The Business of Longevity with Anastasia Ganias

Food can nourish more than the body. It can rebuild a life. In Episode 11 of Deal Flow Diaries, we sit down with Anastasia Ganias, actress, entrepreneur, and founder of Fancy Peasant, the modern Mediterranean longevity brand redefining pantry staples through the lens of wellness, ritual, and ancestral wisdom.

Known for roles in Dexter, True Blood, and Desperate Housewives, Anastasia left Hollywood after her father became ill. Following his passing, she began sharing her Greek family recipes online as a way to process grief and reconnect with her roots. What started as a deeply personal act of healing unexpectedly evolved into Fancy Peasant, a fast-growing lifestyle and pantry brand inspired by the Blue Zone traditions of her father's village in Greece.

Today, Fancy Peasant has built a devoted community, landed in retailers like Erewhon, and is bringing Mediterranean longevity principles into modern kitchens through olive oil, pantry essentials, and a philosophy centered on simple daily rituals.

Join us as we talk about:

• How grief, family, and Greek tradition unexpectedly became the foundation of a business
• Building Fancy Peasant during COVID with no marketing budget and no master plan
• Why founders have to fall in love with problem-solving and learn to embrace uncertainty
• The realities of fundraising, self-doubt, and overcoming limiting beliefs while scaling a company
• Blue Zones, longevity habits, and why the most powerful health tools may already be in your kitchen

Whether you're building a business, navigating reinvention, or simply curious about the intersection of wellness, storytelling, and entrepreneurship, this episode is a reminder that sometimes the most meaningful companies aren't built from a business plan. They're built from purpose.

Follow Anastasia & Fancy Peasant:

Website

Amazon

Youtube 

Instagram: @fancy_peasant, @fancypeasantpantry

IMDb (Anastasia Ganias Gellin)

Questions and comments; reach out to us at inquiries@dealflowdiariespodcast.com

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If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a rating and review on Apple or Spotify or where ever you get your podcasts.

Recorded at The Newsstand Studios at Rockefeller Center.

Thank you for listening.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:04

DealFlow Diaries, where the dealmakers talk, a podcast that takes you inside the minds of the Titans shaping today's global economy. I'm Alexander Fairweather.

SPEAKER_01 0:17

And I'm Elaine Chamberlain. Together, we sit down with visionary founders, fund managers, and deal makers across private equity, real estate, fashion, tech, and beyond.

SPEAKER_02 0:30

Each episode, we uncover the untold stories behind their biggest deals, hardest setbacks, and boldest bets. Lessons in strategy, risk, and ambition you won't find anywhere else.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

Smart, unscripted, unfiltered. This is DealFlow Diaries. Our guest today is Anastasia Gonias Gallen. Anastasia spent over a decade as a working actress in Hollywood, Dexter, true blood, and desperate housewives, before her father got sick, and she left all of it behind to come home. After he died in 2019, she started cooking his Greek peasant recipes on Instagram to grieve. People started asking where they could buy the olive oil she kept using. She didn't have a good answer. So she flew to Greece pregnant during a pandemic, found a single estate olive grove in Lahanya, and launched Fancy Peasant in November of 2020. It sold out immediately. Today, Fancy Peasant is in Erawan, has 145,000 followers, and is collaborating with Love Shock Fancy. She built it with no PR, no marketing budget, and no plan. Just grief, her father's recipes, and the community that shows up. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you for being here today. Thank you so much for watching. What a nice intro.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

It's so weird to like hear about yourself like that. You know, and you listen to your story and you're like, wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:57

You're awesome though.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

She's had a few different careers.

SPEAKER_02 2:00

Yes. Well, take us to the beginning. We want to hear about your dad. You've said he was a refugee who came to the U.S. at 16. He worked as a dish boy. He put himself through medical school. He never really told you your ideas were good until the very end. What was he like? And what was it like growing up as his daughter?

SPEAKER_00 2:20

Wow, that's such a loaded question. First of all, thank you for having me. Super excited to be here. My dad was born in 1940 in a very small village called Vavuri, Greece. He was born during a very tumultuous time. It was the Greek Civil War. It broke out in 1944, four years after he was born. And from there, they were actually all separated, him and his family. Some of them were put into different concentration camps. My dad was in one in Hungary for a year and against all odds, made it to the States when he was 16. They never went back to like their war-torn village. And a lot of people that came back, you know, never returned to Greece because of all the atrocities and stuff that they saw. But the really cool thing that dad did was he brought back like all the blue zone pillars from his village. And so that really was the inspiration behind Fancy Peasant, even the name. I'm like the fancy version of his peasant lifestyle kind of standing on the shoulders of a giant. And that's where I came up with the name. But to make a long story short, he was not an easy person. He was not an easy man. He was a total intellectual. He was a fabulous role model. He expected a lot from all three of us. He taught us all impeccable work ethic. Him and my mom taught us, you know, the language. The culture was ingrained in us. I mean, I feel a lot like my childhood was a lot more Greek than it was American in a lot of ways. Like I'd be the only kid to show up at lunch with like a spana copita and all this weird food. And my grandparents didn't speak a lick of English, even though they had been here since they were super young as well. They kind of lived in this Greek ghetto in Worcester, Massachusetts, where everyone could walk to and from church. And they kind of just like all kept to themselves, right? But I grew up in a very loud, beautiful Greek family that was cooking and um celebrating all the time. And my dad, amongst his peers, everyone else kind of went into like the service industry. I want to say they had like pizza shops and gas stations. And so dad really took a chance when he was like, I'm broke and I want to go into medical school also. So I think, you know, towards the end of his life, I'm kind of fast-forwarding a little bit. But when I decided to go into the arts, because there was nowhere else for me to go, really, I that was just it for me. You know, like as an artist, I think you really, I came from a very linear family. Everyone was super cerebral, good at sports. Like I just was different. I excelled in those things to a degree, but I never kind of found my magic until I got on stage and I was in this theater program and got involved really heavily there. And I think that was really scary for my dad because like the arts didn't equal money, didn't equal stability for his daughter, right? Like I remember when I was a kid, he was hard on us. Like people would be like, Your daughters are so beautiful. We don't want them to rest on their laurels. They're not beautiful. They have to work hard. Like he he all he came from poverty, is scary, right? So when you build this world, you want people to work really hard and to feel really good and for it not to be tied to anything like their looks or where they come from. Or, you know, he he made it very clear that he wanted us to be able to survive independently on our own and kind of he thought, you know, uh education, nursing, health, like that'll never go out. And so when I told my father I was, I'm going, I'm going to college for acting, Dad, he was like, Well, I'm not paying for it unless you double major in, you know, something else. So he was really hard on me. I got into a bunch of impeccable kind of theater programs. And then he was like, you have to double major in something else. So I ended up double majoring in English with a minor in biology. I studied theater and I left for Hollywood almost a year after I got out of school. And he was not happy. I remember the second before he got on the plane, he said to me, you know, statistics. Like my family's all about statistics. I don't believe in statistics, or I never would have gone into Hollywood or like the olive oil business, right? So he said, Anastasia, you know, one in a million will make it on even a co-star or guest star. I've been doing all this reading on this. I said, Dad, I don't, I'm not going there because I don't believe in the one in a million thing. Within a year, I was like working regularly and um, you know, booking my co-stars, my guest stars, working on every network, working with all my, you know, favorite actors in the entire world, making movies. And uh I was kind of doing really well year seven or eight. That's when my dad was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. And I decided to come home. You know, Hollywood's really funny in the sense where you get really used to like missing funerals and weddings and chemotherapy sessions because agents are brutal and managers are brutal. And they're like, well, if you go, then go. But like that, this is no good for what we're doing. So I think I really got trapped in that mindset for a while. And I kind of like to say I committed career suicide when I left Los Angeles. I was career peeking. I came home and I had been dating my now husband, who you know, Alexander now, who I have three incredible boys with. It was the best decision I ever made. I decided to come home and really realign. I spent a lot of time helping dad in those last two years. I like to say no stone was unturned. He really spoke to me a lot about I wanted to be a writer, Anastasia, but I went into medicine because it was practical. And you had the guts, but also the opportunities to go to Hollywood and do what you wanted to do. And I'm and I'm so proud. And you know, and to me, if you stopped now, you've already made it in everything that you've done. And and that's when I told him my idea about Fancy Peasant. It was a few days before he died. I said, you know, Dad, I'm gonna make a cookbook. And let me just preface this by saying cooking has always been in my wheelhouse. I've had like 10 roommates my entire life, and I didn't really notice it until I launched Fancy Peasant, and they would call me and be like, Well, yeah, you're the reason I make gota and patatas every night. You taught me how to make a spano cobita, you taught me how to make that like Greek omelet. And it's When are you coming over to teach me? I'm gonna come over. We need a cooking class. Of course. It's so much fun, but I am a full-blown creative. So whether I'm expressing that through acting or making a dish or teaching a theater program, it's necessary for me to feel alive. Yeah. And so I told dad, you know, I want to come out with this cookbook. I never could read a really complex recipe and get it. I'm a complete visual learner. So I said, I want to make a cookbook that breaks down Greek cooking for everybody super easy through stunning pictures. And I want to call it the fancy peasant dad. And it's just gonna be a Greek cookbook off of all the recipes from your village, these blue zone longevity recipes. And I'm gonna call it the fancy peasant. And he said to me, you know, whatever you do with that title, it's gonna carry you through like what a beautiful name. And it's funny because we still don't have a cookbook. We went this year, that's okay. Publishing house is listening. She's looking for a publisher. Yes. Um so, but he thought we were starting for a cookbook. And what ended up happening after he died, I was so gutted, I couldn't really do much. But I had this Greek fairy godmother at the time living with me, you know, whenever we have some support around the house. I like them to be from Greece. So my children are around the native tongue all the time and they've learned how to speak Greek that way. And she would wake me up every morning and say, Let's just make a recipe. You said you wanted to do this book, let's just make a recipe for dad. And instead of it turning into a book, I had a little bit of this, you know, Instagram following from Hollywood. I started cooking for the masses. I couldn't connect with my best friends, I couldn't connect with my husband. I wasn't really connecting with anyone that hadn't lost anyone. And we had gone through like the ringer with my dad that last year. He was the pillar of health and watching someone deteriorate like that, who is your like longevity doctor god was just, it felt like really evil. I needed a lot of recovery. And I found the recovery through making these recipes, right? Like the art of just like the transformation I could get out of my head if I was cooking. And I was filming it and I was talking about grief, and people around the world were like reaching out to me. Oh my God, I'm a chef from Australia. I lost my son. And like watching this video feels good. And I've been eating frozen food and I'm gonna cook tonight because like you made me feel a little bit better. And it was really crazy because I wasn't making progress with anyone in my life, but I had all these strangers that had been through something like I had been through. And we created this little good grief community where we talked about food and we cooked together and we made all these fancy peasant recipes. And, you know, like everything else, my my grief evolved into wow, this feels fun making recipes and sharing them and fancy peasants becoming a thing. And then I had this group that asked me, you know, there's a lot of Spanish in California out there, olive oil, but you're like, you're cooking with this Greek liquid gold. Can we have some? And my dad had been supplying my olive oil for, you know, the 37 years of my life. So I thought, wow, where am I gonna get the olive oil from? And these people want it. So why don't you take a little eat, love, pray journey to Greece with my two best childhood friends in the whole world? And we went to Greece, and I had two children at the time. And I knew mommies, like if I was giving mommies products to feed their kids, feed themselves while they were nursing, had to be clean, had to be the best of the best. In Greek cooking, we don't really use any other cooking fat. So I like to call it your workhorse oil, your everything oil. If you were to replace every oil and cook every recipe, you could feel really good about it. It's totally fueling you. You're getting all the antioxidants you need. It's buttery on the palate, super smooth, super beautiful. So I found this product after going to a few really beautiful, trusted family farms that I knew. And I came back with it and everyone wanted it. So I went to design the bottles and the aluminum tin because anybody that knows anything about food knows, you know, nothing should be in plastic. And I take that very seriously when I say that. Next to your drinking water, your pantry goods are what you are using every single day. Microplastics are real, they cause inflammation in our body and in our systems, and inflammation leads to disease. So certainly when oil is being stored in hot plastic or something terrible, it goes rancid very fast. You cannot be using it on your food. So that was expensive for me. So I thought, geez, now I have to house this stuff in the perfect vessels. And so I really went to the drawing board between how I wanted to do that and how I was gonna, you know, launch that part of the business. And we came out with our three-liter tin and our 500 ml skews, which are the perfect vessels to have olive oil in. And at the time I didn't know that people, even an ignorant olive oil connoisseur, if you will, would pick ours just because of the way it looked. People were like obsessed with the way it looked. It was beautiful. It's so pretty. I want to keep it on my counter also. So that was really cool. We came back, I had all this olive oil, I had finally designed it, and COVID hit. So you gotta fucking be kidding me. Like, what am I gonna do with all this olive oil in my garage? And it was divine timing because it was when everybody was cooking online. And I'm so lucky. I have a group of like famous actors and athletes and nutritionists and doctors and artists and models. That I was like, will you help me like get this stuff out of my garage and cook a fancy peasant recipe and talk about your Achilles heel? I started talking about grief. I want to make people feel less lonely during this pandemic. Everyone thinks you're famous, Daphne Oz, and you're fabulous, and your life with five kids is not hard. Talk about how hard it is. Like, let's talk about how hard it is. Help me make a recipe, a fancy peasant recipe, and help me pump out the product. And everybody said yes. And not only did they say yes, they were like jazzed, they were excited, they came to the table with like the best energy. They loved the product. And that, like, we sold out from that. I like to say that's how we pumped it up out to like the top tier, the first group of people that found fancy. And then people started coming out of the, I like to say, you know, internet ether, like Bloomingdales and and all these amazing stores came to us because they all have buyers through Instagram. And that's how we started landing our first brick and mortars, of course, along with our amazing family in the Hamptons, all those beautiful family farms. And that word really spread fast. And before you know it, you know, we were in about 300, 400 brick and mortars. Our main business is direct to consumer. It was really special to see something unfold. I always say I got into the olive oil business by accident and it found me. But it was really at the end of the day, I'm able to marry all of my acting skills and my love for that with cooking, my other love. And, you know, we're putting out an education at Fancy Peasant. It's not just about the products. Like if you cannot afford to buy our olive oils, vinegars, sea salts, and honeys, you can learn how to cook with like a leek or a cabbage, and you might not know how to do that. And all of these recipes are longevity blue zone recipes. Besides my product, they're like, you know, $10. They're made with beans, they're made with herbs, they're made with like whole foods that really fuel you. So we're really teaching people how to cook Greek and Mediterranean, but also how to cook with things they might not know. You'd be really surprised. People don't really know what to do with vegetables a lot of the time. They don't know how to, you know, cook smart and make their food work for them. And so I've had a real joy through that part of it. Teaching my children, having customers tell me all the time, we make your recipes twice a week. They're the one thing I do with my kid once a week. Like I make a fancy peasant recipe. I mean, there's so much joy in that for me. And I'm really lucky that I love what I do.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

For anyone that doesn't know, can you explain what a blue zone is?

SPEAKER_00 17:03

Sure. There's a few different places in the world where people live to be centenarians. And essentially, those are all hot spots in blue zones. And it's kind of built around the seven pillars of movement, being social, eating the right way, and taking in whole foods, essentially a plant slant diet with like a little bit of a celebration around meat and fish, and lots of movement, lots of natural joy and community. And it's really getting back to like the peasant or simple way of living, but we've lost that art. And so it's really cool to be able to pause and bring those things back into our modern day world. And I think that's, you know, that's what the blue zones are really, really great at doing.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

I want to go back to something that you mentioned earlier around the authenticity and genuine nature of how your brands came about or the origin story, right? First of all, I think it's so impactful that you were talking about this grief and what you were experiencing. You mentioned talking about your Achilles heel. And I want to delve a little bit deeper into that because I think that can be really scary for a lot of people. What's your advice when talking about your Achilles heel or, you know, discussing what that looks like and what you're going through when sometimes it can be troubling?

SPEAKER_00 18:34

Being a founder, you will dig into every single part of everything that makes you insecure or makes you want to quit. So I think leaning into that, feeling it, moving past it, and asking questions from people that have done this before. I will never forget when I started this company and I asked all of all those favors. Will you get on here and make a recipe with me? Will you do this with me? That was really scary for me. A lot of these people were like high profile actors. I'm launching a new business. It's the middle of COVID. I mean, I look back, I'm like, it took a lot of balls for me to be like, hey, you want to like do a live at 12 o'clock with my brand new company that I haven't launched yet? I love staring fear in the face. I think that there's a lot to be said about that. I think, you know, your biggest fear is your greatest teacher. Uh, we have to remember that most people will support, will want to support you. And I hope I return that favor to everybody that asks me when they need it. I'm a huge believer in like energy and karma. And I think if you really believe in someone or something, you always, always help. Something I'm trying to teach my children that my parents taught me is to be a citizen of the world, not just our community, people that need us from everywhere that might not come from the same place, right? And so I just love the idea of believing in that, no matter where you are in your life, sitting on top of the world, because like that goes and comes. But the journey is something that is really special and really scary. I mean, I'm in the middle of a really part, I'm in the middle of a really scary part of my journey right now, you know?

SPEAKER_02 20:20

Well, let's talk about that now. I mean, you've had already this incredible initial success, but we know this is just the beginning. And you have a really great analogy about the brand that has to do with children, which I would love to hear.

SPEAKER_00 20:34

So um we're in the middle of scaling her. I call her fancy peasant as she. And it's dawned on me going through this period of growth because I think you hit a period in a business where you're like, all right, I could remain this way and we're doing really well, or we could go balls to the wall, right? Anything I've ever done has been balls to the wall. I never intended for fancy peasant to stay a small business. I know that we have the legs to be leaders in the Greek pantry business. And I know it. I was telling Alexander, it's like how you know your children. Like one of them might really thrive in a smaller environment. And the other one might need that really big Friday night lights, like sports environment to do well, right? I know fancy peasants meant to do really big things. How the hell am I going to get there? Is, you know, that's the puzzle. That's what you need to fall in love with every day. When I switched my mentality, when you own your own business and you're scaling something, you have to fall in love with problem solving. You are going to wake up to 30 different problems. You have to be able to say these are high priority, these are low priority. And it can be very overwhelming because if you don't attack one thing at a time, you lose it. And knowing in my head that 90% of founders fail is something that I really Really take seriously. So I'm like, everyone's keeping their head above water, Anastasia. Everyone's trying to keep their head above water. That's why the sale's gonna be big, right? Like, this is important to say. I never thought I was good enough to make like really big money from acting. I made a paycheck, but I never really thought in my heart at hearts, I could make a living do this. I know I can do something really big with this. And for the first time in my life, I'm very comfortable saying the ethos, the brand, and what I do drives me. I would never be in this. It's too hard if I did it, if I wasn't in love with my job. But I'm very driven by like building this for it to be huge and there being a really big reward in the end. And there used to be shame for me to say that. I am working so hard that if there is not something big in the end, like, yeah, I took time away from my kids, being a mom. I mean, it's very painful in a lot of ways. So it's one of those things that I'm excited. I'm taking a huge chance to want to build it and grow it and scale it the way I want to is a very hard thing. What does your scaling strategy look like? So I love a small check. I will small checks from friends and families, right? Like people that strategic people that believe in the brand are really important, that are like, I gave this to everybody for Christmas. Like we had amazing people that have invested that own their own, you know, all their own companies, and they gifted this to all 90 employees. Like that is awesome. Also, just growth strategists that know how to invest in scale are really exciting too. We've had some of those kind of checks come in. I think people that understand the ethos of the company, who understand where we're going, who we are, that believe in wellness, like this whole wellness movement. What's cool about what I'm doing? A peptide and like a supplement isn't gonna replace your pantry essentials. These things are gonna stay here and they're gonna be here forever. That just dawned on me this year, too, because I'm a wellness junkie. I get lost in like all the noise. I'm like, dude, you're always gonna need your olive oil and your vinegar and your sea salt to be high quality, high performing. You want to be drinking your ketones, you want to work on anti-inflammation, you want to make these products work for you. This is going to be general knowledge to everybody soon. You cannot skimp out on these things. Like you need them to be good. So that's really my new philosophy. Like when I am pitching and scaling this thing, that's what I'm thinking about. I'm thinking about like, this is it. Like you're in something that that is pretty great. It's not going anywhere, and you believe in it and you love it. So scaling is just reaching out, taking every phone call, every referral. So are you fundraising? I'm fundraising. Amazing. It's my least favorite part of the business. It makes me feel like there was something when you're acting. After you get through your first initial tests, you go to like a chemistry read. Then you meet the executive producers, then you have the table read, and you can get fired at a table read. Like if the lead on the show is like Anastasia's too blonde, she's taking attention away from me, fi it. That's happened to me. So I'm like, you know, this is not my favorite part to be vulnerable and like to have to put myself in that situation and be like, because a lot, you know, a lot of the time you're talking to like 10 suits, and I know what they're thinking. Hollywood turned to Hollywood entrepreneur. And I'm like, I don't think they understand. Like, I this is my fourth child. I started this thing from the ground up. It is my right fucking arm. I live, breathe, and die for it. A lot of the time, I think people in the hot seat feel like, is this a vanity passion project for women, right? But your sales can show, of course, but like across the board, I think a lot of guys, I mean, it's maybe it's not nice to say, but I think people can make you feel that way. Totally. And I'm like living in my vessel for as long as I have. So a lot of my own issues come up. And I'm like, oh, they're judging me based on this, that, and this, or they don't think I'm serious because I have blonde hair. I mean, no, I'm not kidding. These things come up for you. So the raise is my least favorite. I hope someday that I can say it's my favorite thing to do. Because the truth is when you're building and scaling a company, the raise is kind of rolling.

SPEAKER_01 26:18

But realistically, that is that's a learning curve, right? Like that is something that it's a skill. I always say fundraising is a skill and you learn how to do it, right? And you and you just get better and better. And so I think you will laugh.

SPEAKER_00 26:34

I love watching people that are good at it. I have this one investor and board member on fancy who is amazing at it. Shout out to Aristotle. And um, I'm like, wow, this is this is what he was literally born to do. Right. He's so good at it. And me, you know, I I I have a lot of a lot of stuff comes up for me when I'm asking for money, which is very interesting, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:56

Self-aware though.

SPEAKER_00 26:58

Self-aware.

SPEAKER_01 26:59

I have a question about you selling out on that note. Sure. You know, a lot of people think that that's such an amazing feat, which it is, selling out is incredible. But how did you manage it from behind the scenes? And what did that look like for you and your sister, correct?

SPEAKER_00 27:14

My sister was part of the company the first two years. And then she um had three babies under, you know, four years. So she shifted. But we sell out a lot. And it's a loaded question because it comes back to capital, if I'm being quite honest. I like to say, like in a service business, if you're an interior designer and it's charging someone a million bucks, you get half a million bucks up front, right, for it for the job before you even start. An olive oil, you buy $100,000 worth of olive oil, that doesn't come in for a while, right? You're waiting on that, but then you're like out of inventory already. You have to have like a lot of money in the CPG business to keep reordering and to keep inventory stocked and for projections to like stay, stay solid. Um, there's two opinions about it. I've had people on my operations team feel like this is terrible. We're selling out. I kind of come from the school like in Hollywood. There's no press like bad press. I'm like, we're sold out, people fucking want it. Good. Great. There's nothing I can do about the fact that like the ship just like went down in the middle of the sea and they're gonna have to wait. So I think those are things that I've really learned to like roll with the punches. Let's make it a marketing campaign. Let's talk to all of our customers about how much they like it and send them, you know, a free vinegar. Let's make it up to like our beautiful community, but it is what it is. It's one of those things. And if it's a capital thing, it's like, well, we got to wait till we got another check to pay for that next. It's crazy. Like we've we've been in every position like that.

SPEAKER_01 28:44

It's a great lesson on perspective, right? And having that perspective on one, being solutions-oriented, and also two, just rolling with the punches. That's what entrepreneurship is. And I love that you mentioned that.

SPEAKER_02 28:57

And you're adding new products. Can you talk about that?

SPEAKER_00 29:00

Sure. Caliente. We are I am a chili oil fanatic. And I feel bad when I look on the internet and I'm watching all of my customers that are obsessed with fancy pellets. We have a 65 repeat customer. People are obsessed with our product. They've been asking me to come out with chili oil for years. It's just expensive to come out with a product. Right. This all goes back to capital. Yeah. Always all roads lead to capital. And so I'm like watching them have another brand with their with their and I've tried the brand and I'm all, oh my God, I've got to make this chili oil because it's got to be good quality. It's got to be real chili oil. It can't be like infused with colors and additives. And we're coming out with chili oil. You know, we're making olive oil and pantry sexy again. So of course I cannot wait to build that campaign out.

SPEAKER_02 29:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 29:48

I mean, when I When are you filming? Uh what aren't we filming, honey? We're filming this summer. We're just gonna do you remember our honey campaign.

SPEAKER_02 29:56

I love the honey campaign. If anyone hasn't seen it, they should go check it out on Instagram.

SPEAKER_00 30:01

It was just like gorgeous specimens, like dripping honey and olive oil and vinegar. And you know, it was really controversial, which I fucking loved.

SPEAKER_01 30:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:09

I had like a lot of people on my investor team be like, What are you selling? I'm like, I'm selling feeling good. This is making people feeling real, this makes people feel really good, right? Like you look great, you feel great, when you eat great, you look great. And it's not about shapes or sizes, it's about just feeling good in the skin you're in. Yeah. And um, I thought that campaign was really fun to promote. It also promoted like blue zone pillars, right? You're out on the water, you're in the sun, community, friends. Like these are de stressors. I love to talk a lot about, I call them my pleasure stackers. They're the little things that make me feel really good every day. One of them is my olive oil lemon shot, the other one's my collagen coffee, the other one is getting sunlight, the other one is getting movement, the other one might be having a cocktail, hanging out with my kids, putting my phone down for an hour, going into the sauna. Just doing shit that is good for you is so important. And if you add them up, just like if you add it up the other way, you're eating too much sugar, you're not getting enough sleep, you're on your phone all the time, that shit adds up too, right? So, like if you are pleasure stacking all the time, these little things to make yourself feel good, to make your body feel good, I'm into it. And I and I really try to push that through all of our campaigns and everything that we're doing. And it's not about perfection. Progress, not perfection, right? And it's the little things. Like I'm telling you, the olive oil, lemon shot has like been a game changer for my digestion. You know, we're learning so much about olive oil and neuro health. We've always known it's good for your gut, it's good for your skin, it's good for your microbiome. But what we are learning for brain health right now is crazy. I mean, this is literally all the compounds in olive oil are anti-inflammatory. So essentially, you're breaking that all down. You're giving your brain, your neurotransmitters, a way to rejuvenate every day. Of course, I use copious amounts in everything I cook, but I've loved my olive oil lemon shot in the morning with a little bit of quality salt. I think everybody should do it. It's super yummy, it's super delicious. Uh, I see the benefits all the time. I also do it with our red wine vinegar. Yeah, I'm a huge supporter of doing little things that make you feel good. And the things that make you feel good might be very different than the things that make me feel good.

SPEAKER_02 32:25

I love that. Elaine and I have talked about this too. Like if you look at the longevity space, I mean, billions are being poured into it. But sometimes it's like something so simple could be the key to unlocking all of this health benefits. And I mean, that's really exciting.

SPEAKER_00 32:39

It is so simple. It's not the complicated things that are going to change, give you another seven to ten years. It's the little habits, little habits. It's a lifestyle. It's it's simple. It's getting back to the simple things. There's so much noise like in our society right now, but what we should be doing, how like how we can buy it all. No, no, no. Most of these things are like grounding in your backyard and looking into the sunlight in the morning.

SPEAKER_01 33:06

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 33:06

Uh it's there's simple stuff that we're just no one's doing.

SPEAKER_01 33:10

Regulating your nervous system.

SPEAKER_00 33:11

Regulating. Regulating your nervous system. I'm teaching my children when like when they have the flu, Hunter's like, you're making them go outside to ground to feel the soil under their feet and look into the sun. I'm like, hell yeah. Because that's gonna really help them. I'm gonna believe it. I'm not sure. We always talk about that. I believe they really definitely believe now. So I'm like, I I I know this is working. You know, we're not reinventing the wheel with sauna and cold plunge. You go to Italy and Greece, and there's ancient marble baths with sauna and cold plunge. Talk about the nervous system. The this is this is ancient stuff that people have been doing forever that we're going back to now in this wellness movement.

SPEAKER_01 33:56

So, my last question before we wrap up, and I ask everyone this. Okay. Why do you love doing this?

SPEAKER_00 34:04

There's so many reasons, and how lucky I feel to be able to say that. I love creating art. I love cooking and nourishing people. Food is my love language. It's how I show people that I really love them and care about them. I believe in everything that I'm doing. I believe that I want to leave this world a little bit of a better place. I remember when my dad was dying, he's like, you know, it's so funny when you get to the end of your life, you just really think about like what you did to make one other person's life better or a lot of people, right? And so I think that no matter what happens with fancy peasant, I know that we're like so I'm very emotional when I'm talking about my dad. But I know we're making people's lives better through food.

SPEAKER_01 34:50

I get emotional listening to you talk about your dad because it shows through. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:54

Thank you. It's it's very exciting to help people to learn how to cook and how to nourish themselves because I do believe that maybe the most important skill set that you can teach someone how to take care of themselves in a really good-and bringing his legacy through.

SPEAKER_01 35:10

So for anyone who wants to find FancyPeasant, where should they go? What should they order first? And where can they follow?

SPEAKER_00 35:19

Oh, okay. Well, you could buy fancy peasant at fancypeasant.com. You can also go to your Amazon account and buy there. We're in so many brick and mortars around the country. And if we're not, call me and we'll make sure we're in your store. But I would start with, I have to say, I would start with our OG, our first hero product, our extra virgin olive oil. It's single estate, it's cold pressed, it's packed with polyphenols and antioxidants, and it is literally everything you want in a high-quality olive oil. Our vinegars and our sea salts and our honeys are just as medicinal and just as delicious. You really can't go wrong. And I really think that everybody deserves a very clean, delicious pantry. Do it for yourself.

SPEAKER_02 36:04

And for everyone listening, every episode of Dealflow Diaries is on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Audible. Follow us on Instagram and YouTube at Dealflow Diaries.