Cake Therapy
Cake Therapy is a heartwarming and uplifting podcast that celebrates the transformative power of baking therapy. Hosted by Dr. Altreisha Foster, the passionate baker, entrepreneur and advocate behind Cake Therapy, this podcast is a delightful blend of inspiring stories, expert insights and practical baking tips. Each episode takes listeners on a journey of self-discovery, emotional healing and connection through the therapeutic art of baking.
Cake Therapy
Baking, Neurocritical Care, and Balance: An Inspiring Conversation with Dr. Benjamin Miller
Ever wondered how a small-town farm boy from Iowa becomes a prominent neurocritical care specialist? Join us on the Cake Therapy Podcast as we sit down with Dr. Benjamin Miller, the inspiring associate professor and neurocritical care division director at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Miller opens up about his incredible journey, starting from his early days working hard on the farm, through his academic challenges, and ultimately finding his passion for medicine despite initial discouragement. His story is a testament to resilience, curiosity, and the power of following one’s passion.
Discover how Dr. Miller found a creative outlet in baking during the COVID-19 pandemic and the therapeutic benefits it provided. You'll hear delightful anecdotes about his kitchen adventures with his children and the transition from traditional volume-based measurements to the precision of weight-based baking. This episode shines a light on the joy of mastering family recipes and the importance of hobbies in enhancing family dynamics and personal wellbeing. Dr. Miller’s experiences offer a refreshing perspective on balancing a demanding career with fulfilling personal activities.
We also delve into deeper conversations about mentorship and legacy in medicine. Dr. Miller shares his insights on guiding the next generation of medical professionals and the delicate balance between professional ambition and personal life, particularly after becoming a parent. Listen to his valuable advice on finding your passion, drawing parallels between the meticulous nature of baking and scientific research. This episode is not just about a medical journey but about finding joy and purpose in every aspect of life. Don’t miss this inspiring conversation and remember to support the Cake Therapy Foundation for more enriching episodes.
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Welcome to the Cake Therapy Podcast, a slice of joy and healing with your host, Dr Altricia Foster.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone, welcome to the Cake Therapy Podcast, your slice of joy and healing. And, as usual, we always bring gifts to you. We bring people who can provide gems from all across the United States and the world, and today's conversation is not any different. Today we're joined by Dr Benjamin Miller. Interestingly, dr Benjamin Miller is a partner with my husband at the University of Minnesota and he loves to bake. So not only are we bringing you bakers people who own bakeries, we're bringing conversations from physicians and other professionals who bake. So Dr Benjamin Miller is an associate professor of neurocritical care division director there. He is the service line lead and division head of neurocritical care at M Health, fairview and the University of Minnesota School of Medicine. That's a lot. Welcome, ben.
Speaker 3:Hi, good to be here.
Speaker 2:Thank you for coming. Thank you for coming, I'm excited to have you we talk. You and I are great friends this year. We always have these great uplifting conversations, but today I'm going to be a little nosier, is that?
Speaker 3:okay, oh yeah, oh yeah, let's do this.
Speaker 2:I want to be poking around, like you poke around, in the heads of those patients.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, no, this is going to be a little. Yeah, let's go.
Speaker 2:I know, but those of you who aren't watching this on YouTube Dr Miller is wearing his scrub at the moment. He has a face mask under his neck, he's got his pager hanging, so he's currently at work, guys. So we appreciate him for coming. How are you doing, though? How's work going?
Speaker 3:Well, my other partner gave me a nice long list to deal with on my day one. This is my day one, so you know, just trying to play catch up and good old time, I like it busy though.
Speaker 2:I know you do like it busy.
Speaker 3:Tell me why Adrenaline junkie, I don't know. I mean I just like, I like keeping busy, I like complex things. I mean I do neurology. I went into it because a lot of times there is no good answer and it's fun to figure out a puzzle and I like my unit to be busy. And it's a delicate thing to say right, because for people to see me they have to have the worst day of their life, mm-hmm. And so me wishing busy is never good. So I've started to frame it like if something bad has to happen to someone, why can't they come to my ICU Absolutely, and even that sounds probably bad.
Speaker 3:Yeah probably Anyway. But yeah, I like to keep busy and it's invigorating. And then I get to actually teach and talk and my residents really don't like it when I teach and talk, because I tend to talk a lot and I tend to talk most at like 2 am when they call me and they really don't like it then.
Speaker 2:I know I hear that you get to work really early. Is it that once you like? Are you like the early bird catches the worm, or do you just like to start earlier in the day? Like what's that?
Speaker 3:I'm just really slow. So it's more of a vestigial, I guess, feature of residency and fellowship because, like starting off as a baby intern, nurses rule the world and everyone knows that. So, like in an ICU, it's their unit and they don't like to be bugged at like 730 when they're trying to get their day started. They don't want to be bugged at seven when they're trying to do handoff. 630, the night people don't want to be bugged because they're just trying to get through the night. Six o'clock was neurosurgery round, so it became 5, 30 to talk to the night people, which became five, which became 4, 30 and then it's just been kind of residual ever since and it allows me to interface across night shift and day shift and I don't have to play telephone. I hate telephone, I want to hear it from the person who's going to tell me it. So, plus it's also I know if the residents are lying or not on rounds, because I already know the story.
Speaker 2:So there's a method to your madness. So what's interesting about you is that you seem unassuming upon first meeting you, right? So tell me, you know what was your upbringing? Like you know, I know you were born in Iowa. Is that correct? All right, Tell me about. You know about early life.
Speaker 3:Early me, Early me All right, all right, all right, all right, let's see. Born in Iowa, grew up on a farm northeast Iowa, went to Green Iowa, a green high school before it combined with other high schools At a class of 36, all of us going through kindergarten through senior year, you know one or two would come and go, but we known each other all through. Small town Iowa means everybody knows everything else going on. But also small town Iowa means you know you did everything right. So you know, go through elementary school et cetera, and then you go to the big building and then you know there's all the sports to play, right.
Speaker 3:So in junior high I was, you know, football, I was wrestling. I did. What did I do? I just track for a while. I'm very fast over short distances. Um, no, it's true, they put me in the four by one in junior high because I can sprint and that's pretty much it. Um, and then I played golf in high school because I just wanted to be outside and play golf in the spring. And then I lifted weights in the winter and played football and played in the band. I was a sax tenor, sax player, and then we also in fall play and then I also did speech contest and, and, and you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you did a lot, so you were one of those busybodies in high school.
Speaker 3:It was mainly the school was boring like, yeah, you know, you do the, you do the work and you don't uh, aren't challenged that much. I took a lot of shop in high school and much to the detriment of my gpa um, because I could never get an a in shop for the life of me. I don't know what it was. The shop teacher was the football coach and he had it out for me.
Speaker 2:It was all right okay, yeah, it's all right look at you now, so talking about life on the farm you know, tell me um like an eight hour day you know what was that like?
Speaker 3:yeah, there's no eight hours on the farm on the farm. So we I grew up with it was corn and beans, no animals, so it was all grain, um. But growing up, um, you know, on the weekends we would uh kind of go over to my grandma's house and I don't know what it was it was.
Speaker 3:I'd spend pretty much all day saturday there uh then you know, when you got older you get to go outside again and start helping. And all through high school every weekend it was go out and pull fence line so we would roll barbed wire, roll woven wire, you know clear fence line, cut trees always outside doing things. But yeah, doing things.
Speaker 2:But yeah, but it sounds like there's never a moment that in high school that you weren't working and it's similarly on the farm. Did you always know that you loved science and you wanted to kind of pursue this career as a physician?
Speaker 3:No. So in high school, like I say, not a lot was challenging per se, not to sound conceited, it was just kind of a consequence of being in a small town and you have to teach to the class that you're given and we didn't have like AP credits or a thing. Apparently I didn't know what AP was till I went to college. I didn't know what AP was till I went to college, but the thing had a PSEO, post-secondary enrollment option right through the local community college, and so I was like all right, let's do it. And it was a general psychology, just a psych 101 type stuff, and that was the most interesting thing that I think I'd done all through high school and I was like this is fascinating stuff. So I was like, all right, let's do this.
Speaker 3:And you know, coming from small town Iowa, I, you know everyone knew everything about you, right, they knew all your business, they knew everything. You know, they knew your parents, they knew everything. Like, oh, what'd you do last weekend? Oh, don't tell me, I know where you were. So, so, um, I wanted to go to a larger university where, you know, you became a number, essentially blend in and go find, go find whatever you wanted. So that's why I ended up university of iowa and, um, yeah, like one of my first bio classes, etc. There was 500, some people in that in that lecture hall. Right, that's half my hometown. I come from a town, a thousand people, so like got that many people in one spot, man, that was something else. And I went as a psych major because I did psych in high school and I thought, oh, let's, this is so cool.
Speaker 3:I only know one thing my cousin was a psych major and everyone's talking about him being a psych major, being so cool. So I did that and turns out I hate statistics. And turns out psych is a lot of statistics and you know I took all the psych classes et cetera. But like the hard science stuff, you know, uh, in the dorm room I remember this uh way one of my friends was on a floor up there and there was another guy up there and he was oh, he was loud, a force of nature, etc. He says I'm gonna be an anesthesiologist out a force of nature, etc. He says I'm going to be an anesthesiologist.
Speaker 3:I was like you can just say that you can't know, that's not a thing, that's not a thing you do right because you know. Um, I think only my aunt on my dad's side did like two-year community college or something other than that. There wasn't a lot of college in my family, right. So, um, I was like you can do that, all right, let's go. The um corollary to that was, you know, when I got to the university I don't know if you know university or not, it's a huge university-owned hospital up on the hill right and, um, I just would walk through there and I wanted a badge. That's literally why I got a job.
Speaker 3:There was I wanted to have one of these silly little hospital badges to walk around so that I found a job as a I don't know student in pulmonary critical pulmonary, yeah where we did persian gulf war syndrome and I didn't know what that was. And I made friends with respiratory therapists and it was a whole thing. It was great, but it was never seen as like a job. It was just like it was a job and never I was going to go into it. Right, I interfaced with the stuffy doctors and you know they had this aura about them that I didn't vibe with and, um, yeah, but then my well, now friend, I guess. Um, it's like I'm gonna be anesthetized. I said what's?
Speaker 1:that I said that sounds fun.
Speaker 3:So I went and you know, went to a pre-med advisor one time and they looked at me and they said you know what, have you considered pharmacy? And I went no, and that was the last time I ever saw them. So I was like let's go do this, let's go do this science, let's go do this doctor thing, because I got nowhere else to be and the psych major was losing its shine, I think because the experimental side of it felt very squishy.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:And I wanted something a little bit more firm, a little bit more hard and fast, definite type thing where you ask a question, answer question and medicine felt like it. But so I I became a bio major on top of my psych major. And then one day this friend was like we need to go be biochem majors. And I'm like what's biochemistry? I don't know this stuff. I don't know this stuff Right. So we go. And I said why? And he said well, it's a smaller department, you'll get better letters for your med school application. I was like that's genius. So flipped it, became biochem majors. I was working in the hospital then. But then I flipped it and then I got a student research assistant job in a biochem lab Because why not? So I made that a job for a while and became a biochem major and did the whole mcat thing, etc. Etc. And um, then neither of us got in the first time. Neither of us got in and we're like well, that didn't work.
Speaker 3:So I stayed on for a victory lap and I added a microbiology major in that year and picked up a chem minor just by virtue of biochem being so close, but it was P chem. That was the worst semester of my life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't like chemistry either.
Speaker 3:Oh, I mean, I like chemistry, I love organic chemistry is my jam right. It is Legos. It is Legos with molecules, because if you know how things work, you can build whatever you want, and it was fun Once you knew how the pieces worked it was my only eight plus in college, right?
Speaker 3:So I was just like, oh, let's go, it was fun. But yeah, so I added microbiome. I was doing molecular biology research in a lab at that point and having the fun with the pipetting and cell culture and and living a great life. Then got into med school and my friend didn't get in med school, so I got eventually, so he didn't he did the following year okay, okay, but he didn't go to iowa, he ended up at dmu so okay for a do program down there, but okay, perfect.
Speaker 2:So while you were doing all of that, right, did you have um a modality of artistic expression? Like, were you doing any cooking, baking? Like what were you doing? Oh or were you?
Speaker 3:so yeah you know, back up to the farm, right? So I told you, on saturdays I was with my grandma, right? I don't know how many saturdays in a row, how many years, right? So I have the most vivid memories of being with her in that kitchen and you know, grandmas are, you know, she never said no, right? I remember going through the pots and pans, I remember going through that cupboard. I just imagine like what she was feeling, cause what I feel now when the kids do it, right, but she was great. And then she was always making something right, because in the morning I mean you had breakfast, right, but then you had lunch, but this was, I mean, eventually it's like Hobbit meals, right, you have breakfast and second breakfast and elevensies and a luncheon, and then you know it's that idea, right, it's always you know some kind of intermediate thing.
Speaker 3:So she was always baking something to have at that point in time and whether it be cookies, cakes, pies, whatever, it was always sweet, never savory. So we were never bread people. It was always. You know the not not patisserie Now that I know that word but you know just stuff that her mom had cooked, her grandma had cooked. You know it was family tradition and it was just something you did. If you wanted something baked, you made it. It wasn't like you bought, it was family tradition and it was just something you did. If you wanted something baked, you made it. It wasn't like you bought it.
Speaker 3:So with that, it's always just been a part of who I am and what I do, so super imposed on all this, it was like I want cookies, so I made cookies. I want a cake, I make a cake. Right it was. It was never. It was never something extra. It was always just me and always just what I did and what I do and what I still do. Right yeah, which blows my wife away every time. She's like who does this? Who just like it's like, just, I'm going to make a cake today. Who does that? I'm gonna to make a cake today. Who does that? I'm going to make a pie. I'm going to make, you know, I just made what I made banana bread last night. It's basically by memory by now, just because you know I tend to buy way too many bananas.
Speaker 3:And I just Right, just whip it up.
Speaker 2:So you know the thing about it is, I'm not amazed at the concept or the idea that there's a physician who actually bakes. You know, because there are attorneys who bake. It's not unheard of, because a lot of people who show up. You know who are guests on our podcast.
Speaker 2:They have held conventional careers and they found solace in the kitchen and you speak of your discovering your love for baking because your grandmother taught you how to bake. Is it then? Um, you know, you say your wife tells you know, ask questions like who does that? And yeah, you make amazing desserts. You know you, you do. They taste good, they look good, and I often wonder, like I know that, when my husband comes home from like a stressful day he has his own way of escaping what he's facing at work.
Speaker 2:So how do you escape the realities of being this neurointensivist in a field that is both demanding, both physically and emotionally? Is baking your form of creative expression or stress relief? When you do it, do you feel like you are relieving stress when you're baking at home like crazy?
Speaker 3:You know, covid did it. Honestly. I mean, there was, you know, no loss of people. Who's trying bacon for the first time, right like the story's being there, sourdough starters making whatever, and, um, honestly, king arthur baking. The website has become just my go-to for everything now and so like recipe of the year and I was looking. I was like who makes that? Who can do?
Speaker 1:that.
Speaker 3:Well, when you're sitting around your house all day staring at each other and just kind of like, what are you going to do with time? And it kept the kids busy too, right? So if they want to punch, they can get them up and punch some dough, right, you're going to need, need, need, have at it. Right, going to stir, let's stir, right. And now apparently I've been doing it a lot because my youngest every time he sees me in the kitchen with a whisk or whatever, you just hear this like stir, stir, stir. I'm like okay okay okay, stir.
Speaker 3:I'm like okay, okay, okay. So you know, you get down, you set it on the little stool there and you just let him go to town, and then you clean up the mess after. Yeah, you know, you end up with half in the bowl you started with, so you kind of plan for it but, um, so apparently it's rubbing off on him, because my wife sent me a picture the other day.
Speaker 3:Um, they go to the library, right, and have these play kitchens. Well, he pulled out every pan on there and he was stirring on everything, he was cooking on everything, he was having just a great old time. And then, um, the only thing she said in the text underneath was he cooks just like you do, period, he uses every pan in the kitchen and that's, that's not a lie. That's not a lie. The, the, it piles up, and so I'm getting better at doing dishes as I go. But if I'm in, I'm just making it's out of hand.
Speaker 2:But yeah, yeah. How do you feel, then that, when you see that this is the impact that you're having on your kids, tell me the feeling of watching your kid gravitate towards the kitchen like you have.
Speaker 3:Well, after I get over the initial terror of him grabbing out the mixer and that just be like OK, stop. And then watching him go, it's fun because you get to see growth right, like you teach. You teach for the first time, like this is how we do it, et cetera, et cetera, and next time there's a little bit better, a little bit better, a little bit better, and that it's not just something to do because they see me doing it so much as I want them to see how it's incorporated into daily life.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And how it's just a natural thing to do and it's not a special thing, it's not a you know, this is what we do only on Saturdays thing or whatever. But it's just kind of part of your day, right, where you make up your mind to do something and you do it, and you know I make sure to tell them. Right, this is a new recipe. I don't know what's going on. You want to play and then they come up.
Speaker 3:Um, but what really made baking more interesting, I guess, to me is when I started discovering weighing everything right. So going all through, going all through, like college and all this. I would always use cup measures, right, and I still use teaspoons etc. But like weight-based flour turns out, you can standardize everything real easy. With that you create a consistent product. I was like that's a miracle, right. So I started converting my grandma's recipes into weight-based cooking and she made a cookbook. Um, so I have a cookbook with all her recipes etc. And um, in the family it's known as like our little bible of cooking. Like you just pull up Mimi's recipes and I started converting her angel food cake into a weight-based. Now it's pretty consistent. And then those molasses cookies that you like that.
Speaker 2:I love Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:They never came out Right. And I asked her one day when I started, I don't know a few years ago, et cetera. I said why isn't this working? They always come out flat or whatever. And she said well, you got to pack the flour. I remember every Saturday watching you take that cup measure and you would lift that flour in that bucket, right, and you're fluffing it because it's too compact or whatever. And this was residual from her time when they didn't have pre-sifted flour, right. So she would lift the flour up and put it over there and I remember her leveling it with a knife and all that. And turns out this recipe was built on before pre-sifted flour. And so she's like yeah, no, no, you got to pack it a little bit, so it's a little heavier. I was like that's not in the cookbook. So I don't know how many recipes I did, but increasing the weight, increasing the weight, and then they'd come out out flat, they're supposed to be cracked on top.
Speaker 3:The molasses spice mask anyway supposed to be cracked on top and they wouldn't. She's like oh well, you well, it's like a third crisco, two-thirds butter, like you have butter only in this recipe too. When are you gonna start like I can't tell you everything?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:All right, all right, yeah, that's the secret sauce man.
Speaker 2:So for me, when I bake I've talked about it it's like there's a therapeutic aspect to baking for me. It gives me all the feels, man. It's like I could be going through tons of stuff and it's what I go to. I don't do talk therapy, but I do have stress and trauma and baking is it. For me, it's not just a skill. So I have to ask you know, do you experience any therapeutic feelings of baking, or is it just a thing to do?
Speaker 3:No, no, you know my memory is pretty garbage, I don't know. Like I told you about football, I got hit in the head a lot, I got concussed a lot. I don't remember anything and when I bake it brings back those memories, right Like I. So those cookies that I make for you, that you like those were a staple, and like my grandpa wanted them basically charred, like they wanted them rock hard because they would have it with coffee.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:You come in. You come in for morning, lunch or whatever. You'd have these cookies and with coffee and you just dunk them, right. And if they were too soft they'd fall apart, right. And with coffee and you just dunk them, right. If they were too soft, they'd fall apart, right. Um, and I can.
Speaker 3:And growing up on the farm, like the place you sits around the table. You don't sit in a living room, you don't sit in the, you know whatever you sit in the table, at the table, and they're always around tables. In my family they're always around pedestal table. You always sit at the table with your coffee and you have people come over, they visit, they come to the kitchen and there's always something baked come out.
Speaker 3:So this is my version of reaching back and connecting with a different time. So, like I go, I go like you know you have a rough week, right, and you know, like you say, your husband has his method of coping and getting through his week, et cetera, et cetera. And sometimes after my week, yeah, the next day is a bake day. I just I need to go to, you know, a different place, different time, and it's and it's not therapeutic per se with respect to the motion so much as the connection with the past, connection with the feeling associated with that past. That's just different than what you're feeling in that moment. And you hope, too, that you can provide a link to your kids to a moment in time that they can carry forward and that when they make cookies too, or make a pie or cake or whatever, they can say oh yeah, no, this is, this was a good time because of x, y and z? Um, I don't, I don't buy cake for people's birthdays, right, you make a cake for people's birthdays and baking was always like the expression, the feeling that that's how you showed emotion to for others.
Speaker 3:Right, that's how you expressed caring, that's how you you know it's from the stoic iowa farm family, right, where you just kind of, you know the, the goal is suppress and file away. So you know, there's no overt emotion, there's no outside anything but um. What was interesting is that I saw this thing before about, um, this woman talking about how their parents really didn't you, you know always say I love you, et cetera, et cetera. But she saw when her mom it was a Korean family made fresh kimchi for her brother who was moving off, and they realized that that's like their way of emotion, their way of showing love, and it's looking back.
Speaker 3:It's always like you had a fresh cake for your birthday, right Angel food cake every birthday it's standard issue had a fresh cake for your birthday, right, angel food cake. Every birthday it's standard issue, it's family known. It's like you got a birthday coming up, you got an angel food cake in your future and it was homemade, right, it takes 13, 14 egg whites and before mixers it took a strong right arm and you know that's just birthday. And now my kids who hate chocolate, by the way, don't know why so I had to come up with different cakes for their birthdays. So they get a lemon chiffon cake on their birthday. Don't ask why, but they get a lemon chiffon. I tried. You know lemon pound cake, lemon, whatever, but they want that citrus. So, yeah, you know, lemon pound cake, lemon, whatever.
Speaker 2:But they want that citrus. So, yeah, so do you feel like? It sounds to me that you're chasing with your baking? Simpler times, quieter times, times you know to to kind of center yourself. But I know how crazy this the schedule of yours is, and you're telling me about pulling all the pots and pans out of the cupboard. When do you find time to do all at this time, seriously, when?
Speaker 3:well, I make, um, usually I make supper at night. Um, when I get home, and you know, supper's another central meal where everyone gets around that table and you just need to sit down. Everybody in the family sits down around the table and again, I have a round table too, because that's just what I need and everyone sits down for that. One meal the day at least has that time together. And you know it's not baking, but you know, when I'm, when I'm cooking, everything gets dirty because I'm very inefficient and scattered brained on a lot of things. So I'm like, when I'm baking, I'm like I have one bowl of weighed flour already to go and I got my wet stuff going, I got my, you know, blah, blah, blah. That's where they start piling up.
Speaker 3:But, um, when I find time for it, I find time when I have time. It's. It's intentional, right, it's. It's like I say it's. It's not an afterthought for me, right, it's it's just who I am and what I do. So, and you know it's not typical for most, right, I know, because people come to baking at their own time, right, and you come to this when you need it. And for me it's like I feel like cookies today, I feel like chocolate chip cookies. Throw them together.
Speaker 2:Right, I can't have peanut butter in my house because I have an allergy, but it'd be peanut butter you don't want to kill anyone, so in our, in our society, we tend to encourage our children, you know, to do conventional degrees and to pursue conventional careers. To some of the young individuals who are listening to our podcast, what would be your central message to them who want to do both science and the culinary arts?
Speaker 3:I'd say what's the difference? Because you know science, the chemistry of baking is insane, right. So you know it's like honestly I refer back to like when I'm in, when I'm in the unit right on the icu yeah and people ask me, like, how do you do say, well, this is baking and that's cooking, right?
Speaker 3:And in baking for me, I say that because of how precise it needs to be, otherwise you watch things fall, you watch things burn, you do all that Right, and cooking, cooking's like that little little, whatever you add, that little special something you know a little bit of spice a little bit of whatever you know, making it taste good on the fly.
Speaker 3:Baking, it's one shot, right, you put it in the oven and what comes out is what gonna come out. You don't get a chance to fix it in the oven, like fix it on top of the stove. So, yeah, science is baking, baking is science and they mesh so well. So it's because, uh, one of my other friends who is a literal rocket scientist um, we talk baking all the time too and he's like, oh, yeah, once I got the percentage, uh, because he thinks about it in an entirely engineer way, he's like, yeah, the percent hydration of the flour on this particular dough. You know, once you figure out that it's pretty easy. And I was just like, what you're, just you're, you're literally graphing this at home right now, aren't you like, yeah, yeah, pizza and whatever type of bread you're gonna make, it's just like you can.
Speaker 3:You can experiment in baking just like you experiment in science right like my hours in my micro lab, you know, trying to get some PCR, trying to get some gel to run, trying to get that Western, et cetera, et cetera. In some ways that was cooking right, like there's the baking part, with respect to you know pipetting your stuff, et cetera, but you know you got to hit the. You got to hit the bench, just right. Or like shake the, but you know you got to hit the you got to hit the bench just right, or like shake the, shake the power supply, et cetera.
Speaker 3:You know those little things that aren't in your protocol, not on the recipe per se, but that's what makes it cooking. You know, essentially.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's definitely what makes it, definitely what makes it cooking. So I would like you to talk to, or speak to, young scientists. I want you to answer this question. As you know, frame it in a way to kind of advise young scientists, right? I talk about how important and demanding your job is. It has a tendency to make it often, to make it be all-encompassing, right, it's all you do. How important is it for you to make your life more than your work, like saying yes to being on this podcast, right, and exploring your creative side through baking? Speak to a young scientist here.
Speaker 3:Speak to a young scientist here. Find what you love and run with it. Don't let others tell you what you need to be. The part I left out about the med school part the reason I did it is because my friends were doing it. I never thought to do medicine and that's not a way to get into something, right? That's a way to immediately look back and say what did I do? How did I get here? And that was actually my day one of med school, right, like I walk in and I'm surrounded by people that love to be here. Right, this is their life's ambition and I'm like, I did it because friends were doing it. Now I'm here and what do I do with this?
Speaker 3:So my suggestion to them is don't do something because others are doing it. Do it because you want to do it for yourself. You find it interesting. Always, chase that, right, you have an interest, chase it. Go after it. Right, there's always a way to do it. Um, youtube. Youtube has created a false sense of ability for me, and my wife will agree. But like, I love building stuff too, right, because if you want to learn to do it, you can now advent of all the technology and everything out there. It's cliche, right Like chase your dream, chase your dreams. You know, I'll tell you what.
Speaker 3:If someone would have told me that in high school I would have told them where to go because, you know it's hard to break free from the traditional mindset and the stigma to your dealt with respect to like, oh, he went to vocational school. You know, like I look back now I'm like I wish I could weld. You know, like you look at the plumbers, you look at these plumbers going through their like the creativity and et cetera. They go along with it. Like, if you like to build stuff, go build stuff Right. Build stuff, go build stuff right.
Speaker 3:Don't feel like you need to go sit in some lecture hall about you know some sociological, psychological whatever, because that's what you're told is normal, that's what you're told to do. And I'm hoping that the push forward is that a skill-based education is as valued, if not more valued, than a traditional route of going through college. Like, how many people you know who graduated a four-year degree and ain't using that, ain't using what they studied for right? And is that what you wanted or is that what you're told or expected to do? Absolutely to do. And that takes.
Speaker 2:that takes bravery, that takes ambition, that takes, you know, a willingness to go into the unknown and buck, the trend, you know, it's just like yeah, it's almost like be brave and go for it, like chase what you feel like, what feels right to you or what you connect with and find your tribe right, like you need to find like-minded people who also want to do this, and surround yourself with those that are encouraging.
Speaker 3:Surround yourself with the positive people, not those who tell you no, but tell you. You know why not, um, not the why, but why not. That would have been said. But whatever, um, you know it's, and even if it's a person not in a field, right and for the longest time, I have no idea, and I still barely do what the idea of a mentor is Right. And so I read these, I read stories, you know, when they pop up on the news feeds, feeds like this mentor, et cetera, et cetera. So I read it and try to get a feel for what it was.
Speaker 3:And what it is is not a mentor in the field that you want to be, but a person who can help you navigate your decisions, navigate your thought process, your decisions navigate your thought process, and you know they are. They used to assign me mentees in the department. They got wise and don't do that anymore. But, man, because I'm a little too blunt, I'm a blunt instrument and but I I know everybody doesn't want to do what I do and the way I go about it. I know is not healthy and that's all right, but it's taken me a while to set back and realize that others are going to go their own way and you're either going to help them or hinder them, and you can be a helper and that's like the Mr Rogers right Look for the helpers and that's what you need to be. You need to be a helper and facilitate.
Speaker 3:And you know, connect the people, connect the dots, use your knowledge and ability help have the same fight that you had when you know the way through, and that's really what I'm seeing. Mentoring as being now is like just helping people navigate the labyrinth yeah, do you?
Speaker 2:do you have the desire to, to be a mentor, and what do you see Ben's legacy as?
Speaker 3:Oh, my God, that's not a loaded question. So I will never tell a person to stop talking to me. And I don't believe you go out and say I'm going to mentor you, right. That's paternalistic-esque, I guess, right when you're like, you're going to be my mentee, I will mold you. And it's not about that, right. It's not about molding somebody, it's not about anything. It's about being that person to help them realize what they want to do. And, legacy-wise, I hope you're gone, trisha. She left me.
Speaker 2:You want your legacy, mm-hmm, okay, okay, so tell me, what is it? You know, what do you see your legacy as, and do you want to mentor?
Speaker 3:right, that's the existential crisis question. Right, like, what are you going to leave behind? What impact you're going to have um it? It reminds me of so I don't know you. If you remember your husband, one VA call in Cleveland, um, since we were also residents together um home, call, VA, there was a you had to drive. In middle of the night she got a call from the ER right.
Speaker 3:And there was an ER doc there and I don't know why he liked talking to me, but he always talked to me and he said you know, we're just talking about life, or et cetera. He says, in life you can do three things. Right, you can be and this is medicine wise, but you can be well known, well published, you can be a good doctor and know your patients and they like you and you're good at what you do. Or you can, you know, have a balanced family life and you know everything's great at home. And he said to me pick two. And I'm like what he said you're only ever able to do two things. Well, right, if you try to do all three, you're going to fail at all three.
Speaker 3:And I thought about that. I mean, yeah, there's some people that are able to do all three, but, looking around, it's the exception, not the rule. And you know, legacy wise do I? You have to really think. Do you care medicine-wise? Do you care if you're known at the national level? Do you want people to associate your name always with what you did in a career, etc. Or do you want to take care of the patients around you and then have your kids know?
Speaker 3:your name you and then have your kids know your name right, like if you're always going about and going to meeting after meeting and you're on conference after conference and you know subcommittees and blah, blah, blah right yeah you ain't home, you ain't present.
Speaker 3:And before before kids, right before kids, right Before kids, it was name and work, name, work, name, work, name, work. Much to you know the chagrin of my wife at home, right Cause I was doing 18 hour days in fellowship and because that's where I felt at home, that's what I wanted to do and that's how I learned.
Speaker 3:But now you get kids home and I'm getting home earlier than I ever did, right, like I make sure every day that I'm at the bus to pick him up. Right, I would try to pick him up from, pick the big one up from school, because in school now I make in the morning now, instead of going straight to the hospital. I make them lunch. Make in the morning now, instead of going straight to the hospital. I make them lunches in the morning every day. I try to. And like you asked me what I bake recently. Um, I mean, it's so.
Speaker 3:I baked the banana bread yesterday because I know that they like it and they can have it while I'm gone, or for breakfast or whatever. But I also made them biscuits. I mean they're frozen or whatever, but I baked them biscuits and they like sausage biscuits in the morning. So I fried up some sausage patties, put them in the fridge, so now for the next two days they have sausage biscuits for breakfast. It's good for them, but it also makes morning smoother, prior to getting on the bus, and, like the national presence, the fall off.
Speaker 3:You know, the committee, this committee, that it's not a target, it's not a goal Right, if it happens, it happens. Right, but that's by no exertion, right, but that's by no exertion. Yeah, no, focus on my own part so much as like, hey, you're a part of this, now Show up to a meeting, et cetera. I said, fine, it's all right, I'm not pursuing it. Yeah, right, like, come what may, fine, but I'm going to show up for my patients in the morning, I'm going to round on them, I'm going to do the best I can with what I got and I'm going to come home at night earlier than I usually do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, kudos to you for being so intentional about that. It takes effort to be able to be present for your children in this field that you guys work, and I admire that about you in this field that you guys work, and I admire that you know about you. I have to say, ben, that there has never been a moment that I have personally called you to serve with me where you've said no, okay, it's never a no, and I am extremely proud to tell our listeners that you are one of our board of directors on the Kik Therapy Foundation. How do you feel about this work that we are doing with women and girls who are impacted by the systems? How do you feel about your participation in this work and the importance of it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you always feel like you don't give back enough, right, and you impact. I mean, like the people I see I'm an adult, adult, neurointensivist, right, I see the oldest people, whatever and you, just you can't really have an impact. You navigate families through it. But can you, can you impact earlier, can you do more sooner, and such that maybe people aren't in the position that they find themselves in down the road, right, give them, give them an off-ramp that they may not have otherwise yeah or be able to see.
Speaker 3:Maybe it's, maybe there is an off-ramp form, but you can just point a light at it and you know, first off, I'll never say no to you, tricia, I mean, that's just the way it is. But you know, you're your own force of nature and you can't say no to her case. So, but also like. But also like, the vision is sound. Right, it's not pie in the sky, it's not, you know, pollyanna-ish, it's. You know, practical, it's identified, a problem identified. You know a possible solution to offer, and you know I know what baking does for me, right. Yeah, tie making something to a better time, right. And then in the future, it's a skill number one. But number two, it falls back and triggers one of the memories, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:It triggers a place where you know you can go to and remind yourself that the present wasn't always the present Right, and that this too shall pass and you just have to get through it through all any means necessary. And if that's, you know, escapism or whatever you want to call it, but it's a way to cope with situations that you find yourself and makes things less overwhelming, right? Yeah, you know, I still see the farm on Saturday, right, and that's my happy place, that's where I'm comfy.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm. And that's my happy place, that's where I'm comfy. So, before we go, I would like you to share with our listeners your favorite thing to bake. I know you bake a lot, but what is your favorite thing to bake? And would you share that recipe with us so we can post it? I mean, post your, your, your episode.
Speaker 3:Talk to us talk to the people. You know secret sauce man. So really, in med school there was a bunch of us and most of my friends are not in medicine, okay, I don't like the idea of an echo chamber etc. But we would. We would watch House and Grey's Anatomy on weekends. It was, you know, appointment TV. We didn't DVR or anything, right, because I'm old, but I would make them creme brulee and it was really an experiment. So I would, actually I would show up to their house on that day and I would make it fresh for that night.
Speaker 3:Right there, is that what you're supposed to do? No, it's supposed to cool in the fridge, you know, at least chill a little bit. But you know, you whip it up, make those egg whites or make the egg yolks and sugar turn white, and then you know you got cream going. You put the whole thing in the freezer and you hope it got cold enough, but you throw it in the Bon Marie and then you cook until it wiggles a little bit. Right, and it was my excuse to buy blowtorch. Okay, let's just cut to the chase. I just wanted a blowtorch and the only way I could do it is if I did this.
Speaker 3:So what was really nice and how it dovetailed, uh, into my past, was that angel food cake, right. That takes 13, 14 egg white, right? And the recipe I use is measured in volume, which to no end goes all over me, but it's measured in volume, not a number of eggs. So you have like yolk on yolk. So I've been looking for recipes to use the yolks for well, creme brulee right. So you make creme brulee when you make angel food cake and you get this real, you know, not heavy per se, but definitely indulgent, rich, crispy, burnt, sugar-ish thing, and then you pair it next to it with this light angel food cake. So I have to think, but I know my everyday recipe and I've already given you this recipe, tricia.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, I have that. I'm going to keep that one. I know you got that. That's my secret sauce. Oh, you're going to keep that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, all right, I won't give them that?
Speaker 2:Oh, this is my secret sauce.
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 2:I don't want that no molasses cookies for anyone else.
Speaker 3:I got you. No, no, I'm selfish. I can, since it was part of every birthday for me. I can give you the ancient food cake recipe that I reverse engineered to make it into a weight-based recipe, Such that it's pretty automatic-ish. The only cooking part of it is how much you beat the egg whites, because to make that, meringue.
Speaker 2:I like to let our listeners know that I have never had the creme brulee.
Speaker 3:Oh, I mean, no, I mean, I don't make it no.
Speaker 2:I don't make it. No, I don't make it, it's just it's a story to tell. It's not real I've never had that one. Okay, fine, dr. Dr miller, thank you so much. Um, this has been a delightful conversation like this. This is our conversation. This is how we talk. All the time, we will stand up in a room and this was just a regular day. I know, oh, my goodness.
Speaker 3:People are going to listen to it, I guess.
Speaker 2:They will. So thank you so much. You bring value to the podcast and you bring value to my life, and I wanted to say thank you for taking the time. Oh, I know your list is long, but you took the time to have this conversation with us. Thank you for being here. This has been the Cake Therapy Podcast. This has been a delightful conversation with Dr Benjamin Miller. Thank you for being here.
Speaker 1:Thank you for tuning in to the Cake Therapy Podcast. Your support means the world to us. Let us know what you thought about today's episode in the comment section. Remember to subscribe wherever you get your podcast and if you found the conversation helpful, please share it with a friend. Also, follow Sugar Spoon Desserts on all social media platforms. We invite you to support cake therapy and the work we do with our foundation by clicking on the buy me a coffee link in the description or by visiting the cake therapy website and making a donation. All your support will go towards the cake therapy foundation and the work we are doing to help women and girls. Thanks again for tuning in and we'll catch you on the next episode.