Tiny Tastebuds, Big Business: Running Yummy Toddler Food from Happy Valley

Amy Palanjian is the creator of Yummy Toddler Food — a media company with 1.5 million Instagram followers that offers recipes and food advice for little ones ages 1 to 3.

In this episode, Amy shares how she came to launch her own media company, what goes on behind the scenes as a food blogger, and tips for parents whose kids are hesitant to try new foods. She also talks about why she loves running her business from Happy Valley and how she found her community here.

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Chapters

• 1:01 The Inspiration Behind Yummy Toddler Food
• 7:45 How She Built Her Support Team for her Business
• 9:43 How Amy Keeps her Content Fresh
• 10:56 What Brought Amy to State College
• 15:10 Fresh Food Recommendations from a Food Blogger
• 16:07 Amy's Day to Day as a Food Blogger
• 17:37 No Employees, But A Good Support Team
• 21:00 The Success of Amy's Cookbook: Dinnertime SOS
• 23:41 Tips For Helping Kids Be More Adventurous With Trying New Foods
• 29:58 Advice for People New to Town

Transcript

Brad Groznik (00:05)
This is the Rediscover State College Podcast. On this show, we talk to locals about how they were able to find their happy place in Happy Valley. I'm your host, Brad Grosvenk. Today we're joined by Amy Pelangian, creator of Yummy Toddler Food, a media company with 1.5 million Instagram followers that offers recipes and food advice for little ones aged one to three. In this episode, Amy shares how she came to launch her own media company, what goes on behind the scenes as a food blogger.

and tips for parents whose kids are hesitant to try new foods. She also talks about why she loves running her business from Happy Valley and how she found her community here. Amy Pelangian, thank you so much for coming. Yummy Toddler Food has 1.5 million followers on Instagram. That is incredible. doesn't even, it is hard to calculate. It's hard to even conceive, you know, 1.5 million followers.

I'm curious, how did that get started? What was the inspiration? Tell us a little bit about that story.

Amy Palanjian (01:06)
Well, career started in magazines. I worked as a magazine editor in New York and then in Des Moines for over a decade. And I worked at four different magazines and each of them was closed. It was sort of during the period where, I mean, this is continuing, but like the industry was really compressing. And so when I started in that industry, like I didn't understand that you could just like go to work one day and lose your job.

And so then it like kept happening. And I was like, wait, this is, don't know that I like this. ⁓ And so between jobs, was freelance. I did a lot of market work where I would go to trade shows and see what the new food products were. I was editing recipes. I worked with Better Homes and Gardens and did a lot of like recipe editing. My background was like in lifestyle food content. And I knew how to talk to an audience. And I also learned how to run the business side of it.

So I kind of lucked out where I had the basis for understanding how to run a media company. And so when I saw I was at a job and I was like, I know that this thing is going away. Like I can tell. And nobody believed me. And I was like, you guys, like, I pretty much know the signs at this point. when I had, it coincided with when I had my daughter and she turned one. And like at that time there were not resources for toddlers. There was a lot of baby food content and then there was a lot of like kid content.

And so I remember I bought a cookbook for kids and like she couldn't eat most of the food because it was too crunchy. There was more added sure than I wanted. And I just was like, there's like something missing. So I started the site on Squarespace. I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know how to use a camera. I was messing around with settings to land got something that looked like good enough. I mean, I looked back at some of those and I'm like, wow, I just really, really didn't. I did my best. And I managed to unintentionally situate myself.

in a niche that was specific enough that it could attract an audience, but also large enough because it was meeting a need. And so over time, I learned how to do that real. And when I saw that last job, like the writing was on the wall, I got my site moved to WordPress. I formatted every recipe correctly. I learned how to write so that Google could understand what the content was.

I learned how to use my camera and I basically like put myself through food blogging school. I listened to podcasts, I bought books. I just was like, I have to figure out how to do this because this is going to be the thing that I do now. It was like six months from when I switched everything over, got everything formatted correctly. And then it was.

Brad Groznik (03:40)
So what year was that when you first started launching the website? Maybe on Squarespace?

Amy Palanjian (03:44)
So

when I launched the website as a hobby, think it was 2013. And it took five years, a five year process of doing it on the side, sort of seeing how things were going. And then in 2018 was when I was like, I have to get this going for real. Because it was like, I either need to stop or I need to do this so it actually makes some money.

Brad Groznik (04:05)
Yeah. But I would imagine over those five years, you laid a lot of groundwork and learned a lot of lessons. Yeah. Your skills in the magazine industry translatable to this new form.

Amy Palanjian (04:16)
Yeah, so I did a lot of writing and editing and understanding audience. So I just had to learn how to format the content differently. But it was essentially the same. And it was like, I'm just now choosing who I want my audience to be. I'm not having to do it because somebody decided for me. And it is a much different situation to be in charge of your own career. The freedom that came from not worrying about like,

going to work one day and just like having nothing was so, I was like, oh, this is what I want. Like I want this responsibility.

Brad Groznik (04:52)
I mean, a lot of people though are afraid to go out on their own because it feels less secure on your own. And it's interesting to hear you talk about it where you're like, no, I'm less secure at these magazine jobs that seem to be crumbling at my feet. And at least I have a little more control over that.

Amy Palanjian (05:08)
Yeah.

Well, and also I stayed working for other people long enough so that I had savings, I had jobs that sort of overlapped while I was getting this going. And then by the time I was ready to launch it, I was already making money. So it didn't feel risky at that point because I had done all of the work to sort of situate myself in what felt safe enough. Launching from scratch, if you're not doing anything else like that, like I'm very risk averse. So I took, I definitely took my time and made sure.

that it felt right.

Brad Groznik (05:39)
When you were first making money, was it the Google AdSense ads and stuff, or did you have partners? Where were you first getting your first revenue?

Amy Palanjian (05:45)
I did a couple of really small partnerships in the beginning, but then I didn't really monetize until I moved everything to WordPress. The designer that I worked with at the time was like, just wait until you get everything right and then join this ad network, which had like a minimum page view threshold. And he was like, it's going to be the user experience. It's not worth making all of your readers mad for like a bad ad experience. So just wait until you have enough page views to be with this better partner.

⁓ That's great advice. And so I did that and then that was where my full-time income came from. I've been with that ad company, it's called Raptive, since then, so it's about six years.

Brad Groznik (06:26)
Yeah.

you started in 2013, you know, so it's been 12 years and you've been working for yourself that whole time. How early did you have the vision of the cookbooks and the Instagram and whole media offering?

Amy Palanjian (06:41)
think it was around the time where I sort of understood what food blogging could be. And then I started to take things more seriously and I made a very concerted effort to diversify my income. Almost from the beginning I had ebooks for sale and I was doing affiliate links in blog posts because in the magazine world you always sort of told people where you got the stuff that you were using. And so I did that from the beginning and that was not that common. Most of my blogging friends like didn't start using affiliate links to like

a year and a half ago. So that was like a much different way to do it. And then I started working with a manager for brand deals in 2019. So they took over like the legal side of and just like communication with brands for sponsored posts and things. So it was kind of like from the beginning where I was like, I don't want to rely on one revenue. And I also want to be like meeting people's needs in all of these various ways. And then that also made me feel more secure.

with being on my own.

Brad Groznik (07:41)
for entrepreneurs and especially digital entrepreneurs, it's hard to know when to bring in people into your business, know, because it's going to cost money. And I have always heard like, the more work you do, the more you keep kind of thing like that. And so, and so tell me a little bit about those choices of bringing people in because I know that can be kind of a hard step for a

Amy Palanjian (08:00)
Yeah, so I don't have any employees and that has been a very intentional choice. I didn't want to turn myself into a manager. So for a business of my size, that's pretty unusual based on like the people that I know who have similar websites and brands. I want to be the one who's making the content. And so I very strategically have brought in people to do specific things that make that easier for me to do. So I brought the manager in because the back and forth with brands was getting

to be too much for me. also there was a point where I was like, I don't know what I should be asking for like legally, because things started to change where like there suddenly was like the option to whitelist. And I was like, I don't know what that means. I don't know who like, who do I give access to what? And so it just, that was an easier decision to make because I was very clear on like, I don't know enough about this. And then when I moved to State College, I was just like working all the time, because it was also right after COVID, we're like sort of at the tail end.

So didn't have enough childcare, was like working all the time. And then I, so when I moved here, that was in 2021, and I was like, I have to figure out the photos for my website because I do not consider myself a photographer. I was like doing the best I could. When I moved here, I was like, my main goal is find someone who can come to my house and take pictures, edit them, put them on Google Drive. And then like, I never am involved in that process.

And that was like the biggest change to my business as far as workflow because that was such a huge time commitment.

Brad Groznik (09:31)
And so what is the drive? What keeps you going? You have nearly 5,000 posts on Instagram. And to me, when I see that, it's just like, where does she come up with all these ideas? How does this all happen? So after doing this for 12 years, how do you keep it fresh? How do you stay inspired?

Amy Palanjian (09:47)
think a lot of it is like being strategic with reusing content. I always think about how my audience is like continually refreshing. I will have people who stay with me as their kids get older, but I'm constantly getting people who have never seen my content before. So I do reuse stuff a lot, gradually over the years on the website in particular. So with my business, I think of like the website is the central piece and then everything else is sort of like marketing for it. On the website,

I was like, I'm going to make this as a complete resource as possible for toddler food and baby food. And then there was this point where I like hit, I like did that and that was sort of done, which is unusual with recipes because there's an endless supply. But once I had that base, then I had the freedom to start doing kind of whatever I wanted. So now I have a spreadsheet of ideas like right now that is planned out through September and that's like five days a week of content. I sort of made a job that

works exactly right with my personality. So it's fun and I like the challenge of delivering content in a way that people can understand.

Brad Groznik (10:55)
So I think it's going to surprise a lot of people that someone like you with a business like you have lives in State College, you know, and you're unaffiliated with Penn State. What brought you here? What keeps you here?

Amy Palanjian (11:06)
So I am personally unaffiliated with Penn State, but not my family. my dad went to Penn State. I grew up knowing that that was like his. He loves Penn State. Like the garage at the house where I grew up in had like every button from football games he ever went to. In New Jersey. So we would like come here for vacation a couple of times. My sister and I were recently talking about how we went to the bowling alley one time and they didn't have kids shoes like on campus. And so we had a bowl in our socks. ⁓ So when I was going to

Brad Groznik (11:20)
Did you grow up?

Amy Palanjian (11:36)
college. I was like, want, I went to UCLA. I was like, I'm getting as far away from here as possible. But then my sister went here. All of my cousins went here. My best friend from high school went here. So like very familiar to me. And then my sister and her husband wound up coming back here. My sister did her PhD here. So they lived here. My parents bought a condo here. And so I'm living in Iowa with my family. All of our extended family was on either side of the country. We would come here for Christmas.

And I was like, I think this place has everything I would want. There's hiking, there's water you can swim in. Cause we lived in Iowa and like, you can't really swim in the water cause there's too much runoff from farms. It's close to the shore. It's close to all of my friends from New York. The housing is pretty affordable for what you can find. And so it was like every Christmas I was like, should we live like what? And I was married at the time. And so we sort of went back and forth about it. And then

COVID happened and then, you know, like everyone was reevaluating everything. And we had had a plan because like my business was doing well enough that I could support our family. And COVID like moved up the timeline a little bit because we just felt so isolated. And it was almost like, why are we staying here when we have this option where we could be with family? So we started looking at, I mean, I started looking at housing and there was this house that I fell in love with.

I think this is the house. I think we might have to buy this house. I mean, I've never, like, I've never had that experience. Yeah, I was like, what is this place? I was like, that looks amazing. The kitchen in the house where I live now is like all windows. And so from a business standpoint, like that looks ideal. We moved here. My parents and my sister still live here. And then almost immediately I was like, I feel like I'm home. I didn't know anybody. I mean, I knew my family. I didn't know anybody else, but it's still somehow just like,

Brad Groznik (13:11)
to you.

Amy Palanjian (13:34)
So, right.

Brad Groznik (13:36)
So it's been, you know, five years almost. What surprised you about the town? What's keeping you? What keeps you here?

Amy Palanjian (13:42)
Well, the first thing that surprised me was you can live here and not really have anything to do with the university. I didn't quite know that because my family is very into sports and they'll go to stuff all the time, but I'm very rarely on campus and it's not, there's so much else that's going on. So that has been a pleasant surprise. I mean, I was like a little bit worried about that. Just like is the only thing that people are going to care about Penn State, but that has proved not to be true. Yeah.

Brad Groznik (14:07)
Yeah, I think that is a kind of a misconception that a lot of people have. I love Penn State, but that's not what keeps us here either. So much like you mentioned the hiking and all that kind of stuff.

Amy Palanjian (14:16)
I also found it to be much easier to make friends here than where I lived before. I lived in like a small town in Iowa for almost a decade and it took me almost to the end of living there to feel like I found my people. But we moved here and I mean this was like very lucky and a friend of mine, Lauren, I didn't know her. She sent me a message. I was talking about making friends as an adult and how hard it is.

So she sends me a DM on Instagram and she's like, I have a book club if you want to come. I mean, that is like not something that I would ever do. I don't really like being in social situations where I don't know anyone, but I was like, okay. So I went and that's how I found friends. That wasn't immediately, but that was pretty soon after I moved here. So I feel like I'm in a community in a way that I wasn't before. And everyone's just like very friendly. I think that's the main reason that I like it here.

Brad Groznik (15:07)
to ask since you're a food blogger, what's the food like here? Do you have any tips for finding fresh food or produce or anything like that around?

Amy Palanjian (15:15)
I mean, I love the farmers market. I go to Weyfruit fairly often. Harner Farm in the summer last year was like every week. Sometimes the farmers market can be very crowded. And so I learned that if I just went to Harner, they have the most amazing fruit, like melons and peaches and things. so yeah, like you don't have to go Saturday morning. It's like whenever. And their prices are really good. Some of my favorite places are like, I love Bonfattos for pastries and also their food. I'm trying to figure out a time where it's not crowded. I'm still working on that.

Brad Groznik (15:30)
And they're open, regular.

Amy Palanjian (15:45)
I like Lupita's for tacos. I like Bull City as like a place to get a drink outside. But I do cook a lot at home. My default, it's not to get takeout. If I don't want to cook, it's to make something easy.

Brad Groznik (15:57)
We have a Wegmans and I always think my wife and I always joke like we love small towns But not small enough where there's not a Wegmans It's so great to have that. Yeah, tell me a little bit about your your day-to-day running this media company in producing, you know so much content

Amy Palanjian (16:13)
I try to make it so that I'm not doing everything every day. So a lot of days I'm just at my computer writing content or planning things. I mean, there's a lot of all of the stuff that nobody sees that goes into maintaining a website. The recommendations on how posts are structured are constantly changing. And with the way that Google is structuring search right now is changing a lot. A lot of people in my industry are just like losing their minds about what is best. And so I try to stay up on that, but also not.

be constantly in panic mode, but there's a lot of administrative stuff that I do. I also write all of my own content and plan everything myself, so I do spend a significant amount of time doing that. Writing newsletters, and then when I'm shooting, I try to do a fair amount at once. I will often shoot video at the same time, but then I will shoot video separately too. So there will be like a morning where I'll do that.

or there will be like an afternoon where I test a bunch of recipes. So it sort of depends on the week. I try to be like three months ahead with website content because that's the part that takes longer because there's more people involved. So I have to plan it and get the recipes ready and then we have to shoot it and then like I have to write the thing and then my copy editor has to copy edit. So I allow a lot more time with that. With reels and video content, I can do that faster.

Brad Groznik (17:34)
It's inspiring to hear how much you do and all that. And then you say you're a one person business, but then you, know, you have a copy editor and you have a business coach and you.

Amy Palanjian (17:42)
It's mostly that there's, I don't have any employees. So the people who work for me do a lot independently. My assistant, I fill out one spreadsheet in the beginning of the week and send her one email. And then she does her work whenever she's in Germany. So like she does it, usually I wake up and like it's done. So it's been like, how do I give people the agency and independence to do these things within the process that I need, but I'm like not involved in what they're

Brad Groznik (18:08)
Well, it's just kind of cool to see behind the curtain about how that all works. I also work with a lot of freelancers to get projects done. And it seems like, yeah, you're a one person business, but you have this team and you have this support that you've built around you. You mentioned your blogger friends. Are they scattered all around the country? How did you kind of find that? I imagine it's kind of a mastermind group of like, how did you guys figure this out? Or what's working here? And so like, how did that grow?

Amy Palanjian (18:37)
I believe that the person who runs it, her name is Toni. She has run other masterminds. think she runs it. It is a mastermind. is an actual mastermind. So she posted in one of the Facebook food blogger groups. There's like one big one and then there's a couple other ones. And she was specifically looking for bloggers with traffic in a certain range so that our businesses would be similar enough that we could share challenges and things that were working. So I think there's six or seven of us in the group.

Brad Groznik (18:43)
Is it?

Amy Palanjian (19:05)
It's a great group of people. So there's two people in Virginia. There's someone in Oklahoma. There's someone in Oregon and then Tony lives in Sacramento. So I've met almost all of them. There's one of them I haven't met, but I'm going to meet her in two weeks. There's a big food blogging conference called Tastemakers. That's every year. I couldn't go last year, but I've met them the year before. And then my ad network hosts retreats so that people can get together and talk. And then we hang out with the people who work for the company also.

Brad Groznik (19:34)
Yeah, it sounds like your mastermind is food bloggers as well, Yep. Is the ad network for food bloggers?

Amy Palanjian (19:40)
It's not specifically food blockers, but there are a lot of food blockers in it.

Brad Groznik (19:44)
It's just fascinating. You're almost like giving me a blueprint of if you want to start a one person kind of media company in State College, here's kind of the groups that you need network with and how you build a team. What are the pros and cons of running a business that you have in State College?

Amy Palanjian (20:00)
I don't think there are really any cons because the thing is like I can do my work from anywhere. I don't go to events or anything for my business. It's mostly just me giving content to people on the internet. So it sort of doesn't matter where I am. I think the pros are that I like it here in the small town where I used to live. The access to food was different. And so that was a very worthwhile experience because I could go to our little grocery store and be like, well, if the ingredients not here, then like a fair amount of people don't have access to this.

for shooting purposes, like having a Wegmans is huge because I always know that I can go get whatever I need and it's gonna look good. And that does make a big difference. I can use Instacart and have zero issues with any of the food looking good enough to have in a photo. And that's not always true at other places. I use Instacart for deliveries for shoots because I don't have an assistant in person, so that is a huge.

benefit. It's also a pretty affordable place to be able to run a business because I'm not having to like navigate a city or anything.

Brad Groznik (20:59)
Your latest book, Dinner Time S.O.S. was a New York Times bestseller. What did that feel like?

Amy Palanjian (21:05)
So honestly, I was going through a divorce. So it was like a very surreal experience to have the highlight of my career happening while like all of this other drama was going on. I mean, it was amazing. just I think the thing that it showed me was the support of my of the community that I've built online because I marketed that book myself. I was with a publisher. They did do some things, but it was like my audience from my newsletter, from my website, from social media that bought that book that made that happen. Being able to say that.

is I'm not always like very good at taking credit for what I've done, but like that is like very clearly something that I was able to do on my own. And I am really proud of that book because it very specifically meant to give you ideas for what to cook when you don't have a lot of time and you don't have a lot of bandwidth. And I think that I delivered on that pretty well. I did write most of that book during COVID. And so it was if I can't make this now, then like it should not be in the book.

with the amount of energy that I had. Yeah, it's been good. And it's nice that the book is still selling. I still get messages from people about how their kids will flip through that book and pick out things that they want to make. I was very adamant that there was a picture with every recipe, which is not common because it's more expensive to do it that way. And I was like, we have to figure out how to make this work with the budget that we have because no one's going to make something if they can't see it.

they need to make sure that their kid's gonna like the way it works.

Brad Groznik (22:36)
Yeah, and you're probably looking at it with your kid too and trying to figure things out and so like a kid's gonna need to see the

Amy Palanjian (22:41)
Yeah, and interestingly with that book, when we were getting ready for the photo shoot, my publisher was like, okay, we're going to shoot this in New York and we're going to be in a studio. And I was like, but why wouldn't we shoot it in my kitchen? Everybody knows what my kitchen looks like. Right. It was the most frustrating process. And so it actually wound up working out because we shot the food in a studio in New York and then one of my kids got sick and we had to cancel the lifestyle portion in a studio in the city. They wound up coming to my house and I was like, well.

that I wanted one of my kids to get sick, this is the way that it should have always been done. so if I ever do another book, I will have much more confidence going into it.

Brad Groznik (23:18)
Well, congratulations. It is such a huge accomplishment. Thank you. You know, I love State College because there's people like you that I'm shopping with at Wegmans. And I just like, I don't even know. I'm like, ⁓ gee, like there's a New York Times bestseller over there. And like there's a wrestling Olympiad over there. And it's just, I just think that's such a cool, quirky thing of this town. Yeah. Just how much success there is just among us. I couldn't let you go without talking. I have the foremost toddler food expert here with me. I have a six year old.

who is, my wife told me not to use the word picky, choosy over what she eats. And she's starting to branch out that we're very excited about. She tried eggs for the first time this week. like we just couldn't get her to try eggs for the longest time. And we eat eggs. My wife and I are very diverse in everything we eat. We don't cook meat at home. And our daughter,

tells us she's a vegetarian, we don't really give her any meat. And so any tips for, I think we're in that transitional phase where like, I mean, she eats yogurt and cucumber and toast. That's about it. And she's actually pretty open to fruits. I just can't believe she won't even try a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I can't believe she won't try like cheesy eggs or anything like this. Is there any advice for getting her to branch out or what we can do as parents to encourage?

Amy Palanjian (24:44)
think the thing that helps me is to when I think about somebody making me something that I've never tasted before, I can't imagine how it tastes. And it looks a little like nothing I've ever had before. For me, that's like eel sushi is like where I go. I'm like, what does that feel like in my body when I'm like thinking about putting that in my mouth? And I'm like...

no go. And so, I know that that sounds extreme but I think that there is, like it's not just about the food. It is the relationship that we have with food and a lot of it is where do I feel safe? And it's not necessarily a bad thing that she has foods that she feels safe eating. It can be 100 % challenging. And so, the things that I try to look at are like, how can I make meals more fun? How can I make

meals more enjoyable for us to be together where we remove the stress of the pressure to eat new foods. So for my son, he's my third kid. He for sure was my most challenging. I had two kids who like ate everything and then he came along. He had no appetite for like two years and I was like, I don't understand. He doesn't eat like air for dinner. Like what is happening?

Brad Groznik (25:58)
I know, we get so worried, like I just, I think you have to eat something. And I don't want to be one of those parents like, eat,

Amy Palanjian (26:04)
Right. But the thing that has helped a lot with him is if I make something that I am not sure or that I already know that he's not going to want, I will put like a giant salad fork or like a pair of tongs by his seat and just be like, do you think you can eat with that? And he's like, yeah. And then it's like it makes it playful or he didn't want rice for like the longest time. like, I don't understand. Like, it's just rice. then I got I was like, OK, what if I use an ice cream scoop?

to scoop out the rice. So now it looks like a ball. I don't know. My brain works this way. And so like, this is not extra energy for me. It is just like, well, we must, let's just try this. The different utensil, if there's a pair of kid scissors that are clean and you serve pasta or some other thing that she could cut, like even toast or anything that needs to be sliced, just be like, can you cut your food with these? And then just leave her alone. And she will probably be like, okay. It like breaks the

It breaks the normal relationship with meals because you're injecting a little bit of fun. We will often ask each other random questions. It's like all of the stuff around the food. Sometimes I will let my son, when he was a little bit younger and this was more intense, I would let him like help me make something so that at least he was touching the foods and interacting with them even if he wouldn't eat them later, which just gave me the sense of, well, he at least knows what this is.

He would not eat broccoli for years and years and years. And then he will eat broccoli. For two years, we made air-fryer broccoli and he would only eat it out of the thing. Couldn't put it on a plate. He would eat it out of the container. We would feed each other. Sometimes you have to just relax the notion of what you think a meal might look like. And I don't know if this has helped at all. But I think sometimes we get so stuck on a plate of food that we kind of lose sense of

Well, what happens if I just interact with my kid differently? What happens if she stirs those eggs herself or she learns to crack them or like some other way to get her to engage with them? And I think too, with my kids, they eat a lot of the same foods at home, but they also eat school lunch, which is different every day. In the big picture, there is more exposure to food than we might think. Even seeing food in shows or cartoons or at the supermarket or at the grocery store, like at the farmer's market, we can build food literacy.

that will serve them over time, which I think can also be helpful.

Brad Groznik (28:34)
I know I was sitting next to the foremost food expert, but you totally broke down the wall that I had around these kind of things. I thought you might say, just try macaroni with no cheese and then try macaroni with butter and then try macaroni

Amy Palanjian (28:47)
I often am like, it's not about the food.

Brad Groznik (28:49)
Yeah, I mean, exactly. You came at it from such a different angle. I feel super inspired. That was really fantastic. And it sounds fun, right? You kind of forget just how kids like to... Every moment is kind of an opportunity to kind of turn something into a game.

Amy Palanjian (29:05)
Right, and also like we have, you I think about like the classic fight of like where a toddler doesn't want to wear their shoes or they don't want to like wear like certain sock or something. We sort of expect that they're going to get to the table and act differently. Yeah. And like they're figuring out where all of the boundaries are and like where they can say no, where they can have an opinion, what they like, what they don't. You know, I think about like the way that I ate when I was a kid. We ate mostly the same stuff. And then I went to college and I was like, what's a smoothie?

Brad Groznik (29:16)
I guess so.

Amy Palanjian (29:30)
I literally had never had a smoothie until I went to college. I didn't have sushi until I went to college. All of these foods that we think, I think our expectations are a little skewed about how fast we expect kids to like everything that we like. And we've had our whole lives to build up to that. Social media doesn't help because it sort of has skewed our expectations, but I think keeping that in mind can help too.

Brad Groznik (29:55)
That's fantastic. I mean, this is wonderful. Do you have any advice just for people that are thinking about moving here or have moved here or are on their way to moving here?

Amy Palanjian (30:05)
I mean, I know that this is hard, but I think making friends. There are a lot of Facebook groups or there's like Happy Valley moms, but I think there's sort of a risk of like staying online too long. And so I'm not gonna like tell you to join some, most people don't have time to like pick up a hobby or something, but if there is a way that you can get out and meet people in person, I think that that is the best advice that I would say. And I got lucky with how that happened, but I do think that that instantly transformed the way that

I was able to feel living here.

Brad Groznik (30:35)
Yeah, ⁓

Amy Palanjian (31:02)
Yeah, and it is helpful that it's a small town because there is that thing where like not that everybody knows each other but there it's like a It's like a pretty quick to get to people who know each other. Yeah, which is like I love that

Brad Groznik (31:14)
Thank you so much. was wonderful. I appreciate you taking your time to talk.

Amy Palanjian (31:19)
Happy to do it.

Brad Groznik (31:24)
Thanks for joining us on this episode of the Rediscover State College Podcast. Be sure to follow the Rediscover State College Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts to hear more incredible local stories. We'd also love to hear about your state college experience. What aspect of the area or person in town has really made a difference in your Happy Valley experience? Share your thoughts by sending us an email at hello at rediscoverstatecollege.com.