Not A Single Fork

We knew this would be a special interview.

Mark Gibson is a musical celebrity around here and the quiet waters run deep with Mark. Super thoughtful and a consummate story teller, we couldn’t have chosen a better guest to kick off our fourth season of food stories.

Meeting in the studio kitchen (I did my best to adjust the sound quality but it’s still in the kitchen), the topics ranged from wrestling to his music beginnings to his love for Thai curries.

Mark, like many singers and songwriters, is a complex person but also a refreshingly, kind and gentle soul. He was born and raised Broken Arrow, Oklahoma and went to college on a wrestling scholarship not discovering his true love for music until he was an older teen. He stopped wrestling to pursue his music and has never looked back.

Mark shared how he developed his love for Thai food as well as growing up as one of three boys (all wrestlers) and competitively vying for food at dinnertime or actually, anytime because they ate A LOT! He has a special affinity for sweets, especially, donuts. And, although we didn’t get it worked into the interview, he makes a mean chili.

The pandemic has seriously impacted his ability to perform live and so he has been producing weekly Facebook Live concerts from his living room. You can still catch them, “like” his page, Mark Gibson Music and you’ll get the latest

Of course, you’ll want to check out his website, MarkGibsonMusic.com (https://www.markgibsonmusic.com/). His most recent album “Live From Soul City” is available on iTunes along with two other albums and singles. You can also listen to selections but you’ll want to hear (and then buy) them all…Support our starving artists!

So, as we introduced him in this episode, without further ado…here’s Mark Gibson.

Our next guest, Judy Allen is a Food Writer, Recipe Developer, Food Stylist and Food Magazine Junkie. She is been the Food Editor for any number of publications, including one you’ve probably heard of, Martha Stewart Living and yes, we got her to tell a few “Martha” stories. Don’t miss it.

And, what about you? Do you have a food story? We'd love to hear it. Share it in the comments below and more likely than not, you'll hear it in one of our episodes.And, in case you haven't heard, the kitchen and our hands-on classes are back up and running. We are wearing masks and now Tulsa has a mask mandate as well as WalMart, Sam’s Club and Target. I mean, you wear a seat belt and a helmet when you ride your bicycle or motorcycle, what's the difference? Other than, when you wear a mask you protect other people. It's the kind thing to do; we hope you think so, too. Pretty sure, the vaccine won't be available for a long time.If you have a minute, please take a look at our Patreon page and consider becoming a member. Just click that little button below that says “Become a Patron”. It’s as easy as that to check it out and see what we’re talking about. We’ve got a lot of fun offerings for members that you won’t get to see, experience or have anywhere else.And, don’t forget, you can find us all over the place now! Wherever your favorite podcast listening place is, we’re probably there,

We knew this would be a special interview.

Mark Gibson is a musical celebrity around here and the quiet waters run deep with Mark. Super thoughtful and a consummate story teller, we couldn’t have chosen a better guest to kick off our fourth season of food stories.

Meeting in the studio kitchen (I did my best to adjust the sound quality but it’s still in the kitchen), the topics ranged from wrestling to his music beginnings to his love for Thai curries.

Mark, like many singers and songwriters, is a complex person but also a refreshingly, kind and gentle soul. He was born and raised Broken Arrow, Oklahoma and went to college on a wrestling scholarship not discovering his true love for music until he was an older teen. He stopped wrestling to pursue his music and has never looked back.

Mark shared how he developed his love for Thai food as well as growing up as one of three boys (all wrestlers) and competitively vying for food at dinnertime or actually, anytime because they ate A LOT! He has a special affinity for sweets, especially, donuts. And, although we didn’t get it worked into the interview, he makes a mean chili.

The pandemic has seriously impacted his ability to perform live and so he has been producing weekly Facebook Live concerts from his living room. You can still catch them, “like” his page, Mark Gibson Music and you’ll get the latest

Of course, you’ll want to check out his website, MarkGibsonMusic.com (https://www.markgibsonmusic.com/). His most recent album “Live From Soul City” is available on iTunes along with two other albums and singles. You can also listen to selections but you’ll want to hear (and then buy) them all…Support our starving artists!

So, as we introduced him in this episode, without further ado…here’s Mark Gibson.

Our next guest, Judy Allen is a Food Writer, Recipe Developer, Food Stylist and Food Magazine Junkie. She is been the Food Editor for any number of publications, including one you’ve probably heard of, Martha Stewart Living and yes, we got her to tell a few “Martha” stories. Don’t miss it.

And, what about you? Do you have a food story? We'd love to hear it. Share it in the comments below and more likely than not, you'll hear it in one of our episodes.And, in case you haven't heard, the kitchen and our hands-on classes are back up and running. We are wearing masks and now Tulsa has a mask mandate as well as WalMart, Sam’s Club and Target. I mean, you wear a seat belt and a helmet when you ride your bicycle or motorcycle, what's the difference? Other than, when you wear a mask you protect other people. It's the kind thing to do; we hope you think so, too. Pretty sure, the vaccine won't be available for a long time.If you have a minute, please take a look at our Patreon page and consider becoming a member. Just click that little button below that says “Become a Patron”. It’s as easy as that to check it out and see what we’re talking about. We’ve got a lot of fun offerings for members that you won’t get to see, experience or have anywhere else.And, don’t forget, you can find us all over the place now! Wherever your favorite podcast listening place is, we’re probably there,

It was bound to happen.

I mean, I am a psychologist after all.

Food has a powerful effect on people. Sometimes just because it tastes great or terrible, sometimes because there is some meaning that underlies an experience with a particular food. Food can make you happy or happier. It can disappoint you or lift you higher and out of your funk. It can bring back warm memories so that every time we have it (or cook it), those memories are recreated. And, just as easily, it can cause us pain and suffering because of an event or person it is associated with. We may never want to eat, see, smell or even think of that food again.

I am fascinated with the effect that food can have on us. So, why not, a whole podcast season of exploring people’s relationship, good or bad, with food. What does it mean to you? What’s your favorite? What’s your guilty pleasure? What’s the worst? So…Tell Me A Food Story is going to take you on a food ride through the lives of eight different people from every walk of life. Some are in the food business, some just love food but all of them have a story to tell.

Here are the victims, er, kind folks who volunteered their time to talk to us. This is alphabetical order, we haven’t decided whose episode is whose so you’ll have to listen to ALL of them! That’s part of our evil plan to get you to listen to us!! Bwahahah….

Judy Lockhart Allen - Food Writer, Recipe Developer, Food Stylist and Food Magazine Junkie who survived and lived to tell the tale of working for Martha Stewart

Joe Breaux - Our Favorite Sommelier, Joe leads our wine tasting classes at the kitchen and is the least stuffy of any wine person we know

Mark Gibson - Musician, Singer and Songwriter and he just happened to write our podcast theme music

Roy S Johnson - Director, Content Development and Columnist at Alabama Media Group and one of my very good friends from high school, Roy has had and continues to have an impressive writing career

Shaylea Morgan - Our Favorite Kids Chef Instructor, Shaylea is helping us build our kids cooking program

Daisi Owens - Food Blogger and mother of two little boys at My Stir Crazy Kitchen and the first person who we interviewed for Season 2 of the podcast

But in our first episode, Natalia and I tell all…SURPRISE!

You’ll hear some funny and not so funny stories from experiences we’ve had and about our families’ very different food histories and approaches to food.

No secrets, here, as usual. So, hope you’re ready for Season 4…here it comes.

What's your food story?

We'd love to hear it. Share it in the comments below and more likely than not, you'll hear it in one of our episodes.

And, in case you haven't heard, we have reopened our kitchen and our hands-on classes. We are wearing masks and guessing that soon it will be mandated beyond food workers. I mean, you wear a seat belt, a helmet when you ride your bicycle or motorcycle, what's the difference?

It was bound to happen.

I mean, I am a psychologist after all.

Food has a powerful effect on people. Sometimes just because it tastes great or terrible, sometimes because there is some meaning that underlies an experience with a particular food. Food can make you happy or happier. It can disappoint you or lift you higher and out of your funk. It can bring back warm memories so that every time we have it (or cook it), those memories are recreated. And, just as easily, it can cause us pain and suffering because of an event or person it is associated with. We may never want to eat, see, smell or even think of that food again.

I am fascinated with the effect that food can have on us. So, why not, a whole podcast season of exploring people’s relationship, good or bad, with food. What does it mean to you? What’s your favorite? What’s your guilty pleasure? What’s the worst? So…Tell Me A Food Story is going to take you on a food ride through the lives of eight different people from every walk of life. Some are in the food business, some just love food but all of them have a story to tell.

Here are the victims, er, kind folks who volunteered their time to talk to us. This is alphabetical order, we haven’t decided whose episode is whose so you’ll have to listen to ALL of them! That’s part of our evil plan to get you to listen to us!! Bwahahah….

Judy Lockhart Allen - Food Writer, Recipe Developer, Food Stylist and Food Magazine Junkie who survived and lived to tell the tale of working for Martha Stewart

Joe Breaux - Our Favorite Sommelier, Joe leads our wine tasting classes at the kitchen and is the least stuffy of any wine person we know

Mark Gibson - Musician, Singer and Songwriter and he just happened to write our podcast theme music

Roy S Johnson - Director, Content Development and Columnist at Alabama Media Group and one of my very good friends from high school, Roy has had and continues to have an impressive writing career

Shaylea Morgan - Our Favorite Kids Chef Instructor, Shaylea is helping us build our kids cooking program

Daisi Owens - Food Blogger and mother of two little boys at My Stir Crazy Kitchen and the first person who we interviewed for Season 2 of the podcast

But in our first episode, Natalia and I tell all…SURPRISE!

You’ll hear some funny and not so funny stories from experiences we’ve had and about our families’ very different food histories and approaches to food.

No secrets, here, as usual. So, hope you’re ready for Season 4…here it comes.

What's your food story?

We'd love to hear it. Share it in the comments below and more likely than not, you'll hear it in one of our episodes.

And, in case you haven't heard, we have reopened our kitchen and our hands-on classes. We are wearing masks and guessing that soon it will be mandated beyond food workers. I mean, you wear a seat belt, a helmet when you ride your bicycle or motorcycle, what's the difference?

Season 3 started off with great expectations of taking you through our favorite markets and introducing you to even more crazy stuff BUT life happens. We had to come up with a way to help you with your cooking at home needs in a different way. So, we toured our in-home pantries, we found articles to share and finally, answered every question we could find (that wasn’t answered completely) from our live cook-alongs. Yes, we pivoted right along with everyone else.

The podcast and the online cooking “classes” really kept us going and they both gained in audience and popularity so we thought cleaning up those lingering questions would be helpful. It also gives us a good excuse to share more of our pearls with you. We tackled beer added to risotto, the “cooked” temperature for chicken, where you can find ouzo (and what is ouzo), 3-stage breading and the difference between milanese and schnitzel. We even heard about the fire department showing up at one of our participant’s homes, told you about how Natalia and I met and when I made risotto for the first time.

Keep asking! We love questions! There is so much misinformation out there!! And, we LOVE to share our numerous opinions about that but you already knew that, amiright?

Once more and for the final time this season, here comes Episode 8, The Final Pivot. Listen and enjoy and send us some more questions…

We’re not quite sure what the future holds. If you do, please enlighten us. But we have reopened our kitchen and our hands-on classes, we are wearing masks and there will be a Season 4. We do know that we have been doing this podcast thing for a year and we’ll be celebrating that accomplishment. Without your help and listening, we wouldn’t still be doing it.

If you have a minute, please take a look at our Patreon page and consider becoming a member. Just click that little button below that says “Become a Patron”. It’s as easy as that to check it out and see what we’re talking about.We’ve got a lot of fun offerings for members that you won’t get to see or experience or have anywhere else.And, don’t forget, you can find us all over the place now! Wherever your favorite place is to listen to podcasts, we’re probably there, even on Alexa! We’re on Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play and of course, here, but you can take us on the road anytime you like!We love you guys. Keep listening, hang in there and we'll see you for Season 4!

Season 3 started off with great expectations of taking you through our favorite markets and introducing you to even more crazy stuff BUT life happens. We had to come up with a way to help you with your cooking at home needs in a different way. So, we toured our in-home pantries, we found articles to share and finally, answered every question we could find (that wasn’t answered completely) from our live cook-alongs. Yes, we pivoted right along with everyone else.

The podcast and the online cooking “classes” really kept us going and they both gained in audience and popularity so we thought cleaning up those lingering questions would be helpful. It also gives us a good excuse to share more of our pearls with you. We tackled beer added to risotto, the “cooked” temperature for chicken, where you can find ouzo (and what is ouzo), 3-stage breading and the difference between milanese and schnitzel. We even heard about the fire department showing up at one of our participant’s homes, told you about how Natalia and I met and when I made risotto for the first time.

Keep asking! We love questions! There is so much misinformation out there!! And, we LOVE to share our numerous opinions about that but you already knew that, amiright?

Once more and for the final time this season, here comes Episode 8, The Final Pivot. Listen and enjoy and send us some more questions…

We’re not quite sure what the future holds. If you do, please enlighten us. But we have reopened our kitchen and our hands-on classes, we are wearing masks and there will be a Season 4. We do know that we have been doing this podcast thing for a year and we’ll be celebrating that accomplishment. Without your help and listening, we wouldn’t still be doing it.

If you have a minute, please take a look at our Patreon page and consider becoming a member. Just click that little button below that says “Become a Patron”. It’s as easy as that to check it out and see what we’re talking about.We’ve got a lot of fun offerings for members that you won’t get to see or experience or have anywhere else.And, don’t forget, you can find us all over the place now! Wherever your favorite place is to listen to podcasts, we’re probably there, even on Alexa! We’re on Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play and of course, here, but you can take us on the road anytime you like!We love you guys. Keep listening, hang in there and we'll see you for Season 4!

Our intention this season was to go to market but the Universe had different plans for us.

Like so many people, we pivoted (that’s the new word now, you know), took our lemons and turned them into lemonade. We pivoted in a few ways: one was to turn the podcast marketing adventure into a pantry and home-bound one, another was to expand our catering business to shore up the gap caused by shutting down our classes and then finally, we took to Facebook and created some online cook alongs so, hopefully, you wouldn’t forget about the cooking and teaching part of our world.

When we are physically in a class, we get lots of questions. It is no different when we’re online. The difference is we don’t always have the chance to fully develop an answer to questions that come up in the Facebook Live videos. So, in this episode, you will get a lot of answers for some of the questions that didn’t seem to get a fair shake. Now, this isn’t every question but we definitely hit many high points.

If you had a question, get ready for some answers because here comes Episode 7!

Episode 8 will wrap up our third podcast season. I think it will be a wild one!

If you have a minute, please take a look at our Patreon page and consider becoming a member. And, now, we have another Patreon member, Tiffany Zachary! Thanks for joining us, Tiffany!!

We’ve got a lot of fun offerings that you won’t get to see or experience or have anywhere else.

And, don’t forget, you can find us all over the place now! Wherever your favorite place is to listen to podcasts, we’re probably there, even on Alexa! We’re on Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play and of course, here, but you can take us on the road anytime you like!

We love you guys. Keep listening and hang in there!

Our intention this season was to go to market but the Universe had different plans for us.

Like so many people, we pivoted (that’s the new word now, you know), took our lemons and turned them into lemonade. We pivoted in a few ways: one was to turn the podcast marketing adventure into a pantry and home-bound one, another was to expand our catering business to shore up the gap caused by shutting down our classes and then finally, we took to Facebook and created some online cook alongs so, hopefully, you wouldn’t forget about the cooking and teaching part of our world.

When we are physically in a class, we get lots of questions. It is no different when we’re online. The difference is we don’t always have the chance to fully develop an answer to questions that come up in the Facebook Live videos. So, in this episode, you will get a lot of answers for some of the questions that didn’t seem to get a fair shake. Now, this isn’t every question but we definitely hit many high points.

If you had a question, get ready for some answers because here comes Episode 7!

Episode 8 will wrap up our third podcast season. I think it will be a wild one!

If you have a minute, please take a look at our Patreon page and consider becoming a member. And, now, we have another Patreon member, Tiffany Zachary! Thanks for joining us, Tiffany!!

We’ve got a lot of fun offerings that you won’t get to see or experience or have anywhere else.

And, don’t forget, you can find us all over the place now! Wherever your favorite place is to listen to podcasts, we’re probably there, even on Alexa! We’re on Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play and of course, here, but you can take us on the road anytime you like!

We love you guys. Keep listening and hang in there!

Reopening is fresh on everybody’s minds from chomping at the bit to ummm, I think it’s too early, let’s wait and see. We’re falling more in the latter camp. We, of course, want to reopen (I know everyone does) but we’re trying to be prudent and professional about it.

So, the city Natalia and I live in is Tulsa. It started phasing in reopening of the city, May 1st, but Broken Arrow down the expressway about 15 minutes is where we have our business…and, well, let’s just say that in our opinion, they kinda jumped the gun. So, our official start is about 3 weeks after a lot of businesses in BA opened back up. Hoping for the best for all of the early birds but reserving judgment. Actually, we’re pretty judge-y as you probably already know if you’ve listened to us and/or our podcast at all.

So, we took this episodic opportunity to update you on a lot of things.

We have our first Patreon member, Brenda Christ! Thank you for supporting us through thick and thin. You can often see her comments at the end of our posts. You can also see “Be a Patron” down there, too. It’s a pretty fun page so click below and at least check it out. Maybe Brenda will offer her thoughts about it, too?

We also talk about reopening and what it means not just for us but for the food industry, in general, and what you can expect to find when you come back to our studio and restaurants, specifically. It’s the new normal and it will probably be that way for a long time to come.

To keep ourselves entertained because F-U-N is what we love, we have had LIVE online cook-alongs on our Facebook page. Click here (https://www.facebook.com/girlcancook/) if you’d like to take a look at some of the video. We will be continuing our online cooks even after we get back into the kitchen because we have such a blast doing them…they will become an addition to our Friday Night Date Nights.

But I’m not going to let the entire cat out of the bag. Listen to our next episode. Here comes A Brave New World, keepin’ it real, as always.

Life will never be the same after this but we’re discovering how resilient and resourceful we can all be.

If you have a minute, please take a look at our Patreon page and consider becoming a member. Just ask Brenda Christ, our very first patron and we’re very proud! We’ve got a lot of fun offerings on there that you won’t get to see or experience or have anywhere else.

And, don’t forget, you can find us all over the place now! Wherever your favorite place is to listen to podcasts, we’re probably there, even on Alexa! We’re on Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play and of course, here, but you can take us on the road anytime you like!

We love you guys. Keep listening and hang in there!

Reopening is fresh on everybody’s minds from chomping at the bit to ummm, I think it’s too early, let’s wait and see. We’re falling more in the latter camp. We, of course, want to reopen (I know everyone does) but we’re trying to be prudent and professional about it.

So, the city Natalia and I live in is Tulsa. It started phasing in reopening of the city, May 1st, but Broken Arrow down the expressway about 15 minutes is where we have our business…and, well, let’s just say that in our opinion, they kinda jumped the gun. So, our official start is about 3 weeks after a lot of businesses in BA opened back up. Hoping for the best for all of the early birds but reserving judgment. Actually, we’re pretty judge-y as you probably already know if you’ve listened to us and/or our podcast at all.

So, we took this episodic opportunity to update you on a lot of things.

We have our first Patreon member, Brenda Christ! Thank you for supporting us through thick and thin. You can often see her comments at the end of our posts. You can also see “Be a Patron” down there, too. It’s a pretty fun page so click below and at least check it out. Maybe Brenda will offer her thoughts about it, too?

We also talk about reopening and what it means not just for us but for the food industry, in general, and what you can expect to find when you come back to our studio and restaurants, specifically. It’s the new normal and it will probably be that way for a long time to come.

To keep ourselves entertained because F-U-N is what we love, we have had LIVE online cook-alongs on our Facebook page. Click here (https://www.facebook.com/girlcancook/) if you’d like to take a look at some of the video. We will be continuing our online cooks even after we get back into the kitchen because we have such a blast doing them…they will become an addition to our Friday Night Date Nights.

But I’m not going to let the entire cat out of the bag. Listen to our next episode. Here comes A Brave New World, keepin’ it real, as always.

Life will never be the same after this but we’re discovering how resilient and resourceful we can all be.

If you have a minute, please take a look at our Patreon page and consider becoming a member. Just ask Brenda Christ, our very first patron and we’re very proud! We’ve got a lot of fun offerings on there that you won’t get to see or experience or have anywhere else.

And, don’t forget, you can find us all over the place now! Wherever your favorite place is to listen to podcasts, we’re probably there, even on Alexa! We’re on Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play and of course, here, but you can take us on the road anytime you like!

We love you guys. Keep listening and hang in there!