in your own kitchen.

Um, and we cannot wait for you guys to get your hands on this cookbook and learn more about her process. 

Roni: Well, Debbie, thanks for joining us again on the podcast.

Debbie: Thank you so much for having me. I love hanging out with you guys and chatting food.

Riley: Oh, we love it too. You're our first guest. We've had twice and now the first guest we've had three times

Debbie: I'm so honored. I've

gotten a lot of great feedback from, um, the plan to eat, listeners and, uh, followers, so I appreciate it,

Riley: Oh, good. I'm so glad to hear it. Yeah. Um, we hope that we're sending tons of people your way to learn how to cook. So

Debbie: Just send me one and I'll be happy. No, but I think, yeah, no, there's been a lot of, there's been a lot of great feedback, so I appreciate the, the exposure to people who didn't know me before.

Roni: you're our favorite person to learn how to cook from. So

Debbie: Ah, well thank you. Thank you.

Roni: you're back on the podcast today because you have some exciting things coming up in your future. Why don't you tell us about it?[00:02:00] 

Debbie: do, I have been working really hard all summer, um, preparing my recipes, so they're ready for my first cookbook. My debut cookbook is coming out on October 21st, and I could not be more excited.

Riley: feel like when you said that we should have been cheering and waving flags and

stuff. 

Debbie: drum roll. Yeah.

Riley: Uh, October 21st. Okay. That's so exciting. Can you tell us what it's called?

Debbie: Yes. It is called the Effortless Kichen Cookbook. Simple, healthy, and delicious recipes that make everyday cooking effortless.

Roni: Oh, I love it.

Debbie: to like get it in a nutshell, like exactly what I'm all about and I think that really, that really works for.

Riley: That was one of those sentences you probably wrote and rewrote, and wrote and rewrote, and

Debbie: Yeah, that's not, that's not easy. Like this whole process has been quite the, uh, the learning experience for me, but a good one.

Riley: Good. That's great.

Roni: [00:03:00] What was your, uh, inspiration for wanting to do a cook?

Debbie: I hadn't planned on it and I've been teaching, um, my virtual cooking classes for. and a half years. So I have a, um, stockpile of recipes that I've been teaching because I don't repeat my recipes in classes because they're, they're live. I have people who come repeatedly, so I don't want to have duplicates.

So, um, after a while, I think a couple people in my classes are like, Oh, I have all of your recipes in a binder. It's kind of like my own little cookbook, and I'm like, That's actually interesting. I do too. So I'm like, well, why don't I write a cookbook? Because I have all these great recipes to share. I've shared them with people who, you know, follow me and take my classes.

But, it'd be nice to have everything in one place for those people who already love it, and then for other people to, to see what I'm about.

Roni: that's great. So, I know that [00:04:00] you're, I mean, we're recording this a little early, so we don't have the cookbook yet. Uh, could you give us a little bit of like the formatting, the layout of what their cookbook's.

Debbie: This was also challenging. How do I set it up? Because I. Just a wide variety of recipes. Some things are vegetarian. I love doing bowls. There's a lot of bowls. Do I do just a bowl book? Do I do, kind of like a combo? So I ended up doing, um, I separated it by soups, salads and sides, and then vegetarian main.

What you might not know is that I love making vegetarian dishes, but I also like offering meat subs and then the opposite in my meat heavy dishes, there's vegetarian substitutions. So it's really kind of, it speaks to everybody I think. So I got my vegetarian main dishes, noodles, and pasta. Probably my favorite section.

Okay. It's like [00:05:00] picking children here. Meatballs from around the world is actually kind of my favorite section. I love a good meatball.

Riley: Hold on. Meatballs from around the world.

Debbie: Yes,

Riley: Oh, 

Debbie: a book just on that, but it would've been a little skinny. So meatballs from around the world as a section, and then meat, seafood, um, meat and seafood, main dishes.

So, it was really hard. It was really hard to sort it. And I try to, each section is, I try to go from like lighter dishes to heavier dishes and keep them in like the genre of, you know, like from around the world. Like the Italian dishes are all together and then Greek is next, so that, that kind of thing.

So it's easy to navigate.

Riley: That sounds fantastic. I love that it's. Customizable to everybody. Um, it sounds like the sections just, I, I can't wait to get my hands on it and try some of those recipes. meatballs from around the world. I'd buy the cookbook only for that section,

Roni: Uhhuh.

Debbie: know, I know. That's my, I mean, that's why I'm like, I do love noodles and pasta, but hey, um, I'm a meatball fan, [00:06:00] so

Riley: Oh, that's fantastic.

Debbie: yeah.

Roni: So you teach people how to cook. Is there anything involved in the cookbook as well? That's like giving people like tips and tricks for the recipes, like that kind of stuff.

Debbie: So, um, I have a section and I haven't figured out exactly what I'm gonna call it, like helpful notes on how to use the book. And so it goes through all the dietary substitutions. Every recipe has. Dietary substitution section so people who need them can, can see what they're about. But then also just kind of like a basic, if you need, you know, gluten free dining options, here's, or substitutions, here's, you know, what you would use in place of soy sauce and, you know, um, all of that, uh, kind of laid out for people.

And then, I kind of talk. choices that I've made. So what kind of salt I use. So if you're using a different salt, you need to know to adjust your measurements. Um, [00:07:00] You know what kind of ground meat that I use. If it says, you know, ground Turkey, I don't like the ground Turkey breast because it's dry, but I like to have the ground Turkey versus the ground beef because it's a little bit less fatty.

You know, you wanna have some fat, like, so I kind of go through some of those tips and tricks. Um, I was gonna do a whole utensil section, but then it got overwhelming. , because that's also what I teach a lot of in my class is like, Hey, this is my favorite little measuring cup. I think we've talked about. This is my favorite, micro plane grader. So,

Riley: It sounds like the cookbook is, is very much you because we know. I mean, we know you love to teach people how to cook, we know you love food, but you're also so detail oriented, and all these little things you're telling me, it sounds like, it just sounds like it's gonna be a cookbook of Debbie , just like exactly what people would get in your class cuz in a cookbook format, um, these little details like little things, like literally if you're using a different kind of.

You're gonna need to change the [00:08:00] measurement. I've never seen that in a cookbook before. I mean, I know certain salts are saltier than others, . But to see that in a cookbook is, I think, profoundly helpful for people. So it just, it just, everything you're saying, it makes this cookbook feel like this is just so you, and that's gotta feel really good as an author.

Debbie: Yes, Yes. Thank you. I appreciate that because that's how I feel about it cuz it's, you know, it's like a passion project of mine. Going through all of this, the recipes were, um, written for class instruction. So I did have to change a lot of the directions. And a lot of it is, some of it's a little wordy because I wanna make sure people know exactly how to wash their kale, how to cut certain things.

So there's, you know, there's a lot of instruction in there that will be me speaking to the, the cook in their kitchen without me being on screen with.

Roni: I wanted to ask a little bit about what the process of, uh, [00:09:00] creating a cookbook is like, because I don. Personally, I don't understand how complicated it is. And I think that potentially a lot of people don't know how much effort goes into it, so, Yeah. Can, I mean, you talked a little bit having to like restructure your recipes, like what were some of the other things that, like what's that process look like?

Debbie: yes, like I said, I had that, you know, folder, binder, whatever it was full of my recipes. I'm pretty much ready to go, right? No, I'm not. I had to go through every single one. You know, like I said, I had written them for class instruction, so some of the things were taken out because people didn to prepare for class.

Other things like they were abbreviations. I wanted to have all of those taken out. So every I went through every single ingredient section, every single direction instruction section of every recipe, tweaked it. And then got a first draft and tweaked them all again. So, it was for, for me, um, I'm much more of a [00:10:00] visual person and digital is harder for me to kind of go through and, and edit than it is on print and paper.

So once I got the hard copy, I was like, Oh gosh, all right, let's go through this again. And every single recipe had. So, it's a lot of, you know what, you wanna make sure that it all makes a hundred percent sense to, the reader because I've seen a lot of reviews of cookbooks and I've read cookbooks myself.

I'm like, Oh, well this doesn't make sense. Or, wait a minute. There's garlic in the recipe, but there's no garlic in the directions. Why? Like in the, in the ingredients, not in the direction. So, you know, I just wanted to make sure that I didn't have any of that, that my recipes would be easy to follow.

Riley: Yeah, I've definitely run into that too with recipes where, I'm not exactly sure what I'm supposed to be doing or what I'm supposed, or the recipe takes three times longer because I wasn't able to kinda like do things at the same time if it's pretty, It was a really new recipe that I was [00:11:00] trying, um, because the directions didn't necessarily handhold me as much as I would've liked them to.

You know, you can start all three of these things at the same time, which will save you time instead of doing one thing at a time in which it extends the recipe time. Um, so I love that you did that. You edited so much, so clear

Debbie: my, it's my, I'm sure that there will be people who, you know, go, go look at a recipe and they're like, I still don't get it, but I really, really made it my best effort at, you know, looking at it from the other side, how would this appear in someone else's kitchen? And especially someone who's not comfortable with cooking.

Riley: Well, the beautiful and unique thing about you compared to a lot of recipe authors out there is that you do offer cooking classes. And so if somebody is confused about something, uh, they can come take one of your classes. It may not be the same recipe, but it might be the opportunity to interact with you and just ask a question, get that question answered for a particular recipe out of your cookbook.[00:12:00] 

Which I feel like a lot of recipe others actually might be missing out on that aspect of actually the teaching part. That's really helpful for people, particularly people who want to improve their skills, but uh, maybe don't have the means or availability to do it, but yours are all online. Um, they can easily pop into a class when you have one.

Um, and that just feels like really like natural segue for that.

Debbie: No, I love that. Come to class you have any questions, , join me. Join me for a class, get a new recipe, and yeah, for

Riley: like, every like 10th page, you should have that printed on the bottom if you, if you need any additional help. there any new recipes in the cookbook or are they all from your classes over the past few years?

Debbie: There's nothing new in the book. There's no, uh, surprise recipes. It's everything that I've taught. I think the cookbook comes out at the, Yeah. End of October. So I do have a couple of recipes in there that are, that are part of my [00:13:00] fall menu that will be in there. So a little sneak into, uh, what we're doing in the fall, later, you know, in, um, November and December.

Um, I did include those because the recipes were so good. Like, it was, that was the other hard thing is kind of sorting through and like, which recipes I, I didn't wanna include. So. And then some of them had to do with the photography, because I take my own pictures and then some of them I was like, Oh, , either I'm gonna recreate this dish, or it's, it's getting out of the book.

So, I've done, I did a lot of cooking this summer too, to, to get better photos and, um, some of them were just scrapped.

Riley: That's impressive that you do all your own photos in addition to all everything else. That's really incredible.

Debbie: Well, I do them because I, um, share them on social media for each of my classes, so I kind of need them. And then every. When I share my recipes for class, they all [00:14:00] have a photo on there, so kind of, you know, what it's supposed to look like. But that's like, you know, the Instagram ready picture, cuz it never looks like that when we make it in class. like, let's try to make it look pretty, but then, you know, it doesn't look the same.

Roni: Did you have to go through the process of like getting an agent and like finding an editor and all that kind of stuff? Or were you already connected with people for that?

Debbie: so this is a self-published book. So I went through a number of different scenarios of how I was gonna do it, and they start at a very high dollar amount and they go down, you know, and there's a range. And so I chose a self-publishing route because my goal here is to share what I, what I know and what I love to do with others.

And, You know, it's, it's kind of like my, I'm sharing what, what I've worked on for two and a half years, yet I didn't want to make this huge production out of it. So again, also why I take my own photos. I could have a professional [00:15:00] photographer come in and do all of them too, but it just gets crazy. Like I just wanted it to be effort.

And share and just get it out there. So, um, self-publishing, I ended up, I interviewed a few people and ended up going with the person who I felt would give me the best, product and also the best kind of service where they were gonna be available and accessible and, you know, be willing to make the changes that I wanted to make instead of how they wanted it to be.

That's how I landed on who I, used for the book. And, um, so self-publishing on Amazon as a whole interesting world that I did, knew nothing about. So, um, thankfully the person I hired will do all of that for me. But launch day is, is quite the. Quite the experience. So we're gonna, I'm gonna have a, probably a Zoom launch party and, give out prizes and have people hop on Amazon and [00:16:00] buy the e-copy.

I think the e copy's available day one. And then it'll go to the hard copy after that. And then hopefully be kind enough to write really good reviews. So Amazon puts me at the top of their list. That's the goal, right?

Roni: Yeah.

Riley: that's, uh, that feels probably like scary to you, but it feels so exciting to me. I'm so excited for you. Um, can you, will you. Us know how to get into your launch party and like what we can do to help make that day extra special. Cuz we love to be a part of it if we can.

Debbie: Absolutely. That's why I kinda like that it's one day,

show up on this one day and then, um, then it's out there for everybody to, to access. So yes. Absolutely. I will. Yes. Thank

Riley: Can we, can we send you a box of books, uh, to get 'em all signed?

Debbie: Yeah, my signature. I don't really love it and I've, I've seen others. I'm like, What? So [00:17:00] beautiful. Mine's like a little scroll, so

Riley: Hm, Well for like, you know, fancy signatures on the book, it just needs to look, um, effortless.

Debbie: it.

Riley: but just, you know, just come up with like a big, big swirly d and then scribble something after that.

Debbie: Yeah, exactly. Nobody'll know who it is. Yeah. Love it. 

Riley: how long after, um, day one is the hard copy, hard copy available for sale?

Do you know?

Debbie: I, I actually think it's the next day, but I, um, I think that's how it works. I think launch day is the e copy and it's like a dollar or something, and then, then it comes out in, in print. Um, after that,

Riley: Okay.

Debbie: Because I mean, the idea behind launching when we are launching is twofold. One is so that it's ready for Black Friday, um, and you don't wanna launch too close to Black Friday.

You want it to happen out there. So it's like, you know, kind of, it's, it's hitting the charts and all of that. And then I'm also going on my culinary retreat, [00:18:00] um, to Italy on the 31st of October. So I needed to get it done before. Before I leave, I don't wanna be in Italy trying to promote a launch of a cookbook.

So, um,

Riley: use that retreat as a reward. Like, uh, like you worked so hard on it and then now you get to go relax in Italy, um, and enjoy all of that. I feel like, I feel like it's a per, it's perfectly timed to go to Italy.

Debbie: It kind of is. Yes, I will be working though, cuz I am leading the retreat. I have, you know, there's 16 of us going, so I will be working and, you know, coordinating and corralling and, and that sort of thing to make sure everybody's where they need to be. But yes, still having a good time.

Riley: Good.

Roni: makes up for a pretty busy fall for you to be launching your book and then basically immediately going on this trip,

Debbie: Yes. Yes. Cause I do some, I do, uh, like a live class occasionally at the farm, down the street for me. And I didn't get on her schedule for the fall. And I'm like, Oh, like, just think about for the spring. The [00:19:00] fall was too busy. Anyway, I need some space. Then after I come back, then I have to launch my, I'll launch my winter menu.

So I have to get that ready for, for when I come back.

Riley: One of these days, Debbie, I wanna come to every retreat. We, I wanted to come to Italy, um, but a, a cla, a cooking class at a farm with you. Sounds incredible. I, So one of these days I'm gonna get to come to one of something

Roni: figure it out.

Riley: That's something that you do.

Debbie: Yeah, they come to Massachusetts

Riley: I'm

Debbie: or Italy, meet me in Massachusetts or Italy. Which one would you choose?

Riley: It sounds so, um, romantic. Like, I mean, I'm from Alabama and now I live in Colorado, so Massachusetts is a state that, in my mind, this is so off topic, it's very idealized in my mind, you know, like beautiful movies about Massachusetts and so much history. 

Roni: Massachusetts in the fall with like beautiful colors and the trees. Like that's what I think of immediately.

Debbie: it is quite [00:20:00] beautiful. It

Riley: so me meaning Massachusetts or Italy. It's like two romantic

Debbie: choose Italy

Roni: Maybe we stop off at Massachusetts and then that's like our layover point before we go to Italy, you know? Cuz otherwise a plane, a ticket from Colorado to Italy, that's such a long flight.

Debbie: Yeah. You need a break?

Riley: Oh

Debbie: a break? You need to eat some of my food before we go eat some Italian food.

Roni: you go. so, tell us a little bit more about the retreat. This is the second one that you've done, right? That you're going to.

Debbie: this is my first international one. So we did Napa in March and then, um, we're doing Abruzzo, which is, uh, where we're going is like a three hour drive, east of Rome. And, uh, we're doing a six night. All included, everything's included. All the food, all the red wine. Four cooking classes. We're going on tours where we go to a cheese factory.

We'll do, um, olive oil harvest because it's, there's a couple weeks in the fall that's olive [00:21:00] oil, olive harvest season for olive oil. So we're doing that. We go to a fishing village. I mean, there's, it's just, it can't be bad. That's all I can say. It's gonna be amazing, but it can't be bad because it's Italy and I mean, I've not had a bad meal there.

I think I may have said that in a. Podcast, uh, interview. But, like I'm planning that the time before the retreat, my mother and I are going to Umbria, which I haven't gone to before, partially because I haven't gone, she hasn't gone. But also because, uh, I think my fall retreat of next year will be in Umbria So I'm kind of checking some things out.

And, then we're doing Rome and my mom has, has some mobility issues. She'll probably be better for next year, but had to push off her surgery date so, We're gonna take a golf cart, food tour in Rome. Like, how amazing does that sound?

Roni: really cool.

Riley: Oh my 

Debbie: It's a four hour tour in a golf cart where they take us from place to place to eat and drink, so.

Riley: That solves, uh, so [00:22:00] many

Roni: So many problems.

Riley: Yeah.

Debbie: Right. I know. I was like, wait, we don't have, I mean, I do like walking, but you know, I don't wanna push her so we don't have to walk too far. And, they just feed us and. Tell us about the history. I mean, I've been there multiple times, so I'm like, I just need to eat. I don't really need to tour, but I'll listen to what you have to say if you get me from point A to point B.

Riley: Yep. Um, so listeners, you should sign up for next year because if that didn't sell you on it, I don't know what will

Debbie: Mm-hmm.

Roni: Well, I was gonna say, I just got your email last week about you had so much interest in this fall retreat that you're gonna do one in the spring too.

Debbie: Yes, So I will repeat this one in the springtime. Just trying to select the date. I think it's gonna be the end of June, and then when. Figure out the date I will launch it. And yes, it will. So it'll be what I said with the, the four cooking classes in house and the, um, it won't be all of all of harvest season, but we'll do other things.

So it's just, uh, [00:23:00] a week of indulgence and learning. About the region through the, the real point of it, aside from why we're eating, but why are we eating this food is because we're learning about the region of Italy through their food and their food culture.

Riley: Amazing.

Roni: Well, we're gonna try to go . I think we need to try to go, We'll just include it in our, you know, budget. It'll be fine.

Riley: Yeah. What are the dates for the one in the spring? Do you know those? Yeah.

Debbie: I think it's gonna be the last week of June. I'm working around, I'm working around two. Um, I have a senior in high school and a senior in college. So working around two graduations and trying to make sure that, you know, and then we've got the last softball season and, you know, all the family things that I'm trying to work around.

Riley: Sure, because you are still a normal person,

Debbie: I do. I do,

Riley: Um, you have this normal life with kids and you're juggling that. You're writing a cookbook, you're teaching cooking classes, and you're taking these amazing [00:24:00] trips to Italy and Napa. I don't know how you do it all, but it's pretty amazing.

Debbie: It's all good stuff though. Like it's all exciting and good stuff. Like somebody said, Oh, it's so much work. You're so busy. And I'm like, Well, yes it is work, but it doesn't feel like work.

And the trips, of course, don't feel like work. I mean, there's prep work that goes into it to get people there, but once we're there, it's, it's just gonna be incredible.

Riley: So you said your mom is going with you. Is any other family? Are any other family members going with you?

Debbie: Uh, no. My husband is not going with me because of the, we have our senior in high school, so leaving her behind for a week, especially the timing of this trip, I, um, leaving my husband with the November 1st deadline for college applications for, um, early actions. So, sorry about that. I won't be here. Um, so either we get her to do it a few days early or he's gonna have to, you know, make sure they get done for November 1st.

Cause I won't be in the country. So I'm glad we, [00:25:00] he didn't just decide to go because then it would've left her to her own devices, which she would be great. But, we just wanna make sure it happens.

Riley: Well, we'll make sure he gets this podcast so he knows that. how you feel. Too funny.

Debbie: Yeah. 

Riley: So are you working on your cook, your second cookbook now that 

Debbie: Oh my goodness. No, no. I think that'll be, that'll be a ways away. Cause um, I will have to amass more of more recipes from my classes.

So maybe another two, maybe another two years gives people, you know, have time to go through this book. There's about 70 to 75 recipes in there, so you needs some time to go through that and,

Riley: Yeah,

Roni: Well, with all your trips to Italy, you can just have your next book cookbook be inspired by your Italian travels 

Debbie: Exactly. That's a great point. That is a great.

Roni: Well, is there anything we missed that you wanted to, that you wanted to talk about?

Debbie: No, I think you know everything about me, including my personal life too. So, [00:26:00] I've shared it all. Um, I think like, I'm just so excited, first of all that you guys are supporting me in this. Um, I'm really excited to do it, but to have you, behind me and then, you know, putting it out to your network, your listeners, cause you know, their plan to eat listeners because they either love food or they need some help in the kitchen.

And so I serve both those audiences. So I'm really, I'm super excited about it. It's been a summer of of work, but, It's gonna be great in the end and to have it all in one place for people to just grab and and learn what I have to share at their leisure. Cuz some people don't wanna come to class because, oh, I have to show up and whatever.

So here you go. Here's your book. Um, and now you have it all at your fingertips.

Riley: Yeah, you certainly hit the nail on the head. I mean, our audiences overlap so much. [00:27:00] Um, and our passions overlap in a lot of ways. We just don't do the cooking part. We don't teach people how to cook, so we love that we. Found you . Because we love getting to send people in your direction, but also the effortless kitchen.

We, it's what we hope for people. Meal planning, we hope makes things a little bit more effortless. Um, but then when the cooking part can be that way too, um, it's the perfect like marriage of what your kitchen could be like. So

Debbie: Right,

Riley: love it and we can't wait for people to get their hands on it, so,

Debbie: Thank you.

Riley: I just thought maybe it would be fun if you told us if you had a number one favorite recipe in the cookbook.

Roni: Oh

Debbie: Oh, this is a terrible question.

Um, it, This is so hard because I actually was looking through before we got on. Thinking what would be, if I had a top pick, what would it be? And I mean, I always, I usually gravitate towards like some kind of noodle dish and. If you were going on my trip, you would have a cooking [00:28:00] class with me so you can meet all the new attendees, like who you're gonna see in Italy.

And then we are gonna cook together. So we're making one of my favorite dishes, which is my, um, and I think I've mentioned this before, but the My Quick fettuccine bolognese and it's with ground Turkey and it, it, you can make it in 20 minutes. So, absolutely delicious. So we're making, on Thursday everybody's meeting on Zoom and all 16 of us are gonna get on and cook cause that's what I do.

So may as well make it part of the experience for them.

Riley: Oh, that's really fun and a good opportunity for them to meet each other. If they haven't, if they don't know anybody

Debbie: They don't know each other. So that was the whole point. Let's meet each other. And I didn't wanna just sit there and say, Hi, where are you from? What's going on? Like, what, What are you most excited about? So it'll be interactive. We'll be cooking and talking at the same time.

Riley: Well, and that's what we love that about food is that it brings people together. So that's the perfect barrier, um, to that awkward like, Hi, I'm Riley and I [00:29:00] like to take

Debbie: What's your favorite pasta dish?

Riley: Exactly. I've never been to Italy. I can't wait. Yeah, it'll, That's a per, that's a 

Debbie: awkward, right? And so this, and I chose an Italian dish on purpose obviously, so that it's like a little prelude to what we're gonna be eating and, tasting while we're there and cooking.

Riley: Yeah, that's incredible.

Roni: Beautiful. Well, before we go, why don't you tell everybody where they can find you online and remind us again of the date that the cookbook comes.

Debbie: Okay, so the cookbook launch date is October 21st, and, I will share my, my Zoom party with you guys when it, when I, when I launch that, so that you can have that and share it if you need to. But my website is the effortless kitchen.com. And I'm on Instagram as the Effortless Kitchen by Debbie. I'm also newly on TikTok, um, sharing, some walkthroughs of recipes.

So yeah, if I [00:30:00] me in those, those places and, uh, if you're on LinkedIn, I'm also on LinkedIn as Debbie Brosnan 

Riley: Fantastic. We can't wait for it. And we will make sure everybody has, um, all of this information available to them and we'll see at the launch party

Debbie: Aw. Thank you. I'm so excited that you're gonna be there.

Roni: Wow. Well, thanks for joining us again, Debbie. We appreciate it.

Debbie: you guys. Thank you so much.

Roni: Thanks for listening to this episode of the podcast. Uh, we appreciate it. We love having Debbie on the podcast, and we hope that you get her cookbook and y you enjoy it.

Riley: Today is incredibly special because it is our one year anniversary of the Plan to Eat podcast. It has been such a fun year. I had, I don't know. I don't say I, I, I didn't know what to expect when we went into it. And it has been, it has exceeded all of my expectations. It's been one of the most fun things I've done in this last year.

Uh, and it's just been [00:31:00] so fun to interview people and to just grow the podcast and, yeah, it's just, I really loved every aspect of.

Roni: Yeah, I loved doing the pod. I have loved doing the podcast too. It. Probably my favorite thing that I do for my job, which is great. Um, yeah, and we've got to like meet so many cool people through the podcast and interview them and, learn so much from all of these different people. And the support that we've gotten from you guys, our listeners, has been so incredible.

Uh, we're just really grateful and we're so happy that you guys have, you know, supported us and enjoyed this thing that we love so much too.

Riley: Yeah, we can't say thank you enough for listening. Um, yeah. And here's to another year.

Roni: so as part of our one year celebration, we have a special blog post that is going out. It be linked in the show notes of this podcast. It is a. Quick recipe list. So when we sent out our email about meal planning tips from our customers, we also asked what your go-to quick recipe was. [00:32:00] And so we've compiled all of those recipe suggestions into a list so you can go, there's almost 40 recipes on the list.

So if you are ever in need of some recipe inspiration, this is the list to go to. They are tried and true recipes from all of our customers, and Riley and I added our favorites at the end.

Riley: We hope you enjoy the list and we hope you enjoy the next year of podcast content.