Have you been looking for an all-in-one app for meal-planning? I have good news for you! The app Whisk can do it all: recipe saving, meal planning, grocery shopping, and recipe sharing. We love this app because it's all about saving time and making life simpler.

This week I'm talking to my friend Julie Deily, Creator Partnerships Manager at Whisk, about all the ways the Whisk app can save time and simplify your meal-planning tasks. Julie also has her own popular food blog, thelittlekitchen.net.

My friend Emily Willix, and her husband Clark live full-time on an antique sailboat. They sail around the world chronicling their experiences on their wonderful YouTube channel, Emily and Clark's Adventure.

Emily is responsible for the meal-planning, shopping, and cooking and has become an expert at inventory management. She shares with us her secrets for keeping track of a years worth of provisions, which are stored masterfully on their sailboat.

Are you thinking about your summer travel plans? Are you trying to figure out where to go and what to do? My guest this week is travel expert Janice Moskoff from gatherandgotravel.com. Janice has great tips, tricks, and travel inspiration including a primer on the ins and outs (and importance!) of travel insurance.

The meal plan that I walk you through in this episode is inspired by our travel talk with meals from around the world. You'll "travel" around from Spain to China with dishes like Instant Pot Paella on Tuesday and Asian Salmon on Thursday.  Head over to COOKtheSTORY.com/MealPlans to get the meal plan with links to recipes, and the printable grocery list that goes with it. This one is Meal Plan #78.

This week I talk with Carolyn Ketchum, the cookbook author and blogger behind the keto blog, All Day I Dream About Food, to get her tips about the best places to start when reducing carbs. I also talk about letting go of perfectionism when trying to adjust your diet.

The meal plan for this week features lower carb meals to help you take the first steps to trying lower carb eating. Get the meal plan along with the printable grocery list that goes with it over at COOKtheSTORY.com/MealPlans.

Remember the banana bread craze of 2020? If you never figured out how to perfect your banana bread recipe, this is the episode for you. My guest this week is cookbook author and food blogger Irvin Lin, who recently wrote a series on Quick Breads for my website, TheCookful. In this episode Irvin provides some helpful tips on ensuring your Quick Breads turn out tender, and recommends a great (and painfully obvious) tool for checking your Quick Breads for doneness.

The meal plan that I walk you through in this episode is based on themes for each day of the week. On Meatless Monday you'll cook up some delicious Summer Minestrone Soup and on Fancy Friday you'll enjoy Creamy Stuffed Salmon, which looks fancy but couldn't be easier to make! Head over to COOKtheSTORY.com/MealPlans to get the meal plan with links to recipes, and the printable grocery list that goes with it. This one is Meal Plan #76.

Do you hate doing laundry as much as I do? Well, this is the episode for you! My guest this week, cookbook author and food blogger Emily Paster, has a laundry system that actually to save tons of time and stress. While Emily is best know for her food blog westoftheloop.com and is author of the beautiful cookbook Instantly Mediterranean, this week she is introducing us to a system that will simplify the chore of doing laundry once and for all.

The meal plan that I walk you through in this episode features 5 recipes that I truly love. I've included my kids' favorite, the Olive Garden copycat Zuppa Toscana, and my all-time favorite chicken recipe, Baked Chicken with Basil, Tomato and Red Chilies. Head over to COOKtheSTORY.com/MealPlans to get the meal plan with links to recipes, and the printable grocery list that goes with it. This one is Meal Plan #75.

If you've always wanted to incorporate some wild game into your diet, this episode is for you! My guest this week is Allie Doran, a new mom and author of Venison Everyday, as well as the photographer, recipe developer, and writer behind Miss Allie’s Kitchen. We talk about cooking with a new baby around, and ways to incorporate game into your cooking.

The meal plan that I walk you through in this episode features cozy meals for this last stretch of winter. The recipes include the coziest of all winter dishes, Instant Pot Beef Stroganoff, as well as a link to a healthier venison version from Allie's blog Venison Everyday. Head over to COOKtheSTORY.com/MealPlans to get the meal plan with links to recipes, and the printable grocery list that goes with it. This one is Meal Plan #74.

Have you ever googled for a recipe and wondered how it was created? This week we go behind-the-scenes of a food blog by talking with Dawn Viola, the head recipe developer and photographer for my own websites. We discuss her journey in the culinary world, which began due to her own food allergies. And then we dive into the processes that Dawn and I use to choose and create the recipes on COOKtheSTORY.

The meal plan that I walk you through in this episode is inspired by my conversation with Dawn and features some innovative and fun meals that Dawn has recently developed for the site. You'll enjoy delicious Baked Reuben Chicken Stacks and a perfect Friday night meal of Reverse-Seared Steaks served with Air Fryer Baked Potatoes and Asparagus. Head over to COOKtheSTORY.com/MealPlans to get the meal plan with links to recipes, and the printable grocery list that goes with it. This one is Meal Plan #73.

It's frustrating to all of us when we can't find the ingredients we were counting on at the grocery store. Now imagine going into a store where nothing is familiar and you need to figure out how to find and use even the most basic of ingredients.

My guest this week is Estelle Tracy, food writer and founder of the online chocolate tasting site 37chocolates.com. We're talking about her experiences getting used to shopping and cooking in the United States after she moved here from France. Her experience was so difficult that she wrote a book to help others navigate this same situation: Le Guide de Survie Alimentaire aux Etats-Unis. Estelle also has a Facebook Group with over 10 thousand members who help each other find the comfort foods they miss from home: Bons plans gourmands aux Etats-Unis.

One of the best time-management strategies I know is learning how to repurpose your work in new ways, whether that's using leftovers in future meals or saving past meal plans to use in future weeks. That is why when I realized that I was too swamped to think this week, I decided to repurpose one of the early interviews from this podcast! It's one of my all-time favorite interviews and I know you're going to enjoy it.

My guest is Dr. Charles Spence, a Psychologist from Oxford University and author of Gastrophysics: The New Science of Eating and The Perfect Meal: The Multisensory Science of Food and Dining. We're discussing his fascinating research into all the aspects of our senses beyond taste that are involved in our enjoyment of food. It turns out that what we name our food, and how much our forks weigh, matters more than we could ever realize.