Thanksgiving is coming, and right after that is Black Friday and the gift-shopping season. We start this episode off with some great gift ideas for older kids. My favorites are these subscription boxes: #ad Baketivity and the KiwiCo Eureka Crates.

I also talk with Kevin Jakiela from Just Vertical, a company that makes compact and stylish hydroponic systems for growing produce in your home. I've been seeing ads for these kinds of systems all over the place and I had a lot of questions about how they work, how much time they take to maintain, what kinds of fruits and veggies you can grow, and more. Kevin answers them all and now I seriously want to get one of these!

Thanksgiving is right around the corner and so I have invited my mom, Phyllis Pittman, the successful restauranteur who has catered over 300 turkey dinners, to share her best make-ahead Thanksgiving dinner tips. She's such an expert that your Thanksgiving cooking will never be the same again!

This week I also share a tip for getting your house ready for a party that involves doing less cleaning. Who doesn't love that???

We are now officially in the holiday season and with that comes a ton of fun, but also a lot of preparations, planning, activities, and events that take our time and energy. As we embark on this joyously crazy time of year, it's a good idea to set some limits on what you can and can't accomplish and on how you want to spend your time.

This week I share a tip for keeping calendars clear during this season, and I also talk with Karen Shopoff Rooff from Well Balanced Women about personal boundary setting. Karen is a Women's Wellness Warrior who is a mom, entrepreneur, personal trainer, perinatal fitness specialist, and public speaker who teaches that we can have balance without needing to have it all together. Here are the blue-light blocking glasses that Karen mentions in the show #ad.

Does your morning often turn into chaos as you rush around trying to remember everything that you need for the day? Today I share a tip to help make all your morning run a bit smoother.

This week I also talk with award-winning food writer and chocolate sommelier Estelle Tracy of 37 Chocolates about how to choose the right chocolate for you. Estelle is also originally from France and has written this wonderful book in French called Guide de survie alimentaire aux Etats-Unis #ad for new arrivals to the US from her home country.

Do you have more than one set of dishes in you cupboards? Do you find yourself reaching for dishes from one set more than the others? I have a hypothesis about why this is and it has to do with the dishwasher. Also, these are the Corelle dishes (affiliate link) that I mention that I use to replenish the ones that my mom got for her bridal shower nearly 50 years ago. I still have a lot of the originals and they're still my favorites. These new ones are the same, minus the brown flowered trim <3.

This week I also talk with cookbook author Emily Paster about her new book, Instantly Mediterranean: Vibrant and Satisfying Recipes for Your Instant Pot, Electric Pressure Cooker & Air Fryer (affiliate link). We talk all about Mediterranean food and how to translate those classic recipes and flavors to our favorite new appliances.

You can enter to win 1 of 3 copies of Emily's book! Head over to my Instagram page (@cookthestory) between October 24-31, 2021 and look for the instructions and rules to enter there.

One of the main goals of this podcast is to help myself and others with that never-ending question, "What should I make for dinner?" To that end, this week, I'm having a box of seafood from Alaska delivered to my doorstep to see if having high-quality seafood in my freezer helps me decide what to make, while also helping me to make health choices for my family. If you want to join me in this experiment, order some Alaskan seafood from Catch Sitka Seafood here #sponsored and use HOLIDAY15 to save $15 off of your first purchase of $125 or more. This week I'm also talking with Sally Kuzemchak from Real Mom Nutrition about picky eaters and about her new No Stress Dinner Planner. She has so many great insights when it comes to feeding our kids while feeling less stressed about it. Who doesn't need that??? If you'd like to enter to win a pdf copy of Sally's planner, check out my Instagram on 10/18/21. Giveaway entries close on 10/24/21.

This week we're talking to another owner of a meal prep business to find out how these services work and what the benefits are. Our guest Chef Peter Schonman of, PS Dinner's Ready! from the outskirts of Chicago shares how his business is different from more traditional take out. I'm also sharing a great tip for keeping your calendar clear during hectic times this year, and automatically for the years ahead!

If you've ever thought about hiring a local company to deliver meals to your door, I've got info for you! Today's guest is Victoria Saavedra from Glow Meals, a company that prepares fresh and healthy meals for daily delivery. She's telling us how companies like hers work and she's also giving us some great tips for healthy food swaps to use in our own cooking. I'm also sharing some of my own healthy eating information in this episode. There are three healthy ingredients that I really love that also save time. These are items that you can have on hand to add a burst of nutrition to your meals really quickly.

This is episode number 52 of the TMI weekly podcast, and so, it is our one year anniversary! In this episode, the tables are turned as our previous guest, Heather McCurdy from Real: The Kitchen and Beyond interviews me! We talk about the goals of the podcast, how the meal plans work, my meal-planning imposter syndrome, and more. I also talk quite a bit about music! If you're new to TMI, this episode will be a great introduction to what we're all about. If you've been listening for a while, you'll get some fun behind-the-scenes info.

If you're thinking about trying to plan a vacation for the holiday season or for 2022, you've come to the right place! It can feel risky to plan trips right now, but our guest this week, Janice Moskoff from Gather and Go Travel, has 5 amazing tips for planning travel in these uncertain times. As a special bonus, I've also included my own favorite travel tip, and it involves this handy-dandy packing list spreadsheet that you can make a copy of and use for all of your own future trips. The meal plan that I walk you through in this episode features dishes from around the world so you can get the taste of travel, even if you're staying home. Head over to COOKtheSTORY.com/MealPlans to get the meal plan and the printable grocery list that goes with it. This one is Meal Plan #51.