TRACY BENJAMIN Trenton Reynoldsthis is room in the trees a podcast about making stuff and containing stuff
Sabrina Ward Harrisonand containing and feeling satisfaction We have a special guest today. It's Tracy Benjamin from Shutterbean.com, a wonderful food blogger and photographer. Room in the Trees is hosted by me, Sabrina Ward-Harrison, and Trent Reynolds. Show notes including links, videos, pictures, recipes, quotations, recipes, photos can be found at Roominthetrees.com.
Trenton ReynoldsAnd if you wouldn't mind, we could really use your help in reaching a larger audience by having you go leave us a comment and rating on iTunes. What's the weather like in Madison right now?
Sabrina Ward HarrisonIt is, it's kind of dreary, actually, which is unusual for Madison. Usually it's quite decisive weather. And it's been a little dreary and cozy lately. But it hasn't stopped me. I feel like I'm riding a Mustang through life right now.
Trenton ReynoldsA Mustang.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonA Mustang through life, yeah.
Trenton ReynoldsWell, you had a pretty successful launch yesterday, right?
Sabrina Ward HarrisonBig launch day. Yeah, Liberate opened the doors. And it was just, I mean, just the technology to really learn it all has been amazing. huge learning curve, but really satisfying and exciting to just, it all worked. Like this went to that, to that page, to that page, and all kind of came together. So thank you. And I really love the people that are signing up and just the projects they're working on and quite a few people from Untether and other true living experiences. So it's just a good, a great group of solid people. And so it's open for another. till the 7th. So, but it was an exciting day yesterday for sure. Yeah. It's gotta be
Trenton Reynoldsnerve wracking just to finally get it posted in live and just to wait for the response, right?
Sabrina Ward HarrisonYeah. And I, I, I had opened one link before announcing it and I saw an order come in, uh, cause I was going to announce it at midnight and I saw one come in. So I knew it worked. like before midnight. So I just was really good. I just turned my computer off, turned my phone off and I slept for 10 hours and just knew I just don't check anything. Just, you know, that was the smartest because you just get at that point, you're so tired and you don't want to Let's back up for a second and just be sure. Do you want to introduce yourself, Tracy?
Tracy BenjaminSure. My name is Tracy Benjamin. I am a photographer, blogger, mother. I'm a lot of things. I make magic. I've been on the internet for 12 years blogging.
And...
Tracy Benjaminyeah, I've just been working creatively for a while.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonAnd your blog is called Shutterbean?
Tracy BenjaminIt's, yeah, Shutterbean.com. And I'm on Instagram at Shutterbean. And I also have a side project called The Handwriting Club on Instagram. I love that. Yeah, because I love handwriting. And I kind of fell in love with blogging because I've... really sought out a community after I was in art school and I really missed that critiquing and not critiquing but just that exchange of information so I started posting things on Flickr when I was in a cubicle I went to art school by the way so I lived Maybe I should back everything up. I went to, let's see, I'm from San Francisco Bay Area. I went to the University of Oregon. I got my BA in photography and graphic design, and then I moved back to San Francisco. and went to the San Francisco Art Institute for a year and did the post-baccalaureate program. And then I went right into the workforce and worked in a recording studio for about five years and felt my soul slowly dying because I wasn't being creative. So I moved, started a new job in a cubicle and basically spent all of my evenings for nine years working on my blog in hopes to make something of my creativity. So it took me about nine years. I had no intention of my blog becoming a thing, but it just showed me that... practicing your creativity really pays off in the end. And using the internet as a way to be accountable to your actions is the only way to survive being on the internet.
Trenton ReynoldsOver the course of the nine years... Did you find that your work was, I'm sure the more you practice something, the better you get at it, but did it evolve or was it more that the community built up? Where was success finally found?
Tracy BenjaminSuccess has changed so much throughout the years. At first, I just wanted eyeballs, right? I wanted people to read my blog and I didn't know how to monetize it. But so I kept up this pace of putting out two new recipes a week on my blog. But then I realized that I didn't have enough time to do that. um i was doing that for a long time and uh the pace of the internet changed people digest information so fast and then all of a sudden pinterest came along and really flooded the internet with a lot of images and and people just really started blogging um after they realized that there's some money in it. So it became, the pace really changed and I had to create systems to keep up with the pace. But, like what?
Well,
Tracy Benjaminum, in my blog, I learned that I have to create a creative routine, um, So the only way that I was going to be able to meet the marks every week was to create structure in my routine. Just to let you know, I'm half right brain and half left brain. So I can make an Excel spreadsheet look amazing with fonts and everything.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonI'm obsessed with you. That's incredible. Yeah.
Tracy BenjaminSo... I realized that as a mom, my creativity was in kind of like the domestic arts, and I wanted to share that with other people because I knew that there are other people like me who take pride in their home and love making things. And so I gave myself the structure of like every Monday I write my to-do list on my blog. So I did that because for a long time I was staying up till up late Sunday night working on a recipe to post Monday. And I was really stressed out. And I thought, okay, well, okay. On Sundays, I make my to-do list. Maybe I should just share my to-do list. And so that was one aspect of my life that turned into my blog. And then on Fridays, I share a list. On Saturdays, I share my creative process throughout the week. So I take about 40 photos and upload them on my blog and share what the week looked like. And so over the years in my blog, I've just shifted my blog as my life is my work and my work is my life. And I try to make it work with me instead of trying to keep up with the pace of the Internet that I can't do because I'm a one-woman show here.
Trenton ReynoldsI think that's a fascinating idea of using... thinking about the, the internet as a tool, you know, to a tool to make you more productive or a tool of accountability structure.
Tracy BenjaminAnd yeah, it's like weight watchers, you know, I don't know if you've ever done weight watchers, but every week you have to go and get weighed and you stand on a scale in front of somebody and, um, you face that. So for me, it's like, if I don't post something on Sunday, or I'm late in it, it affects other people's day. I don't say that in like this ego way. I just mean, I know that my blog has become a way for people to experience their Sunday morning. And So I kind of, a lot of people have told me that they sit down and they read my blog on a Sunday. So I know that that's my motivation, that I have to get my work done.
Trenton ReynoldsSo that's like you imagine... That's like my weighing in. Right. You imagine their anticipation of what you're going to do and...
Tracy BenjaminI think the key to being on the internet for a long time is setting an expectation level. And I've set this expectation level that I am consistent with my work. That's how I use the internet to my advantage that way.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonIt's just so inspiring to see. It's interesting you talk about the right brain, left brain thing. because it seems like for the internet, to use the internet effectively, it's kind of a sense like you kind of have to have both muscles of the brain working.
Tracy BenjaminYeah, we have all these insights and analytics now. I think that's the hardest part is letting all that information dictate how you... operate within the app.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonSo do you look at and see how many people are... what people are drawn to or that kind of thing?
Tracy BenjaminYeah, but then I feel like we're always fighting that too with the changes in algorithms. So I try... I try to only deal, dig into the information when I'm in the right headspace for it. I think the key is to have a safe relationship with the information and not let it dictate everything because it's really not the true gospel of how things are.
Sabrina Ward Harrisonum i one of the things i resonated i think i first heard about you on the unruffled podcast and um yeah and i i remembered them talking about your sense of um finding light in your photographs and i think that's when i first saw it i'm like she looks at light and finds light
Tracy Benjaminlike i do because i think i'm i'm really drawn to to light i love that the dog just burped Thank you. I fell in love with you because of your handwriting a long time ago. I think that's the cool part of the internet is that it can bring you back to people or to people who inspire you. I bought your books when I was in art school and they really changed my life. You taught me that You can have fun with journaling, that it doesn't have to look perfect, that things are beautiful when they're messy. And I also just really loved how playful your handwriting is.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonThe uppercase and lowercase, it's just... Yeah. Yeah. it's full of spirit thank you um i wanted you guys to touch on this the whole container store this container thing is just seething at the bit here with excitement about you so you you had told
Tracy Benjaminme that trent and i have um a secret love of containers that we share yeah passion
Sabrina Ward Harrisonsatisfaction passion or something Yeah.
Trenton ReynoldsOh, satisfaction passion. That is... That felt right. Satisfaction passion.
Tracy BenjaminYeah, satisfaction. I like that. Yeah, I love containers. I think everything in a container is great. I love boxes and boxes, and I love labeling containers. So many things there are...
Sabrina Ward HarrisonWhat kind of label maker do you have?
Tracy BenjaminOkay, here's the thing. I've gone rogue and I stopped using a label maker because I feel like sometimes Tupperware needs a really bold label. label and those labels are too small so I've started to do this thing where I take like a large index card and then I write with my handwriting and like a big brush pen and then I've created this like whole fun-looking system that doesn't look like everybody else's because I didn't use a label maker and
Trenton ReynoldsHow do you put the card on the Tupperware?
Tracy BenjaminI will use the little... Okay, so the card goes inside the Tupperware, so it's safe. You can let it... Whatever you fill the Tupperware with, you can just secure it up to the index card, so it just stays there. Okay. Or you can take a little piece of clear tape and kind of tape it on the inside. That sounds fantastic. There's this Instagram account called Home Edit, and they label their stuff in a cool way. All of their stuff is very organized by rainbow colors and whatnot, but they use their handwriting to label the outside of things. Okay. So I think they started with chalk pens, white chalk pens. If you look at that account, you'll see what I mean. But I just think that everybody has their own way of labeling things. And I wanted to make a system that reflected me so that I wasn't annoyed by it. What kind of container is your favorite container? Are you into Tupperware?
Trenton ReynoldsI think like you, it sounds like I just find a tremendous amount of, I don't know, not just satisfaction, but joy, I think, in seeing things contained very... I don't know precisely.
Tracy BenjaminThere's a hashtag called things organized neatly. Oh. Yes. Oh, my God. Where am I? Things organized neatly. It's such a good hashtag.
Trenton ReynoldsI'm also looking up chalk pens. I don't think I've ever.
Tracy BenjaminI have this hashtag and this term called high straightness. Yes. and it means, you know the term high maintenance? It's borrowed from that, but it's high straightness, and I'm a person who straightens things up all the time. So I'm very high straightness. I think you're awesome. So yeah, that's how I function in this world. I am really good at straightening up a room. not so much deep cleaning.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonI love when you do like you'll do in your story. You'll do like 10 minutes where you just, I'm a big believer. Like I need literally containment around time organizing. Yeah. Yeah. Time. Yeah. Yeah. I love that.
Tracy BenjaminIf we time is a huge technique thing. to master, we have to realize how much we can do in such a little period of time. So that's where I use the accountability of the internet. I don't know if you know this, Trent, but on my Instagram stories, I'll be like, okay, 20 minutes to clean this room. I'll be back in 20 minutes. Okay. and I know that there's a timestamp on my Instagram story, so that is, like, the ultimate motivation to get something done in 10 minutes. So it's this, like, huge... release, you know, it's a huge motivator when I can get everything done in that short period of time. So P and people love a good before and after story. And, and the best part is that people tag me all the time in there. Okay, I want to set a 20 minute timer. And I get to see how they transform their lives. just by borrowing a timer technique, you know?
Trenton ReynoldsTracy, did part of this come out of, was this born out of necessity? Just as time became more scarce, you were working a day job and just had a limited amount of time. And then you had kids somewhere, somewhere along the way. And I'm sure other aspects of your life required you to, I mean, just took away all your extra time. So you only had a little bit of time to be creative with.
Tracy BenjaminAs a mom, you have to kind of fight for your time. So I made my blog into a creative project that I had to do. So when I started making money from it, it was also like, okay, well, I'm This isn't just I'm playing around. I should take it seriously. And so as my blog grew over the years, I think my husband started to understand that my passion project is really something that I should be focused on. So, yeah. It took nine years of doing bookkeeping and working in a job that I didn't want to figure out, to grow my audience and then figure out how to make sacrifices in my life to make my creative work. project turn into something a bit bigger something that i could make money from and live off of
Trenton Reynoldswhat was what was the first thing that started that you made money with or how did you monetize
Tracy Benjaminat the beginning um i first started with getting at uh an ad network i had food buzz and i got at I put two sidebar ads on my website, and I remember the first month I made $50. And it was really exciting. So I just started working harder on that. And for a while, while I was working, any money that I made from my blog was uh, was play money. And then I started putting that money into the blog. And then, um, then I started figuring out how to get rid of my paycheck and make everything work. So the interesting part is that it really forced me to be creative because I have like four to five different avenues of making money to make up that one paycheck I had in the bookkeeping world.
Trenton ReynoldsAnd is that overwhelming to try to keep track of all these different streams of income? Is that just part of the game?
Tracy BenjaminIt's part of the game. I think what's hard is putting energy into... learning new technology because it keeps changing all the time. So, and then trends change. So for once Pinterest came on, the horizontal image died on blogs and everything had to be vertical because it takes more space up. So there are a lot of these little things that needed to be adjusted throughout the years. And yeah, working on your social media game. I mean, I never knew any about any of that stuff when I first started.
Trenton ReynoldsIt's a lot. Sabrina, do you feel like you're on top of the technology now, or does it still feel like overwhelming to think of all the stuff that you've could know or need to know.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonYeah, that's a part where you just have to kind of, yeah, you have to be gentle with yourself on thinking when you start thinking, well, I could be monetizing this somehow and you're just sort of as far along as you are. And so for me learning this year, spending time to learn Kajabi, this platform for online courses has been a huge undertaking, but I really am like through trial and error, but the possibilities are huge for what that... what that can be to understand it. But yeah, I think it's knowing you're just where you're supposed to be at, you know, and you're just... But there are endless, you can sort of see endless. What I've tried to do, because my brain can't juggle lots of different things. And that's where I think... for me going from doing a lot of workshops a year to just going, I can't, I can do maybe one or two signature, you know, in person ones a year. And I had to find a way to translate that into something I could reach everybody that wants to be reached on a platform through online. So my goal was to find a way to just, but I thought, how do I, how could I translate this, the true living experience and liberation through, um, I mean, not the course liberation, but just the feeling of liberation through the internet. And that has been kind of fascinating to try to create that feeling for people.
Trenton ReynoldsTracy, do you feel like you've found the extent to which technology is going to work for you and you're just refining it from here on out? Or do you feel like there's lots of untapped potential that you still are looking for?
Tracy BenjaminThere's definitely a lot of untapped potential. It's just trying to figure out what I want to put my energy into. What really interests me now is more of the in-person workshops. Mostly because I've been so disconnected with my readers that it's so nice to be able to meet somebody who knows what my work is all about and wants to learn. And I don't know, I think you can only hide behind a computer for so long, you know, and yeah. And it's really great to see and have those personal connections because it can be really lonely when you're working for yourself. So eventually I would like to make an online course. I just don't know if I'm there yet. I'm still learning. Yeah. All of that stuff.
Trenton ReynoldsI think it's interesting that you mentioned missing the community of art school, and I think that's definitely something that's motivated me and just missing the kind of conversation that can happen around art and creativity. And some of that can happen online. Some of that can happen online. you know, listening to other people talk about it and podcasts and whatever. But I think a huge part of that, for me at least, was the in-person, like, occupying the same space as other people and seeing what they were doing and being inspired by other people and, like, having the conversation actually in person. Yeah. That can't be completely... you know, fulfilled or taken over by stuff online.
Tracy BenjaminWell, and then there's also certain conversations that if you read it from somebody or if you wrote it to somebody, you didn't really understand the big impact that you have in somebody's life.
Um,
Tracy BenjaminYou don't really get the gravity of that until you look in somebody's eyes and they say, you know, like, because of you, I do this or your mother's recipes lives on in my house, you know. Those things are really special and they'll... it's good to be able to face those things in person because everybody wins.
Trenton ReynoldsI wonder if there's not some other kind of in-person meeting format. I'm thinking about like as the, what is it called? The, pyramid schemes, like the different marketing techniques of having like events at your house of selling stuff. I don't know. This is not a world that I'm part of, but you know, that kind of gathering was born from a need of a certain, you know, kind of organization. And I just think that maybe out of this new way of connecting online or all the different kinds of connecting online, there might be born, I don't know, new kinds of meeting in person, you know, new formats.
Tracy BenjaminOh, my God. They have all those influencer forums. Young kids go to all these influencer events, you know, people who have millions of followers on Instagram, and then they get to meet their YouTube heroes and that kind of stuff. That's a whole other... That's a way that people connect, but... I don't, I don't like, I don't like crowds to be honest. I really don't. No.
Trenton ReynoldsI wonder if it couldn't happen like at a smaller scale though, if it's not just, I'm just thinking out.
Tracy BenjaminNo, I, I created this food journal a couple months ago. And one of the reasons why I created this, cause I've always really wanted to have a book signing, but I, you have to go and get,
make a book.
Tracy BenjaminAnd I, I'm trying to figure out how to combine those two elements of making a little book signing with my food journal so I can meet people and sign their food journal. So it's that artistic, artistic, it's that creativity of like flipping what we think of a book signing on its head and doing it in a different way. Like, okay, you can get to the same result from a different path.
Yeah.
Tracy BenjaminAnd that is what I'm most curious with now is like how I can use my influence for good and make it work for me in those ways.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonI was curious because Trent has children also. When you talked about your son, we met up in Berkeley when I was back there. It was really great. We went to my favorite Italian restaurant from years ago. And you talked about something you did with your son that I thought was For us highly sensitive people, this was really a cool thing.
Tracy BenjaminOh, so my son was in occupational therapy for a bit because when he was young and still now, he's 10 years old, he's a toe walker. And I couldn't figure out why he was walking on his toes anymore. We talked to specialists. We went through a bunch of different things, and we realized through occupational therapy that he has something that's called sensory processing disorder. And when I read all about it, it was like, oh, my God, I have it too. So when my son is at, the reason why he will walk on his toes at times is when he is in a state of over-arousal, The being on his tiptoes helps him feel grounded. So because it's one of the senses that he can focus on the most in that moment. When you have sensory processing disorder, you experience all of your senses at once. So the world can be very chaotic. It's like the volume is turned up. You see everything and it's very distracting. So we learned about the zones of regulation, which is a, feelings are associated with colors. I learned that through occupational therapy, and that's really helped us. So red means anger. Did I tell you about this, Sabrina? No. Is this what you were talking about?
Oh.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonThis is what the toe-walking thing was. Yeah.
Tracy BenjaminSo if you... If you have children, the zones of regulation are really helpful because you can tell your children, you can have a conversation with them about what they're feeling and associate it with a color. So red is like anger. That's when you need to stop. Yellow is when you're anxious and kind of agitated or you're angry. antsy. Green is you're good and blue is when you're tired and sleepy. So we learned all about that in occupational therapy. And then when my son is on his toes now as a 10-year-old, I give him just a little bit of... I give him like a little nod that he needs to ground himself when he is on his tiptoes. And so when that happens, I remind him to put his heels on the ground. And I say, ground yourself into the earth. Or if, because if he's not, he's like, uh... You know those at car dealerships, those inflatable men that wave all around? That's totally my son's spirit animal. His spirit animal is like a balloon.
So...
Tracy BenjaminI have to kind of remind him to stay grounded on this earth. Yeah, I just love that. As a parent, you have to figure out how to get through people. So if my mom had said, you know, ground yourself to me, or if she just gave me like a word that instead of going off into this whole diatribe, I just need like a little nudge. It would have been really helpful. So I do that with my son and I know that it helps.
Trenton ReynoldsI think that's one of the most challenging and I don't know, things about being a parent is that each kid has their own way of interacting with the world and their own need and their own, I don't know, types of communication that they respond to more than others.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonThere isn't one size fits all.
Trenton ReynoldsNot at all. Each of my daughters is just completely different. And what will work well for one just will not touch another, you know, like just... You know, you've got to find and come to each individual person on their own terms. Yeah. You know, it's hard to connect.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonThat's got to be brain bending.
Trenton ReynoldsFinding those like visualizations or metaphors or phrases that help them make sense of what they're experiencing. Like, it's kind of beautiful the way that you've been able to find that.
Tracy Benjaminway to help him make sense there's that quote of uh be um the grown-up you needed when you were a child or be the person that you needed when you were a child and i really um have you ever done the infj thing i would not the inf the myers-briggs i'm an infj in the myers-briggs have you ever done myers-briggs testing to see what your personality type is. My personality type is an advocate. And so I can't help but advocate for my child. So he's kind of stuck with that, unfortunately. but, um, he's lucky. Yeah, he is lucky. And he's also a little spoiled by it. He's an only child. So he thinks that everybody, um, we'll ask him if he's okay.
He,
Tracy Benjaminyeah, he gets really mad when he's like, I got hurt and nobody asked me if I was okay. And it's like, yeah, well, you don't have your parents around you all the time. Uh, Hate to break it to you, buddy. Yeah, you got to do what you got to do. It's tough work. Being a parent really is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life.
Trenton ReynoldsTell me about the immersion hand blender. There's... and how you feel about immersion blenders.
Tracy BenjaminIt's a game changer. How is it a game changer? Well, let me tell you, if you're a klutz like I am, you cannot be trusted with putting a soup in a blender to blend it up. So basically an immersion blender is like bringing the blender into your soup pot, and you don't get burned, and you can blend it all right in that container and not have to dirty up a whole blender.
Trenton ReynoldsIs that its primary use is to blend soups?
Tracy BenjaminYeah, soup puring. Sometimes I'll do whipped cream with it. If you get one that has an attachment, that will work. You can make breadcrumbs with it. You can make smoothies. You can make salad dressings. It's great. That's how I make Caesar salad.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonWhat's your go-to salad dressing with making salad dressing? Just a good, like, I want a lemony, a lemony bright dressing. Okay.
Tracy BenjaminMy dad makes his own red wine vinegar, which is really good. And so in my family, our salad is more on like the vinegar end. But my mom, her salad dressing is, can be made and I make it all the time. It can be made with like a champagne vinaigrette vinegar or like an apple cider vinegar, but there's one clove of garlic and a scoop of Dijon mustard. And then it's a vinegar and olive oil situation with salt and pepper. It's so good. I keep it in the refrigerator. And if I don't use it up for a salad, I'll end up putting it in like, I'll mash up some potatoes and make a potato salad with it. Super good. But if you like lemony dressings, then I just lemon, if you squeeze some lemon in the bowl that you're making a salad dressing, and then you put olive oil in it and kind of mix it up a little bit, dump your salad on top of that and then massage the dressing into the leaves. It's great with arugula. Super good. Yeah. And then I would take it a step further and take like a vegetable peeler and shave off like Parmesan cheese.
Okay.
Tracy BenjaminI'd add something crunchy like sunflower seeds. I make an arugula avocado and apple salad, because you get the creaminess from the avocado and the bite from the arugula, and then that apple sweet crunch is good. I would do that with a lemon dressing.
Oh, my gosh.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonNow, I see you have Instapot on there, right? Instapot something, right?
Tracy BenjaminYeah. I bought one of those. Yeah, I love the Instapot. I call it my hard-boiled egg maker. It's usually what I use it for. I do hard-boiled eggs every week with my meal prep, speaking of containers. That's things organized neatly. Okay. I do hard-boiled eggs. I do five minutes manual high pressure, and then I do manual release steam and then pull the eggs out and put them in, like, ice. I, in your Instant Pot, there is that little tray thing for eggs. Yeah.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonI made them in there and they were the best ever. Yeah, right?
Tracy BenjaminAnd the shell peels off like no problem. And they're soft and warm and lovely. I started making black beans in there. It's great because if you make, black beans are so cheap if you get the actual bean. Yeah. and you can get them at Trader Joe's, like a bag of black beans for $1.99, and that thing will last you like a whole week. You can take the beans and make eggs in the morning and put them on the beans. You can make burritos. You can make burrito bowls, so many different things.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonHow do you make them in a, not to be like deep dive, I'm just curious one last thing is how do you make those?
Tracy BenjaminOkay. I'm still learning my technique, but it's, the great thing about cooking beans in an instant pot is that you don't have to do any soaking. So I cooked it at, I think about 55 minutes high pressure and, manual. And then what happens is you just let it, this, it steam off naturally. So after about an hour of cooking, I just let it sit for like another hour. And then you can open it up and there'll be a little liquid left in the beans. You can drain it out or not, but they're perfect.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonHow much water did you, what's the water ratio?
Tracy BenjaminUm, What did I do? I think I filled it, so...
I'll have to look.
Tracy BenjaminI'll put a recipe... I'll give you a little recipe that you can put in the show notes. Okay. I think it was like a three-to-one ratio. Don't quote me. I also make applesauce with it, with my American blender.
Um... Yeah.
Trenton ReynoldsDo you put the immersion blender in the instant pot after you're done?
Tracy BenjaminAfter you-- Do you transfer that? No, I just do it in the instant pot and then I transfer it to whatever. Genius. My favorite container is a Pyrex dish. That's like my drug of choice. With a top? Yeah. Like the plastic top? No. The Pyrex are glass, which are great because you can microwave them. I always feel really freaked out by being anything that's plastic.
Yeah.
Tracy BenjaminUm, and they're pretty sturdy. I haven't really had a Pyrex dish break on me ever, which now I'm sure it will happen that I said that, but, um, yeah, Pyrex is great. My, I have some of my mom's and they last for a long time and you can get new, um, new lids for them on Amazon. So if you have mismatched lids or if like red ones drive you crazy and you really want white ones, you can buy them on Amazon. I didn't know that. Are they Pyrex brand tops? Yeah, Pyrex USA. I think there might be an aftermarket for Pyrex lids too.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonYou've talked about your strategies for unloading a dishwasher quickly.
Trenton ReynoldsOh, it's all about how, how you load. Yeah. Yeah. If you, if you put all, uh, all the plates and if you're, you know, you got kid plates, you got to line those up just right. And how,
Tracy Benjaminwhat is your, how do you feel about forks up or down?
Yeah.
Trenton ReynoldsI do forks up I do pretty much everything up
Sabrina Ward Harrisoneven knives that's so dangerous
Trenton ReynoldsI know I gotta do it though say you put a knife in down And then for some reason, like a kernel of rice gets stuck to it when it's at the point of contact.
Tracy BenjaminYou mean like the peanut butter? Peanut butter, yeah. Or yeah, peanut butter.
Trenton ReynoldsAny point of contact.
Tracy BenjaminYeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Trenton ReynoldsSo knives, I actually have to go over them once with a sponge before I put them in the dishwasher because I don't like that mysterious.
Tracy BenjaminMy son's job is emptying the dishwasher, which is good, but sometimes he gets so distracted and I don't know where anything is anymore. Yeah. But yeah, the way that I do it, a good strategy if you want, you have to empty the dishwasher and you don't want to, is to give yourself a timer. And I will do it in a song. So I will put on Spotify and I'll say, okay, you have till the end of this song.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonIt's not stairway to heaven.
Tracy BenjaminYou have the end of the song to empty the dishwasher. Because it doesn't take more than two minutes usually, right? Maybe three. It just feels like it takes half a lifetime. So if I give the time, like the song timer to my kid, he'll do it so fast. He likes beating the time.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonWe have on our list also, we were going to talk a little bit about artist fuel.
Tracy BenjaminOh, yeah. It's interesting what we all eat and how we nourish ourselves when we're in the zone. How do you take care of your body? Okay.
Sabrina Ward Harrisonand your mind my yeah I'm I'm really into taking care of my body and my mind and I take it really seriously and I think nothing anything I've done this year is um is all because I've taken that extremely seriously my health and my my mindset and
Yeah.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonAnd so protein is... I take protein very seriously right now. You know, the chicken... How are you getting... Chicken and sweet potatoes. Very serious. How are you getting your protein? I'd always been kind of an anti-thinking egg whites was anything worthwhile to ever give a try to, but I've actually really liked... egg whites with scrambled in turkey and some feta cheese with some salsa and starting my morning off like that. I've discovered farro, the grain the ancient grain farro which I love the nubbly consistency of. It just is like, it's bigger than rice, bigger than quinoa, but satiating. It's very satiating. It's so good. It's great with some, it doesn't get soggy either. It's great with ground turkey and some feta. And I just, for me, I get hungry. I get, I often get, and I, and I live alone. So I like just having, I really like having control of what I'm eating. I'm someone who, if there's just like cookies and chocolate and stuff around, I'll eat it. You know, I like sugar. Sugar and me don't go. I can't moderate myself. So sugar, I mean, I don't have caffeine. I don't have alcohol. And I don't have sugar in my life. So that just. That's great. It's beneficial.
Tracy BenjaminI have a lot of coffee in my life. I tend to starve myself when I'm really manic and working. And sometimes I use food as the motivation for my break. Yeah. Which is... is good and bad, but I'm also a protein junkie too. What are your faves? I love... I have learned about myself that if I have a substantial breakfast in the morning, I'm good for a longer period of time. So I like to have... I go through phases. So I will eat something until I'm sick of it. Like what? Yeah. So that's usually like a two to three month cycle of eating the same thing and then wearing it out so much I don't want to eat it again. So right now it's...
I like...
Tracy Benjaminum rice cakes the london londenberg white they're wild rice cakes and i yeah yeah you know um i take that with chunky peanut butter and i put a like yeah uh I put that on two of them, not too much peanut butter. And then I put a little bit of apricot jam.
Yeah.
Tracy BenjaminI put a little apricot jam on it and it's just, it's good. And I like it with coffee. so, and I like crunch. Crunch makes me feel happy when I'm eating. So, um, that's super crunchy.
Trenton ReynoldsYeah. You got the, you get the crunchy peanut butter and the rice cake. That's fantastic.
Tracy BenjaminYeah. I don't like drinking my food, so I'm not really a smoothie person. I'd rather eat it.
Trenton ReynoldsI'd rather eat my calories and drink it. Um, Tracy, do you, you have, uh, Do you have a saying? I know on your website you do.
A saying?
Trenton ReynoldsQuotes. Do you have some for us?
Tracy BenjaminYeah, life requires maintenance. You have to maintain it. It's like a car. So the dishes don't do themselves, so you got to do them. Amen. The laundry doesn't do them itself yet.
Gotta do it.
Trenton ReynoldsWell, and I think the same way, I, I think it's inspiring, inspiring what you've built through your site and with your community. My wife and I have been talking a lot about like, she's, she's at a similar, like a similar place to where I imagine you were a while back. And that is like, just, has a need for creativity and wants to make something but doesn't quite know how to get there. And I think it's inspiring to me that you were able to find ways to keep yourself accountable, find structures and ways to, you know, like you were just saying, the, you know, life doesn't live itself, you know, or dishes don't wash themselves. Like your creative life. Yeah. Creativity does not just happen. Like you've got to actually figure out ways to do it. Right.
Tracy BenjaminYeah. It doesn't happen unless you do it.
Yep. Yeah.
Tracy Benjaminreally, you can't just sit there and wait for it to happen to you.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonAnd Tracy, you have something special coming up in Santa Fe.
Tracy BenjaminOh, yeah. I'm teaching a food photography and food styling workshop in Santa Fe at the end of the month, at the Santa Fe photography workshop. So it should be great. I'm really excited.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonFood styling. What does that include?
Tracy BenjaminOh, I'm going to show my students. Do you know Felix the cat? Do you remember Felix the cat? I do. His bag of tricks. I'm basically going to show people my bag of tricks. I have my food styling kit, and I'm going to show them how to MacGyver their way in and out of food styling situations. So a lot of spritz bottles and tweezers. What's an example?
Sabrina Ward HarrisonWhat would be? Oh, yeah. What are you saying? Yeah.
Tracy BenjaminOh, like tweezers and spritzing bottles and like museum putty and using like erasers as little props and clamps and all that kind of stuff. Oh, that's cool. All the tools. Yeah, I'm excited.
Trenton ReynoldsWhat would you find yourself tweezing on a normal food styling?
Tracy BenjaminWell, like if you want to – okay, so I usually like to use my hands with everything. But sometimes your hands could totally wreck a scene if you're not careful. Okay. So I would use tweezers to kind of like go in and get something that's out of that shouldn't be in the shot, like a crumb or to try to like try to tweak a mint leaf or so anything that you have really delicate, you need delicate touch with. That's what you need a tweezer for. Or else I could take my big giant hand and knock over like a whole burger doing one thing.
Trenton ReynoldsWill you be sharing any of that online or is that just an in-person thing only?
Tracy BenjaminRight now it's in person. I would love to share it online. I just need to figure out the whole video aspect of what I'm doing. Like we were saying, it's the technology.
Trenton ReynoldsVideo's a big undertaking.
Tracy BenjaminIt is. I've tried to do some of the stuff on my own, and I just don't know if I'm a really good editor. It takes a lot of time.
Trenton ReynoldsWell, it seems like what you're doing would be especially well-suited to video. I mean, it's so visual.
Yeah. Yeah.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonThat'd be awesome. Definitely. And I can help point you out anything about Kajabi and hook you up with someone I know who teaches it really well.
Tracy BenjaminOoh, please, please, please.
Trenton ReynoldsThank you. One final question for you, Tracy. Marble slab. Why do I need to get a marble slab?
Tracy BenjaminYou don't need a marble slab. Did I say, is that on my thing?
Oh.
Trenton ReynoldsThat's on the shopping list.
Tracy BenjaminIt's in my shopping list. Well, a lot of people will ask me where I got stuff. That's one of the things about having a food blog is that people would be like, where's your bowl from?
Where is...
Tracy BenjaminWhere is your napkin from? Where do I get this? So the marble slab is one of my photography props. So if you want to fake like you have a really nice marble top for your kitchen counter, maybe you have like formica or linoleum and you want to take good food photos. If you buy yourself a marble slab, then you can fake a whole different life. Do you know what I was saying?
Trenton ReynoldsI see. Okay. I thought, well, I was hoping you were going to convince me that there was some
Tracy BenjaminOh, but if you are a baker, a marble slab is really good because it stays cold. So if you're working with butters and you're anything that's buttery, like, um, croissant dough or pie crusts, if you have a cool surface to work on, then your dough won't get ruined. There is another reason why you need a marble slab. For scones. Yeah.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonMy dad cooks scones and uses it for scones. Yeah. I love scones. I do too.
It was so good.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonWell, it's so fun having you on, Tracy. Thank you for having me. Yeah, it was great. I really appreciate it.
Trenton ReynoldsIt was great to meet you. Yeah.
You too.
Trenton ReynoldsThank you, Tracy, for giving us some time. That was awesome.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonAnd for those of you interested in signing up for Liberate, the doors are open for another four or five days. They close on May 7th. You can go to truelivingexperience.info and there will be all the information there. I'd love to have you.
Trenton ReynoldsAnd now go eat some protein. Exactly. Get yourself started.
Sabrina Ward Harrison♪ ♪