Those two words from EM Forster's novel Howards End could be a nice summation of the philosophy and work of my guest on this podcast!

Dr Sue Johnson is an internationally acclaimed clinical psychologist and author and the founder of a counselling approach called Emotionally Focused Therapy. You might be familiar with the title of her best selling book for couples; Hold Me Tight.  It's sold over a million copies around the world.

In our conversation Sue talks about how EFT works, how she fell into studying psychology and about what drives her to want to help.

Dianna Coumont has loved fabric and sewing for as long as she can remember.  She's always designed and made her own clothes and for a few years she had a very successful international equestrian-wear line.  These days she's realising a dream with her home based couture and bespoke studio business called Valiente Couture. Her enthusiasm for fabric and thread and buttons and design is contagious!

Check out her channel!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnRJRQt1w3IMHovb3WQ5J7A

A wonderful conversation with chef and cook book author Pailin Chongchitnant who is host of the very popular Pailin's Kitchen on YouTube and author of Hot Thai Kitchen and her most recent book Sabai.

Sandhu Singh is an award winning water colour artist in Victoria. He has a show on at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria until May 27.  You can see his work on his website anytime! In this episode we talk about his life and how he finds a respite in art from anxiety.

Rachel Poliquin's research interests are wide and varied and include 17th century medicine, beaver, eels, kidneys, wisdom teeth and taxidermy  (just to mention a very few).

These days Rachel is pouring all those fascinations into her children's books.  The latest is titled The Museum of Odd Body Leftovers.  

It was great fun to have a chance to talk to her about her work.

http://www.rachelpoliquin.com

Sally Thorne studied nursing almost by chance but it turned out to be a perfect choice for her.  She has worked, written, researched and taught in the realm of nursing and health care for her long and successful career.  In this conversation we talk about her interest in communication in health care and about the ethical questions nurses can face when it comes to MAID.

I didn't grow up with hot sauce on the table but these days it's there for most meals! I love finding new flavours and styles to try out.   Some of my favourites in recent years come from Vancouver's Sriracha Revolver!  Founder and maker Jordan Hocking finds delicious flavours and varied ingredients to blend for her sauces but oddly isn't a real lover of hot sauce herself!

In this episode you'll hear how this very successful brand got started!

The gorgeous guitar music that opens and closes my podcast is composed and performed by Adam Dobres. He played guitar in bands for years, all over the world, and then decided to challenge himself to learn to play solo guitar and record instrumentals.  It was quite a learning curve but it's great that her persisted!

In this piece you hear the regular theme and also a mellow track he recorded for me.  Can you help name them please?

Pianist Vicky Chow is devoted to contemporary music!  Since she first encountered and performed (by surprise) a new music composition when she was a student at Julliard she has worked with dozens of the top new music composers and collaborated with ensembles and other artists, performing in more than 40 countries around the world.

She's heading back home to Vancouver for a concert soon so we talked about her career and some of the challenges life has thrown her way.

Deb Perelman threw bags of cookies from her apartment balcony during the pandemic!  I wish I had been there to catch some.  That is just one of the anecdotes in this lovely conversation with best selling cookbook author and blogger Deb Perelman about her latest book, Smitten Kitchen Keepers.