Jackie Sun has been one of the greatest blessings to Cook Smarts. She was the first person I hired and took me from a one-woman show to a two-woman show. Not only has she proved herself to be an integral part of the team, but she is such a gentle, caring soul and has made me a better person over the years we’ve worked together.    In today’s episode, we’re getting to know this multi-talented lady and also taking a walk down memory lane. I cannot believe that Jackie has been working with me...

We’re on a little summer break, so I’m introducing you to another one of our Cook Smarts team members!   If every company had a Sarah Byun on the team, companies would have many, many more happy customers. Sarah started off as a Cook Smarts customer in 2014 and then joined our team as our Kitchen Happiness Cheerleader in the spring of 2015. Since then, she has helped countless customers get their questions answered, concerns addressed, typos on their emails fixed, always with the most...

We’re on a little summer break, so we’re rerunning one of my favorite episodes!   One of the best things that’s happened to Cook Smarts is bringing on a dedicated meal plan developer. Jess Smith joined the team in the spring of 2015, all the way from Thailand and has taken our recipe development process and the quality of our meals to a whole other level.   In today’s episode, we’re getting to know this multi-talented lady and also giving you a behind the scenes of our small little...

For the full set of links from today’s episode, head to the show notes at www.cooksmarts.com/podcast/33   In today’s episode, I’m covering the five main flavor profiles: salty / umami, sweet, sour, bitter, and spice. Most of us are just following recipes when we’re in the kitchen but if you develop an understanding of flavor and how it’s created using a wide variety of ingredients, you’ll be free to go off-roading and become much more confident tinkering with recipes (or even creating your...

In today’s podcast episode, we are bringing in teacher extraordinaire Katie Kimball to give us a few cooking and parenting lessons. Katie is an advocate for healthy kids cooking, a blogger, former teacher and the founder of the Kids Cook Real Food eCourse. Her blog, Kitchen Stewardship helps families stay healthy without going crazy, and she’s on a mission to connect families around healthy food and teach every child in America to cook.   We are actually going through Katie’s course right...

In today’s podcast episode, we’re checking in with another one of our all-star community members Lauren Davis. Lauren lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and is the mom to 4 year old Gavin. Her husband is immunocompromised so she has been extra diligent about staying away from the grocery stores and this definitely requires some next level planning.   In addition to the adjustments required for the pandemic, her family has also moved in with her parents, which is introducing another element...

In today’s podcast episode, we’re checking in with one of our favorite community members Gabrielle Smith. Gabrielle lives in Fort Worth Texas with her husband and her 7 year old son and 4 year old daughter. While she works as an attorney, she could just as easily be a professional meal planner and prepper.   Gabrielle has been one of our most active Facebook members. She so generously offers tips and suggestions when others need it and routinely shares not only photos of her meals but the...

* G I V E A W A Y*  Our podcast turned 1, and we are doing a little $50 Amazon gift card birthday giveaway. Leave us a review on Apple Podcast, snap a screenshot of your review and text it to 650-386-0290. It has to be a new review dated after April 22nd. If you’ve already left a review in the past but still want to enter the giveaway, you can leave your review as a voice message at the same number, and we might just play it on a future episode. At the end of the month, I’ll select 1 winner...

To celebrate our podcast’s first birthday, we are doing a giveaway for a $50 Amazon gift card.   All you need to do is leave a review on Apple Podcast. Snap a screenshot of your review and text it to 650-386-0290. It has to be a new review dated after April 22nd.   So If you’ve already left a review in the past or are not an Apple person but still want to enter the giveaway, you can leave your review as a voice message at the same number 650-386-0290 and we might just play it on a future...

We are rerunning episode 8 because like everyone in the world, our schedule got a little thrown off by the coronavirus. Since Earth Day was yesterday, we thought it was the perfect time to replay one of our most popular episodes from season 1. Plus, 2 new special guests appear in the intro!   In this podcast episode, I’m sharing how I’m trying to create a greener kitchen and reduce the amount of waste, especially plastic waste, that my family produces and tosses.    Ever since having kids...

In our latest podcast episode, I invited Jenny Best Founder of Solid Starts to talk all about baby led weaning, the process of transitioning a baby to solid foods using a finger food first approach. Jenny is the mom of 3, including a set of twins, and Solid Starts grew out of her own challenges of introducing solids to her little babes. From fears of choking to lack of information around what foods are best for babies, she started documenting all of it herself.   Now Solid Starts features...

For our 27th episode, I have a real treat, at least it was a real treat for me because I got to talk about one of my favorite topics of all time -- kitchen organization -- with Sam Pregenzer the Founder of SO | Home a residential professional organizing company based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She’s a mom of 3 kids and her specialty is creating organizing solutions and systems for families, because it is so easy to just feel like you’re drowning in stuff when you start having kids. She’s...

Our lives are so busy these days, and so often lived virtually, that we’ve lost this beautiful tradition of gathering friends around the dinner table. To help me revive this practice, I’ve invited Anna Watson Carl, an expert dinner party thrower onto our podcast today.   Anna is a cook and writer, and the author of “The Yellow Table: A Celebration of Everyday Gatherings.” Her writing has appeared in Food & Wine, Travel+Leisure, and Tasting Table just to name a few. A former private...

For those of you who have been following my personal Instagram account @jessdangcs, you’ll know 2 things: 1) I am terrible at posting on Instagram and; 2) I love my air-fryer. Probably every 3rd post is something I made in this amazing machine because it’s the 1 appliance I probably use every single day.   I know that there are quite a few of you who got air-fryers over the holidays, and I want to make sure you take full advantage of this incredibly useful appliance, so in today’s episode,...

We’re rerunning episode #5 with some great updates! In this podcast episode, I’m tackling a big emotional topic for a lot of parents -- how to help your picky eaters become more curious, adventurous eaters.   Just about every kid goes through some phase (or multiple phases) of picky eating, and it can be a super frustrating and challenging time for parents. Using my own personal experience as a mom combined with everything I’ve read on this topic, we’ll discuss a wide variety of strategies...

Hi friends, this isn’t an episode but a little podcast community announcement. So being a cooking instructor and running a meal plan service for the last 7 years, I’ve watched a lot of people try to get dinner on the table over the years, and there’s no question that the members who have a system for prepping ahead experience a lot less weeknight stress. And as our commitment to you, our community, and home-cooking, we’re gonna help you develop a meal prep habit!  Now here are the main...

Today we are interviewing Ms. Erin Romeo, nutrition coach, expert meal planner and food prep specialist from Ontario, Canada. She’s known on Instagram as the @foodprepprincess, and that’s also where she shares her tips and tricks for healthy eating through meal prepping. Last fall, she published her first cookbook “The Visual Guide to Meal Prep,” full of easy meal prep recipes and her 5 step fool-proof plan for getting started with meal prep. She has also been featured on Shape.com,...

I have such a treat for you all today and it is completely unrelated to cooking, but it might just become your favorite Cook Smarts podcast episode. I’m excited to share another part of our origin story today -- there would be no Cook Smarts meal plan service without the talents and persistence of Jen Gilbert, who helped me build our meal plan service back in 2013.   Jen and I met in the fall of 2012 at a Railsbridge workshop. We had both just turned 30 and made huge career changes. She...

Hi friends, this isn’t an episode but two short community announcements about our sale and giveaway. First, I wanted to make sure you knew were are in the middle of our big New Year’s sale. 2020 is the year where I want to help you do more by doing less. If you’re not using our meal plan service already, free yourself of tedious mental labor with a meal plan subscription. It’ll be the best money you spend all year because it’ll save you time and money and free you from so much stress and...

Because we’re more likely to break our New Year’s resolutions by February than keep them for the year, this episode is dedicated to a fail-safe plan for resolutions that aren’t some short-term whim, but a real long-lasting habit. As you know, I’m all about systems and whether you make resolutions or not, this episode will provide you with incredibly useful tips on developing a system to help implement whatever change you’re looking to make in 2020 (and beyond). You can apply these tips not...

I wanted to just pop into your feed today with a little Thanksgiving reflection, thank you note and request! Our biggest sale of the year is on right now. Enjoy 30% off everything with code THANKS19 https://www.cooksmarts.com/weekly-meal-planner/sale Want to be a super supporter of the show and home cooking? Please tell a friend about our podcast and leave us a review on Apple Podcast (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/in-the-kitchen-with-cook-smarts/id1454754429?mt=2) . If we share...

Can you believe that the holidays are just around the corner? I’ll be hosting Thanksgiving this year and am excited to be in menu planning mode. I know cooking a big holiday meal can feel quite intimidating, especially if you don’t have a lot of experience entertaining. So as someone who’s planned and cooked a lot of big meals for friends and family and clients during my catering days, I wanted to pass on celebratory meal planning system. With the right kind of planning and organization,...

NEW: If you’ve got questions you want us to answer in a future episode, comments about a previous episode, or just want to say hi and share some love, give us a call at 1-650-386-0290 and leave us a voicemail. You might just hear your voice on the podcast!   Most of us don’t have a pantry stocking system or plan. We simply stock it as we go, based on the recipes we’re cooking. This means that our pantries can become a graveyard of long-forgotten, expired ingredients that were used once and...

Today we’re rerunning the first episode we launched this podcast with -- enjoy!   So many new parents tell me that figuring out what to feed themselves is one of their biggest parenting challenges. They wished they had figured out a meal planning routine earlier and not while dealing with all the other demands that come with being a new parent, so that’s what we’ll cover in this first episode!   In today’s podcast, I’ll walk you through my 4-step game plan for getting a cooking system in...