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Topics:
1. Introducing our guest, Juli Bauer [2:30]
2. Juli’s intro to paleo [7:21]
3. Juli as a competitive athlete [13:08]
4. Collaborating with George Bryant [21:54]
5. The process of creating recipes [24:18]
6. Juli’s thoughts on the controversy of paleo treats [28:48]
7. Juli’s kitchen tips and tricks [37:10]
8. Juli’s favorite recipe [41:32]
9. Juli’s advice for newbie food bloggers [43:20]
10. Rapid fire questions for Juli [52:03]
Links:
Jimmy Kimmel – Mean Tweets
The Paleo Kitchen
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Liz Wolfe: Hey everyone! Welcome to episode 143 of the Balanced Bites podcast. It’s me, Liz, and I’m here with a super special guest, who I will introduce just momentarily. Y’all are going to be super excited, it’s going to be amazing. It’s going to be amazing! First, I will give a little word about our sponsors. Pete’s Paleo, bringing fine dining to your cave. If you’d like to make eating paleo a little easier on yourself, check out Pete’s meal plans. The meals are great for those nights when you’re on the run, out of time, and need real food fast. Also, we’ve made the exciting announcement that Pete’s Paleo is now offering 21-Day Sugar Detox friendly meals, which is amazing! Because it will make life that much easier on the 21-Day Sugar Detox. Check out Petespaleo.com for all the details on the new 21DSD and special diet-friendly meals. Up next, Chameleon Cold-Brew, which is our favorite organic, fair trade, smooth and rich cold-brewed coffee. It’s amazing. Its available at lots of grocery stores nationwide. Check their website for a store locator, and of course, stay tuned for online ordering to come back. And finally, our newest sponsor, Rickaroons. These delicious macaroons are made of high quality ingredients, like coconut, dark chocolate, cacao nibs, and almond butter. They taste amazing. They are perfect to keep on hand when you’re on the go and need a quick bite, or for a great post workout snack. Check them out at Rickaroons.com, and get 15% off your order with the code podcast. Cool!
1. Introducing our guest, Juli Bauer [2:30]
So I’m going to skip the updates and all that so we can spend as much time as possible with our guest. Juli Bauer of PaleOMG.com. She is a total mover, shaker, just hilarious part of the paleo movement, and she’s collaborated on a new book with George Bryant of Civilized Caveman Cooking that you absolutely must check out. It’s called The Paleo Kitchen. It’s gorgeous! It’s got just a whole mess of amazing recipes. I would have expected nothing less from these two. I’ve got mine right in front of me. It’s gorgeous. In fact, I made their grain-free biscuits and gravy just the other day, and they were a huge hit. I’m going to talk about Juli’s story and we’ll talk about The Paleo Kitchen, we’ll talk about things like paleo treats, and we’ll do some rapid fire questions at the end, which is sure to be super duper fun. Juli, welcome to the Balanced Bites podcast!
Juli Bauer: Thank you so much for having me!
Liz Wolfe: Duh. Well, welcome back, I guess. You’ve been on once before, yes?
Juli Bauer: I think so. I don’t really know at this point. But, it’s been a couple of years, I think.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah, I don’t make a point to remember much beyond the previous 3 hours of my life. That’s what’s most relevant, I think.
Juli Bauer: Exactly. I have no memory whatsoever, so anything I did 3 days ago is gone.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. Done. It was important at the time; now.
Juli Bauer: Yeah. Who cares.
Liz Wolfe: No big deal. So, I have to ask you a really important question that came up while I was reading the sponsor thing, and I don’t want to forget. Is cacao the same thing as cocoa?
Juli Bauer: No. Cacao; I don’t know what the difference is.
Liz Wolfe: I don’t either!
Juli Bauer: But, no, I don’t believe they are the same thing. We use cacao powder a couple of times, I think, and cocoa powder. So we use different things in our cookbook.
Liz Wolfe: It’s just so confusing to me, because I was looking, at the store, I was looking at cocoa powder, and underneath it said 100% pure cacao.
Juli Bauer: Hmmm.
Liz Wolfe: And then there was, I don’t know.
Juli Bauer: Oh. I don’t know either. I know when I have cocoa powder, sometimes I have cacao powder. From Eating Evolved, I have cacao powder from them, which I use exactly the same as cocoa powder. Neither of them are very sweet, unless you add sweetener to them.
Liz Wolfe: Somebody Google it for us.
Juli Bauer: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: Somebody out there…
Juli Bauer: {laughs} Because we’ll forget.
Liz Wolfe: {laughing} We’ll forget to goog it. I swear, I’m just not a multi-tasker. I don’t know if you are, but I cannot multitask. I’ve lied on so many resumes about being a good multi-tasker.
Juli Bauer: {laughs} I like to multitask a lot, and I think that just has to do with my short attention span.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Juli Bauer: So, if I start cooking, and then I want to clean my bedroom, it’s just so I don’t get bored with cooking. Or vice-versa. Or if I’m doing emails, then I start cleaning the bathroom, which is my least favorite thing in the world to do. So, I think I’m a good multi-tasker because my ADD.
Liz Wolfe: Can you explain to me how you return emails and clean the bathroom at the same time?
Juli Bauer: Oh, you know.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Juli Bauer: Well you have to start one. And I’m terrible at emails; if anybody has ever emailed me, they know that. But, you do one email, and then you go scrub the toilet.
Liz Wolfe: {laughing}
Juli Bauer: And then you do another email, and you go wash the sinks. So it’s going back and forth. You’re not cleaning the toilet while you’re holding the computer in one hand, because that could get real sketchy.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. Easily. I’m not allowed to bring electronics into the bathroom anymore.
Juli Bauer: I know! I’ve had a couple of mishaps with that.
Liz Wolfe: It’s not a good idea. Well, I just, I think that I need to work a little bit on that. But I’ll be doing one thing, I’ll be returning an email, and it’ll pop into my head that I need to do something else that is also internet related, so I’ll open a new tab, and then I’ll forget why I opened the tab, and I’ll go back; it’s just, I need to do one thing at a time. Only one thing.
Juli Bauer: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: Like, being on the computer can be 15 things at one time.
Juli Bauer: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: It’s very distracting.
Juli Bauer: Right now, I have 6 tabs open.
Liz Wolfe: Oh, I’ve got you beat. I’ve got 15.
Juli Bauer: Oh my gosh!
Liz Wolfe: One of them I don’t even know why I have open. It’s something with the Church of Latter Day Saints. {Laughing} So I have no clue! That must have been an accident.
Juli Bauer: 15!
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Juli Bauer: That’s intense.
Liz Wolfe: I know. It’s major.
Juli Bauer: That’s how I’d get if I was online shopping. That’s when I would have 15 open. It’s dangerous.
Liz Wolfe: Ooh, that’s what I do too. You see something you like, and click open a new tab after you’ve been through the whole. Yeah.
Juli Bauer: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: Anyway. So, a little ADD off topic there. Let’s talk about The Paleo Kitchen.
Juli Bauer: Deal.
Liz Wolfe: Actually, first let’s talk about your story leading up to The Paleo Kitchen. What you do, and how you came into paleo, and your blog, and all that good stuff.
2. Juli’s intro to paleo [7:21]
Juli Bauer: Ok. Well, I was in college when I was about 20 or 21, I think. I started dated a guy who, at the time, did Crossfit, and then he also ate the Zone diet, so he ate the Zone Diet way, I guess you could say.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Juli Bauer: And he was completely shredded, completely ripped, and he would come into the gym, workout for 20 minutes, and then leave. And I was like, I don’t get what this guy does, and so I finally asked him about one point. I just knew nothing about diet; I mean, I ate graham crackers and frosting on a regular basis. I did a ton of the microwave frozen meals that are, they act like they’re healthy, but they’re not. I just ate so many carbs, I remember at one point, not really even remembering what it felt like to be hungry. I had no idea. There were no hunger cues in my body at that point, I just ate out of boredom.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Juli Bauer: And so, once I started dating this guy, I asked him to help me with the diet and kind of explain the Zone Diet, and I started doing that. I lost a good amount of weight, and I had actually had Loren Cordain as a professor. He wrote the Paleo Diet book.
Liz Wolfe: Whoa!
Juli Bauer: Yeah. So I had him as a professor my freshman year, and my dad had actually done the diet my senior year of high school. So I had a ton of paleo influence when I was 18, 19, and then I just didn’t think about it. I was like, that’s way too hard, I can’t do that, it’s unrealistic. And then once I started eating Zone, I noticed I wasn’t really eating that many grains. I would have like an open-face sandwich, and I would have oats and like a protein shake that I made, or a smoothing. And so I was like, well maybe I’ll just try to eat paleo. And he wanted, my ex-boyfriend, wanted to do it too, and so we just decided to go paleo. So I looked up tons of recipes online, just through different blogs and would just find recipes. And once I saw, I think I saw a chocolate zucchini bread that was a paleo recipe. I was like, wait, you can have “bread”? You can make something like that? Ok, I can do this paleo thing. So, I started cooking off of other people’s blogs, and once I started coaching Crossfit, the gym owner at the time asked me to create a nutrition blog just to talk about different recipes I tried and talk about nutrition questions that people had, because people weren’t really into the diet at that gym yet, or into understanding nutrition. So, I started writing the nutrition blog, and once I left that gym, I just wanted to create my own blog, and so I started creating my own recipes, and started up PaleOMG.com. And the rest is kind of history. I wrote my first cookbook about a year and a half, maybe two years? I kind of forget how long it’s been. I think a year and a half, I wrote my first cookbook, and then collaborated with George on this second one.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah, so your first cookbook is called OMG, that’s Paleo?!.
Juli Bauer: Yes.
Liz Wolfe: I’ve got that one as well, on my bookshelf.
Juli Bauer: Oh, cool.
Liz Wolfe: It’s fabulous. What is my fav… I’m trying to remember my favorite recipe from your blog. You have like a spaghetti squash bake?
Juli Bauer: Yes. That’s probably my most popular recipe on my entire website.
Liz Wolfe: Oh, it’s so good.
Juli Bauer: Yeah. It’s like a pizza. Are you talking about the pizza casserole, maybe?
Liz Wolfe: Yes! Yes.
Juli Bauer: Yeah. That one is really popular. So I like to make that one all the time. I leave out of town next week, so I was going to make a huge pile of that for my boyfriend so he doesn’t go hungry while I’m gone.
Liz Wolfe: Real quick, let’s take a detour, and why don’t you tell us about your dog. Because, I die. The pictures on Instagram.
Juli Bauer: Yes. He is wonderful. He’s actually sleeping at my feet right now.
Liz Wolfe: Aww!
Juli Bauer: Which is great, because I was nervous he would want to play the entire time we were doing this interview. But, he’s a French bulldog, and he’s about 4 months, and he’s just now potty trained, which has been really, really great.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Juli Bauer: {laughs} And, he is just awesome. He’s a cool dog. He’s got a ton of personality, but then likes to sleep a lot and be lazy, which is great.
Liz Wolfe: He’s so cute.
Juli Bauer: Yeah. I don’t want him to grow up. He’s getting huge. Huge meaning 20 pounds.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs} I was going to say, how big do they get?
Juli Bauer: Yes. He’s supposed to be 25 pounds, we think he might get to 30, which is pretty big for a French bulldog. But he’s just so cool.
Liz Wolfe: He is cool. So everybody go to Instagram and follow Juli on Instagram. It’s just /paleomg, right?
Juli Bauer: Yes.
Liz Wolfe: Yes. And holey goodness.
Juli Bauer: I never knew I could love something so much. It’s crazy how much you can love an animal.
Liz Wolfe: No kidding. I mean, they are absolutely family members.
Juli Bauer: They are, totally!
Liz Wolfe: That’s for sure. Well, yeah, everybody check out Juli’s Instagram to see pictures of Jackson?
Juli Bauer: Yes.
Liz Wolfe: Jackson. See, I already forgot, that was like 3 minutes ago, right?
Juli Bauer: {laughing}
Liz Wolfe: It’s pathetic. Ok. So, you’re out in Denver. You live the paleo lifestyle. You do Crossfit stuff, but I know at one point you were competing in Crossfit, and you are not anymore, currently, is that right?
Juli Bauer: Correct.
Liz Wolfe: Ok. Can you go into that a little bit? We have a lot of people that write messages into the podcast and they are just avid competitors, they’re just beating their bodies up on a consistent basis, and it’s hard to get folks to kind of see outside of that competition mindset. So, can you go into that a little bit?
3. Juli as a competitive athlete [13:08]
Juli Bauer: Yeah. That is definitely really a tough spot. So, I started competing in 2011. So once I started competing, I made it to the southwest regional, and I competed for two years in regionals. And I was incredibly strict with my diet, completely paleo. I worked out usually twice a day, once in a while three times a day. I was working out, most of the time, 6 days a week. It was really hard on my body. Incredibly tough to lift that heavy on a regular basis, and still feel like a normal person. So, once I started competing, I put on about 30 pounds, and some of it was definitely muscle, obviously. A little bit of it, I think maybe my cortisol levels were thrown off, other different hormones were messed with, so I think I just gained some excess weight that wasn’t muscle. I didn’t feel good. I just didn’t feel good in my skin. I loved competing, it was everything to me. I had these goals, and I wanted to reach them, and I worked my butt off for 3, almost 4 years. And just this past year, or so, year or year and a half, I injured my shoulder in a competition doing a snatch. Just tweaked it a little bit, but it wouldn’t get better because I kept working out, and kept destroying my body like so many people do. It wasn’t until I just decided to stop competing, to stop pushing myself in the gym, take off weight, throw my ego out the door, and just start lifting lighter that my body kind of started to level out. I think my hormones started to level out. I lost about 10 or 15 pounds. I’m not sure what I was up to, but I lost about 10 or 15 pounds. I feel completely comfortable in my body, I don’t have aches and pains on a regular basis other than just normal working out. But I really just, I lift heavy, will always do a lift prior to a workout, so if we have a squat snatch, I’ll go heavy as I can on that, and then in the workout I usually cut it back a little bit. Sometimes I’ll go prescribed in my workout. But it’s really, it’s a long hard road to get back to lifting lighter when you push yourself in the gym, and hit so many PRs, you’re like, I don’t’ want to take a step back.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Juli Bauer: You know, go back to when I’m doing workouts at 95 or 105, go back to 75 or 65. I don’t want to do that! But it was what my body needed. I’ve never been happier, I’m comfortable in my skin, I eat what I want to, whatever my body is saying. So I eat a little bit more gluten free stuff, sometimes I’ll have rice. And I just listen to my body, so I feel like I’m not starving myself like I was before, because I was so scared to eat something bad and hurt my performance in the gym. Now I just eat to feel good, and I workout _____ at the end of the day. It’s not a goal, this short goal of making competition. It’s just this lifelong goal of staying healthy and happy.
Liz Wolfe: I love that so much. And it’s a message I think a lot of people need to hear, I think especially because a lot of times, exercising and healthy eating is excused when it becomes obsessive behavior. When it becomes too much, and more than the body can handle.
Juli Bauer: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: We look at it as a good thing. Like, she’s totally strict, she works out this much, and she eats this way, and she never deviates, and we think of that as a good thing and something to be admired, but I think it is so amazing and so, even much better, for folks to be able to look to you and see somebody that was in that space, and you kind of shifted things a little bit for the sake of just long-term health and happiness.
Juli Bauer: Yeah. When I used to work out, just regular Crossfit, and I lost a lot of weight, I’m like, well if I workout more, I’m going to lose even more weight.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Juli Bauer: And look more shredded like some of the girls you see at the Crossfit games. So that was my; my goal was to always look like these other people. It was just dumb. Why would try to look like another person when I’m not that person? My body is my body, and just because that person can eat a certain way and workout a certain way and not injure themselves, that doesn’t mean that I can do that.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Juli Bauer: So, it was a huge, I don’t know what the word is. It was just a huge deal for me to come to terms with just being happy with who I was and not comparing myself to other people anymore, and hating what I saw in the mirror every day. It was nice to just come to terms with a more steady relationship with food and with exercise. It wasn’t obsessive compulsive like it had been in the past.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Juli Bauer: Which I think a lot of people in this community go through, because obviously people who eat paleo or people who do Crossfit want to be as healthy as possible, and sometimes they take it a little bit too far, and it’s easy to do that. And so it was nice to comes to term with that, and make a more rounded lifestyle for myself. It’s a long road sometimes.
Liz Wolfe: Absolutely, and I think you have to have patience with yourself during that process, too. I think folks want the change to be easy and immediate.
Juli Bauer: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: And a lot of times people will give up, you know. It’s too hard emotionally, or it takes too long to, you know one day you’re feeling great, and the next day you’re hating what you see in the mirror. It really is a process, I think, I don’t know what the word would be. I don’t necessarily like the word self-acceptance, just because the connotation is, I accept myself despite all these faults, but realizing that there is nothing wrong with your body as you chose to live in it.
Juli Bauer: Yeah, exactly. That’s really hard for people to come to terms with. I wrote a post recently about it, and I don’t say that I am “cured”. I’ll never look in the mirror, and be like, ugh, I hate this spot, or I hate this cellulite, or I hate that I have fat there. Whatever it is. We all go through those ups and downs throughout life, and I’ve seen women into their 60s, 70s who still go through those ups and downs. I’m glad to have come to some kind of terms with it at this point, and then hopefully it can help me in the future when I go through another up and down.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Juli Bauer: try to keep going up from there.
Liz Wolfe: Oh man. Let’s not even talk about future ups and downs.
Juli Bauer: I know.
Liz Wolfe: I’m 31, and I’m convinced I’m bordering on menopause. It’s just like, ugh.
Juli Bauer: {laughing}
Liz Wolfe: Well, I’m not 31 yet, but it’s like my 30th year has gone so fast. I feel like Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally, where she’s like, I’m going to be 40!
Juli Bauer: Mm-hmm.
Liz Wolfe: And he’s like, in 8 years! {laughs} Anyway.
Juli Bauer: {laughing} What’s funny is, I turn 26 this year, and everybody told me that it all goes downhill from 26.
Liz Wolfe: {laughing}
Juli Bauer: It’s like, what does that even mean? And it’s people in Crossfit. They’re like, well your body just starts to deteriorate, everything hurts. And my mom told me that her 30s were her favorite, so maybe I’ll think that my 30s will be great, and I won’t be bordering on, I’m almost 40 when I turn 30.
Liz Wolfe: I’m almost 40! Yeah, I think that’s a great way to look at it. And honestly, this year has been amazing for me, so there’s no reason for me to believe otherwise. I’m sure 30s are going to be amazing.
Juli Bauer: Yeah, you have goats dancing on your car.
Liz Wolfe: Exactly!
Juli Bauer: That’s pretty damn cool.
Liz Wolfe: I was telling you, I was telling Juli off the air that goats are amazing, until you have them, and then it’s like 60% amazing, 40% stop climbing on my car, and my body {laughs}.
Juli Bauer: Do they make dents in your car when they do that.
Liz Wolfe: I haven’t seen any.
Juli Bauer: Ok, that’s good.
Liz Wolfe: But we live off a pretty long gravel road, so at this point the dents could be from anything.
Juli Bauer: That’s true.
Liz Wolfe: But that was a very epic Instagram video that I captured there with that goat dancing on the car.
Juli Bauer: It was awesome {laughs}.
Liz Wolfe: I mean, it really was dancing on the car.
Juli Bauer: You could put good music to that, put it on YouTube, and become a YouTube sensation with that.
Liz Wolfe: Oh, it would totally go viral.
Juli Bauer: Yep.
Liz Wolfe: I might have to do that.
Juli Bauer: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: Good ideas from Juli over here. Alright, so I want to talk quickly about how you and George Bryant, Civilized Caveman Cooking, came together and decided to do The Palo Kitchen. What was the, you know, attraction? Why did you guys decide to collaborate?
4. Collaborating with George Bryant [21:54]
Juli Bauer: Well, last year at PaleoFx, so in 2013, George and I had been in contact for years because of our blogs. We both started our blogs at pretty much the same time. So we came across each other’s blogs on a regular basis; I cooked from his, he cooked from mine, and we talked about each other online. So we kind of created this friendship. We talked about doing a cooking demo together at PaleoFx, and he had been in years before I had never been, so it was my first time meeting pretty much any of the bloggers. I had only met, I think, Michelle and Melissa McEwen. So I hadn’t met a ton of people. So we came together at PaleoFx and did a cooking demo, and it went awesome. It was really kind of on a whim, We’re like, let’s just make this. We hadn’t planned any of it, and it came together great, the food tasted great, the audience had fun, and so I was kind of in talks with Victory Belt about doing a book with them, since I had done a book with a previous publisher, I wanted to try a new publisher this time.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Juli Bauer: So, we started charting, and then George just mentioned, he was like, how about we do a book together. And, if the audience liked us, we’d probably do well with a cookbook together. We both have two minds going together. George could do the photography, I could do a little bit more talking. Whatever, whatever. Our two heads would go great together.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Juli Bauer: So, we decided to do the book, and it’s been pretty much exactly a year and we did the book, came up with a ton of recipes. I flew out to George in California, because he had his house and a guest bedroom that I could stay in, and every kitchen gadget known to man.
Liz Wolfe: {laughing}
Juli Bauer: So, I would stay out there for a week or two, go back home, be at home for a little while, and go back out there and bust out as many recipes as we could come up with. So, it was kind of he had a roommate for half of the year last year. Which, I don’t know if he always loved that.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Juli Bauer: But, it worked out, and we got the book done, so. {laughs} It’s been cool.
5. The process of creating recipes [24:18]
Liz Wolfe: So, is it difficult? I know I have enough trouble coming up, I try to do one recipe a week on my blog, and I have so much trouble just trying to come up with anything. So what’s the process? How do you come up with all of these recipes for the blog, and then new ones for the book? F
Juli Bauer: Well, honestly it kind of felt like the book, it was harder to come up with recipes for the book.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Juli Bauer: Because on my website, I can post whenever I want to, and so it’s a lot less stressful. But with the book, we had to get recipes done, because I was only out at George’s house for a week to two weeks, so we had to get a certain number done, so it was almost the stress that made it more difficult. Your mind would stop functioning; it’s kind like taking a test, and you blank out on everything you just read right before the test.
Liz Wolfe: {laughing}
Juli Bauer: So, it was really hard. We would come up with different recipes, like what we needed in the book. So, say we needed more breakfast recipes, and I would think of things that I did in the past that were popular, and how I could kind of change that recipe. We would think of things that would kind of have the nostalgic feel to it, like biscuits and gravy, or the pizza casserole I had on my website, that’s totally like a nostalgic feel.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Juli Bauer: And that gives you that pizza feel without the actual pizza. So, we would come together, and I would say, ok I want to make this biscuits and gravy recipe. And he would say things we should add to it, different flavors, or vice-versa. He’d say, I want to make this, and I’d say, well how about you try this spice or this different ingredient, and we just messed around with things. So, we definitely had some days that were complete failures.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Juli Bauer: And it was so frustrating. And both of us were so grumpy, because I don’t know if you’ve ever had a recipe fail, where you’re like, what the hell? Why didn’t this work?
Liz Wolfe: They’re all like that for me. I can’t, sorry, I can’t sympathize {laughs}
Juli Bauer: {laughing} Oh, it’s so frustrating! George did, I think our cinnamon roll recipe, like 4 times. I told him, I was like, yeah, I’m not doing that.
Liz Wolfe: Oh my gosh.
Juli Bauer: If you want to do a cinnamon roll, go for it. But, no thank you. I’m not going to take that depression on.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Juli Bauer: So, he did awesome with that. That’s one of our favorite recipes. But, it was just a lot of looking at what was at the farmer’s market, looking at what supplies we had, picking something out of the fridge, and just putting our two heads together to come up with as much as possible.
Liz Wolfe: That must get expensive. This is why I love cookbooks, and especially your cookbook and your blog. Because {laughs} you’ve figured all this stuff out for me, if I was to try and develop a cinnamon roll recipe, it would take me 6 years and hundreds of thousands of dollars in wasted ingredients.
Juli Bauer: Exactly! People think cookbooks are so simple and quick and everything comes together easily, but something like that, where you use a good amount of almond flour, or coconut sugar, or whatever else, and it fails 3 or 4 times? That’s so much money gone.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Juli Bauer: And that’s what makes it even more frustrating. Not even that the recipe failed, but that you just spent all this money for nothing.
Liz Wolfe: Yes.
Juli Bauer: So, it was definitely upsetting at times. But we made it through.
Liz Wolfe: You made it through, and the book is gorgeous. And in particular, I love the design, too. I think it’s so, it’s just so nice to look at. It puts me in a good mood.
Juli Bauer: Yes. They did amazing. The designers did such a good job. It really came together. Having a guy and a girl in the book, because you know my page is completely different than George’s. Mine is very feminine and light and airy, and his is more the caveman,
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Juli Bauer: Like orange and greens and brown colors. So I think they really brought both of our worlds together pretty well.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah, they did a fantastic job.
Juli Bauer: Thank you.
Liz Wolfe: Ok, so. I feel like no discussion of the paleo food world without talking a little bit on the topic of paleo treats.
Juli Bauer: yes.
Liz Wolfe: And some people love them, and some people hate them, and some people have nothing better to talk about than getting judgey about what other people eat.
Juli Bauer: Yeah, people love judgment.
Liz Wolfe: People love it. I mean, that’s how privilege we are in western society that we can literally sit there and judge other people {laughs} instead of, you know, I don’t know, planting some seeds or saving somebody’s life. You know, that type of thing.
Juli Bauer: Yeah. And now everybody has the internet to be even more obnoxious.
Liz Wolfe: Ugh.
Juli Bauer: Lucky our social media followers.
Liz Wolfe: My goodness. Well, ok, so I know you were on a panel about this at PaleoFx,
Juli Bauer: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: And I missed it. So, I just want to hear what you think about paleo treats and how you, I don’t know, what your response is to that type of stuff.
6. Juli’s thoughts on the controversy of paleo treats [28:48]
Juli Bauer: I get this question all the time, and so I probably come up with a new answer every single time. But, the thing about paleo desserts is, when I started paleo, the thing that got me to eat paleo and to say, ok, I can do this, was a dessert recipe. I was so excited that I could still have something that made me feel like a normal person, like chocolate zucchini bread or banana bread or whatever else, made me feel like a normal person, it made me feel like I wasn’t missing out on things while I was going through this kind of new lifestyle change. So, I post dessert recipes on a regular basis, and I get a ton of crap about that, but that one recipe can be kind of a lifestyle changer for a person who is going down a spiraling road of eating out of control, of completely starving themselves and then bingeing, or just eating complete crap because they just don’t know any better, and then they see a dessert recipe, and it has paleo behind it, or it has gluten free behind it, or it has grain free whatever, and people are like, oh. That actually looks really good, or that tastes really good, I can’t believe that’s paleo. So, I think that desserts can be incredibly helpful for people, and make people feel like they can hang out with their friends and family who don’t eat paleo and still be part of the group and not get made fun of an picked on because they eat different. Do I think desserts should be eaten all the time, only desserts, and that they’re just completely healthier than regular desserts? No. Not necessarily. I do believe that sugar can be pretty devastating to the body and can really kind of cripple the body if you’re not careful. So, I don’t think people should eat desserts on a regular basis. I don’t eat desserts on a regular basis. I make these desserts and I give them out to friends and family because I don’t want to have a pile of cookies in my house to just eat on a regular basis. I definitely have gone through my ups and downs with desserts, and where I’ve gone over the top with paleo desserts, and then have done like the 21-Day Sugar Detox and no desserts, and so I’ve found that middle ground that I think a lot of people have to find, that I can have desserts whenever I’m craving them, but if I eat too much of them, I’m going to crave them a lot more. So, I just need to keep it kind of under control. Like, today I had chocolate sunbutter cups, and I don’t feel sick, I don’t feel like I’m craving more chocolate. I just have one to two of those, and then I feel complete. So, I don’t believe in cutting anything completely out of your diet. I don’t eat gluten because it really upsets my stomach. And so I’ll have some gluten-free foods that some of the things aren’t the best for my body, but it gives me some calmness in my brain. But with desserts, you have to make your own decisions in your life at the end of the day. You are an adult, most of the time. There are some teenagers who dabble in paleo nowadays. But you are an adult, you know what is best for your body, and so you need to take responsibility at the end of the day for how many desserts you eat and if you think paleo is only desserts, and that’s only what bloggers are looking at or making, then go to another website! There are millions of websites out there with different recipes. And like mine, that has desserts on it, it has triple the regular foods, like entrees with meats and vegetables. Just because it has desserts that are most popular doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a ton of other recipes on there.
Liz Wolfe: And can I just say, even if your blog was only paleo dessert recipes, that would still be just fine with me. Sometimes I just want a book full of paleo dessert recipes. I’ve Googled vegan paleo cookbook before, because sometimes I think I just want a book full of only veggie sides.
Juli Bauer: Yeah!
Liz Wolfe: You know? Sometimes, the way folks I think get wrapped up in what’s ok and what’s not ok completely negates or completely ignores the question, what is food, and what’s not food. So you say, you know, you don’t believe in eliminating anything. But what you’re talking about is, you don’t believe in eliminating anything that’s food. So for me, it’s like, when people say everything in moderation, I’m like BS, what you don’t understand is that highly processed and refined fats, highly processed and refined grains, to me are industrial products, not food.
Juli Bauer: Mm-hmm.
Liz Wolfe: So we kind of push those off the table, and just look at the body of nourishing real food from nature, and in whatever interpretation we want to make of that, whether it’s a dessert or an entrée or a veggie side, or whatever it is. It’s all fine.
Juli Bauer: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: In my opinion, I just think that everyone is on their own journey to figuring out what they need, and what their goals are, and what’s important to them, and to subscribe to this, there’s one way to do it, and these things are bad and these things are good, is just completely missing the point. But that’s my rant.
Juli Bauer: Yeah! And I’ll see these different comments on blogs and on hate forums, and whatever else of people saying, well if somebody wants a dessert, why don’t they just go out and have a regular dessert, and why does it have to be “paleofied?” Well, because if I go out and have this big slice of cake, that is not a gluten free cake, I feel really, really sick.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Juli Bauer: And so, I don’t want to have to always feel sick when I’m craving something sweet. Or just craving something savory, like biscuits and gravy. I don’t want to go out and feel terrible and feel bloated and be miserable all day long because I wanted to eat something different than meats and vegetables. So I don’t always understand that. I want t feel good every single day, so I’m going to eat a paleo dessert that makes me feel better than a gluten dessert. People get all kinds of frustrated with that.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Juli Bauer: But, I’m just doing what makes my body feel good at the end of the day, and that’s my own personal journey. You don’t have to follow my personal journey, you can follow your own, and that works just fine for you.
Liz Wolfe: Most definitely. I would much rather be just kind of, I don’t know, a try to lead by example than try to police people as a matter of authority.
Juli Bauer: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: That doesn’t appeal to me, and that approach doesn’t appeal to me in other people. It’s part of the reason why I like your blog and your work so much, because that’s the angle you take, is here’s this awesome recipe, I enjoyed it, it’s free of refined ingredients, and eat it or don’t eat it. {laughs} Either way!
Juli Bauer: Yeah! At the end of the day, you don’t have to look at something online that you don’t like. If you don’t want to see a chocolate cookie, if you don’t like paleo desserts, then you don’t have to click on that link!
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Juli Bauer: It’s as easy as that. And you don’t have to talk about it. You just move on with your day, and whatever else you want to do. People are strange. But, at the end of the day, I support paleo desserts. I think paleo desserts should be in moderation, and I think you should listen to your body. If you don’t take well to sugar and you feel crappy, then cut down the sugar. Try something else that works with your body a little bit better.
Liz Wolfe: Completely agree.
Juli Bauer: Thanks, Liz.
Liz Wolfe: Amen. Put a bow on that one and put it under the tree.
Juli Bauer: {laughs} Exactly.
Liz Wolfe: Nice. Ok, so let’s get to, I want to hear more about your top kitchen tools. What are the biggest pieces of equipment or lessons you’ve learned that could make things easier in the kitchen for somebody like me who’s just completely disastrous?
7. Juli’s kitchen tips and tricks [37:10]
Juli Bauer: Well, I love my food processor.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Juli Bauer: I use my food processor all the time, because then you can puree stuff, you can chop stuff, you can mix stuff really easily without you having to mash it yourself in a ball. You can make cauliflower rice with it. You can do so many things that I always thing the food processor should be the number one for people. And get yourself a decent food processor. Don’t get the cheapest; don’t get the crazy most expensive. Just get one that; I think mine was like $200-250, which is a decent amount, but it’s lasted me at least 6 years.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Juli Bauer: And it’s still completely fine. I will use it for probably another 6 years. So it’s probably got it’s money worth. So, that’s my number one, a food processor. I’m looking over at my kitchen at what I like. Oh, I just bought knives this year, like sharp knives.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Juli Bauer: I had lived with a bunch of girls last year and a couple of years before that, and we just had terrible, dull knives. They didn’t cook a ton, and I was cooking all the time. The knives couldn’t cut a tomato.
Liz Wolfe: {laughing} Hacking at everything.
Juli Bauer: Yeah, so it was like I was just destroying the food I was trying to cut. So I think sharp knives are a must, and the same thing. I didn’t go crazy expensive, I just bought pretty good knives, and I was really happy with those. And then, let’s see what else I have in there.
Liz Wolfe: Yes, tell us what’s in your kitchen?
Juli Bauer: Nonstick pans. Yeah, it’s not that exciting. A lot of dog food at this point.
Liz Wolfe: {laughing}
Juli Bauer: And then my boyfriend has a lot of whiskey over here, so it’s like {laughs} dog food and whiskey, and pans.
Liz Wolfe: {laughing}
Juli Bauer: So, I like nonstick pans. I bought some pans that weren’t nonstick, and they were such a pain in the butt, and I would just mess up everything, so I just threw away my ego of trying to make perfect food with nonstick pans, and I got some nonstick, organic green pans, and I love them.
Liz Wolfe: I’ve heard good things about those. I don’t own any, because at this point we have no room left.
Juli Bauer: Yeah!
Liz Wolfe: We’re just, we have animal feed.
Juli Bauer: {snorts}
Liz Wolfe: Cedar-cyde and tick murdering gadgets everywhere. So, as soon as we make room, I think I’m going to go for one of those.
Juli Bauer: They’re great.
Liz Wolfe: Ok, food processor, which I’ve got, and what else? Let’s see, I have, what’s one of my other favorites? Oh I love the zucchini noodle contraption.
Juli Bauer: Oh, yeah! I love that too. I just don’t use it enough, which is silly. But I hate pulling it out and putting it together. But if I made noodles every night, I’d probably use it more often.
Liz Wolfe: I’m the same way. It kind of looks like a medieval torture device.
Juli Bauer: It totally, I’m sure that’s what it was inspired from.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah for sure. That and every other kitchen tool, by the way. I went to the tower of London years ago in college on a study abroad, and I was like, this all looks like a kitchen! {laughs} Like, that mandolin slicer looks kind of like that.
Juli Bauer: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: Anyway.
Juli Bauer: It’s like, Game of Thrones style. That’s what most kitchen devices are.
Liz Wolfe: Oh my gosh. Thank you for bringing up Game of Thrones.
Juli Bauer: Do you watch it?
Liz Wolfe: Yes.
Juli Bauer: It’s so addicting.
Liz Wolfe: And I don’t want to spoil anything for anyone, but the last episode.
Juli Bauer: Oh my gosh! So intense!
Liz Wolfe: Oh my gosh! I had to look away.
Juli Bauer: Explosion. Explosion of intense! {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: Ugh! Literal explosion.
Juli Bauer: Yeah. But we won’t give it away in that regard. But it was an explosion.
Liz Wolfe: Like, total Inigo Montoya moment {laughs}.
Juli Bauer: Yes! Oohh.
Liz Wolfe: And then, explosion. That’s as much as we will say.
Juli Bauer: It was so good. That show is just so addicting.
Liz Wolfe: It really is. I was so, so happy. Oh, I can’t even say it, because people get so mad! They wait for the entire season to come out on demand, and then…
Juli Bauer: Oh, yeah, that’s true. I forget people do that.
Liz Wolfe: I was really happy when that one guy died {laughs}.
Juli Bauer: Yes, so happy.
Liz Wolfe: I could be talking about anything. But you know what I’m talking about.
Juli Bauer: Yes, I know.
Liz Wolfe: Ugh.
Juli Bauer: Me too, and I didn’t see it coming either! It’s always so quick. You don’t see some of this stuff happening, that’s how they pull that stuff off.
Liz Wolfe: That’s how they force you to watch it. Because you don’t know it’s coming.
Juli Bauer: Yes!
Liz Wolfe: Ugh. Ouch. Alright {laughs} So with that out of the way. Let’s see, what else did I want to ask you about? I think once we get to the end here, we’re going to do a little bit of rapid fire with just some random questions.
Juli Bauer: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: But first I want to ask you, what is your absolutely favorite recipe from your blog?
8. Juli’s favorite recipe [41:32]
Juli Bauer: Well, for sweets wise, I’m going to go with the cinnamon rolls. George did a great job with that, and it really has the cinnamon roll squish that you get, kind of in the middle of the roll, I don’t know. They’re really good. The best I’ve had so far. And then the four layer beef and bacon casserole.
Liz Wolfe: {gasps} So good!
Juli Bauer: So good! It’s just incredibly simple, and has so many different flavors to it, layers, and it’s , again, that nostalgic, comfort food flavor. We both agree on that one, we love that one, and we ate on that one for days with different recipes that we had made, and that was always kind of our side dish. We loved it.
Liz Wolfe: Oh so good. Now, my husband is obsessed with chili with cinnamon rolls. Is that a thing, or is that just his thing?
Juli Bauer: What?!
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Juli Bauer: Like chili powder?
Liz Wolfe: No, like chili. Like chili.
Juli Bauer: Oh. {laughing} like, beef chili?
Liz Wolfe: Yeah! Like, beef chili.
Juli Bauer: Like, how you usually have chili; that is weird.
Liz Wolfe: I mean, but think about it. The really sweet cinnamon rolls with frosting with beef chili, sweet and savory. I thought it was crazy when he said it, and I’ve never had it myself, but he’s obsessed. So that’s not a thing, that’s just his thing. He made it up.
Juli Bauer: I would feel like I would be so full.
Liz Wolfe: I know.
Juli Bauer: Because chili is so filling, and then cinnamon rolls are, like, the overwhelming filling.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Juli Bauer: I feel like it would just be too much. Flavor wise, I get it. But filling wise, that would be rather uncomfortable. But guys can eat a lot sometimes.
Liz Wolfe: Well, I mean, this is America, right?
Juli Bauer: Yes.
Liz Wolfe: What do we do other than eat until we’re uncomfortable?
Juli Bauer: That’s so true.
Liz Wolfe: {laughing}
Juli Bauer: For a good amount of my life.
Liz Wolfe: My life. Ok, so what advice would you have for newbie food bloggers that are just starting out putting their recipes on the internet. What’s your advice?
9. Juli’s advice for newbie food bloggers [43:20]
Juli Bauer: I always say find your voice. Just be you, have a voice, try to be, not different than other people, but try to find your thing about you. Whether that is you create food that is completely beautiful, or you share food along with the table that you created. Just different little things that make your blog a little different than other people, and blog on a regular basis. I always recommend that to bloggers, is the more you blog the more your name is going to kind of get out there.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Juli Bauer: And people are going to get excited to see new stuff on your page, whether you’re talking about nutrition or talking about recipes. Whatever it is, just blog on a regular basis so people can get to know you and are excited to see what’s coming up next week and the week after, every single week, and just want to check in on you on a regular basis.
Liz Wolfe: So, one of the things that I love about your blog is that you put a lot of yourself into. You tell personal stories, and anecdotes from your life, and stuff like that. There’s always a line, I think, for bloggers between how much they’re going to share and how much to keep private. Because, I’ve said before, putting stuff on the internet is like peeing in a pool. You can’t get it back. So, at first when I was blogging, I struggled with that a little bit. I never put my picture out there, I never used my last name. But after a point, you just are kind of forced to share a little bit more so the entire world knows who they’re reading and what not. So how did you decide how much you would share, and how much you would keep private?
Juli Bauer: Well, I was pretty private at the beginning. I only really talked about the recipe, and then I started talking a little bit more about my life, or where I ate over the weekend, and sharing those different posts, and those posts became the most popular.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Juli Bauer: Because people could relate to it. They’re like, oh, I’ve eaten at that restaurant before. Oh, my friend recommended me to that. Or, oh yeah, I totally ate that dessert this weekend and felt like crap, or whatever it was. I just talked about food, and how it paired along with my life and my training, and those posts were the most popular. So, I started sharing more information, and then I kind of stopped sharing some information. Like my love life. I kind of started going into my love life a little bit, and then my boyfriend and I broke up and so I had to talk about that. And then we ended up getting back together, and that’s who I live with now, but I didn’t say that we were dating again. I didn’t share that stuff, because I was like, you know what? Relationships go through so many ups and downs that I just need to keep this private.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Juli Bauer: This is our close relationship. And so now, on my blog, I never really post pictures of him. If there’s any sort of picture, he has sunglasses on. Or, we went racing and he had a helmet on. So things like that to keep it just feeling a little bit more private. But I put a lot out there. My information about my life is pretty open there, so people can connect with me, and I’ve always been ok with that. I’ll go back and post and be like, I cannot believe I wrote that!
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Juli Bauer: But I have no regret about it at all, what I’ve shared. I just keep my personal life a little closer to my heart at this point, because I don’t see the point in throwing relationship information all over the place, because it kind of feels like it’s not, I don’t know. There are some insecurities paired along there. So, I just keep some stuff private, and then other stuff that I think people can connect to, like different restaurants I’ve tried, or a wedding I went to, stuff like that I share on a regular basis. But it is hard sometimes, you’re like, I don’t think I should put that on there. And then I just hit delete before
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Juli Bauer: I hit publish.
Liz Wolfe: That’s the process of curating information a little bit.
Juli Bauer: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: It’s interesting, though, because I didn’t feel like I was really connecting with other people until I shared a little bit more personal information. Because until you do that, you’re just kind of talking at nobody.
Juli Bauer: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: Because the whole point is connecting with people, and they connect with you and you connect with them, that’s what makes it fun. So, it’s totally worth putting a little bit of yourself into that, and that goes back to what you said about just finding your voice. So, you are, you are special. But everybody has a unique voice that other people are going to connect with. And not feeling like you have to do what another food blogger is doing, or this is what food blog should sound like.
Juli Bauer: yeah.
Liz Wolfe: Because honestly, Juli, until I read your blog, I’d never read anything like it. The way you talked and the way you wrote. I had never read anything like it, and that’s what made me like it so much. So I don’t think people should be scared. Sharing a little bit of yourself will help you find your voice, and your audience.
Juli Bauer: Yeah. It really does. And not everybody loves everybody’s voice that they put out on the internet, and I know people think my writing is really annoying sometimes.
Liz Wolfe: What? Pssh. I’ll kill ‘em.
Juli Bauer: They do. I’ve seen it. But
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Juli Bauer: You know, that’s totally ok, that’s just who I am and how I write, and it connects with some people, which is great, and people have written me emails telling me I’ve changed their lives in some way, and so you have to just take the positive, and especially with these new bloggers, always look at the positive than the negative. Because you’ll have that one person who comes up and is just a real big A-hole.
Liz Wolfe: {laughing}
Juli Bauer: And then, you know, that just ruins your day. But all these other people have written you great things. So just always look at the positive in things. It’s just way more fun, anyways.
Liz Wolfe: Isn’t that all of life, too?
Juli Bauer: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: it’s like, you can have 50,000 positive things, 50,000 compliments or accolades, and you get one disgruntled or mean person that maybe is having a bad day, they say one thing, and that’s all you can focus on.
Juli Bauer: Yeah! It’s crazy like that. I get all these nice comments, and one person comes in and says something mean, and it’s just like, irks me all day.
Liz Wolfe: All day!
Juli Bauer: And then I get over it, and I just don’t really care as much. But it’s crazy how much. And those people, I think they know they do that, and they want that from you.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm. There are a lot of agitators out there.
Juli Bauer: Those people are weird.
Liz Wolfe: {Laughs} Most people are weird. I’m one of them, but I’m not mean weird, I don’t think.
Juli Bauer: yes! We’re all weird in our own way, but negative weird, that just sucks!
Liz Wolfe: yeah.
Juli Bauer: Like, who wants to be negative weird?
Liz Wolfe: Surprisingly, some people do. And perhaps we can help shorten the learning curve for some newer bloggers. Don’t; literally, don’t fixate on one negative comment. If somebody leaves a negative comment on your Facebook page that is just not helping anybody or anything, and it’s just completely pointless except for being negative, just hide it.
Juli Bauer: yeah.
Liz Wolfe: Don’t respond to it. Nobody has to look at it. Just click the little “X” box there and be done with it, and just realize that, a lot of times those people are just mean, and they just troll the internet because they have nothing else to do. Or, some people are just having a terrible day. I’ve been that person before. I remember I wrote a really negative comment on somebody’s Facebook page a long time ago, and I realized after the rest of the internet piled on me and told me what a jerk I was being, I was like, well, I actually was kind of being a jerk, but at the time my husband was deployed for the first time, I’d had a terrible day, I was sad, and I was taking it out on the internet.
Juli Bauer: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: And that happens too. So, don’t respond negatively to people if you don’t have to. Just respond with compassion if you’re compelled to respond. And just don’t let those things bother you.
Juli Bauer: Yeah. I always try to write back pretty positive.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Juli Bauer: Because that sucks, when you’re a complete mean person to someone, and then they’re nice back to you, then you’re like, oh.
Liz Wolfe: Totally.
Juli Bauer: That’s like a totally crappy feeling. So I try to be as nice as possible. Sometimes it always doesn’t work out like that, because you’re so frustrated in the moment.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Juli Bauer: But, kill them with kindness! Kill everyone with kindness.
Liz Wolfe: I totally buy into that.
Juli Bauer: {laughs} Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: Alright, so let’s do a little bit of rapid fire.
Juli Bauer: Ok, I’m scared for this. I wonder what it’s going to be like.
Liz Wolfe: Well, I have a couple that are written down that are kind of boring.
Juli Bauer: Ok.
Liz Wolfe: So if I come up with others, hopefully I’ll have some inspiration and think of something.
Juli Bauer: Yeah. Ok.
10. Rapid fire questions for Juli [52:03]
Liz Wolfe: Alright, so what’s your biggest vice? Just in life? Mine is wine. Mine is booze, actually.
Juli Bauer: Um, mine is, it would be chocolate then.
Liz Wolfe: I mean, that’s not even that big of a vice. Come on.
Juli Bauer: Ok. Ok. Let’s see, I’m trying to think. {sighs}
Liz Wolfe: {laughing}
Juli Bauer: I’m like; oh, ok. I’ll say, because I’ve been to a couple of weddings this summer; wedding cake.
Liz Wolfe: Nice.
Juli Bauer: Like, I will never, ever say no to wedding cake. I don’t care what it’s filled with. I don’t want to know. It feels like it’s empty calories, or it’s zero calories when you’re at a wedding. Like it doesn’t count for some reason. So I’m going to go with wedding cake. Or really, any sort of cake at any event. Like, I want cake with a lot of frosting on it.
Liz Wolfe: Ok. See, that’s good. That’s perfect. I like it.
Juli Bauer: Ok. Thank you.
Liz Wolfe: Alright. Your craziest paleo related experience?
Juli Bauer: Oh. Paleo related experience. Like, what do you mean, exactly?
Liz Wolfe: Like, does somebody come up to you and strip off all their clothes and tell you that they love your blog and they had Juli tattooed on their, you know, on their pec.
Juli Bauer: No tattoos yet. {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: Ok, ok.
Juli Bauer: No, I got my own tattoo, PaleOMG on my butt. No, I’m just kidding.
Liz Wolfe: {laughing}
Juli Bauer: I’ll get really random run ins. Like, I was at the Boston airport one time, and a girl was on my flight, and she was like, are you Juli Bauer? Do you have the blog PaleOMG? And then I was in Nebraska, like Omaha, Nebraska, and I got home and was on my blog writing about it, and a girl was like, I saw you at Trader Joe’s but I didn’t want to say anything because I wasn’t sure if it was you. So I’ll get random things like that where people will be like, I saw you there but I didn’t want to say anything because I thought that was creepy. So those are just funny things that people would just recognize me when I just have a little paleo blog online. So those are kind of fun. Those are cool experiences. No tattoos!
Liz Wolfe: No tattoos yet.
Juli Bauer: But still cool enough.
Liz Wolfe: I will say, if anybody ever sees me, and they don’t want to say anything; please do say something, because if you don’t, I might crop dust across the aisle at Whole Foods.
Juli Bauer: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: And just completely embarrass myself without even knowing it. {laughs}
Juli Bauer: Yes! Yes! Wait, I thought of one better one. Other than just people recognizing me. I was at PaleoFx last year, and after I did a cooking demo, a guy came up to me and gave me a love letter from his friend. Who wrote me a love letter, pretty much asking me out on a date, even though he didn’t live in Colorado. He was asking me out on a date.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs} Oh my goodness!
Juli Bauer: That was pretty cool. That was pretty bomb.
Liz Wolfe: That’s pretty awesome.
Juli Bauer: And he was so nice. We’re friends on Facebook. {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: {laughs} That’s, oh my gosh, this world is amazing.
Juli Bauer: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: Alright, what is your favorite item of clothing?
Juli Bauer: Ok. Right now it is, well I wear workout clothes almost every single day just because working at the gym, at the Crossfit gym, and then working out and working from home, that’s obviously way more comfortable. So it’s probably right now, and I know that Diane has talked about it, but Splits 59.
Liz Wolfe: yes!
Juli Bauer: Workout apparel. I’m doing a giveaway at the moment with them, and their clothing is amazing. They have these cool open backs to the workout clothes, so they’re kind of airy and just feel awesome. But then you look a little bit more stylish than just a Crossfit T-shirt that you could put on. So I love Splits 59; they’re probably my favorite.
Liz Wolfe: I love them too. I just got a box of Splits 59 goodies, and one of them was a sports bra that looks straight up Jamaican, the colors, and I listen to Bob Marley when I work out in it. It’s awesome. Love it.
Juli Bauer: Their sports bras are really comfortable.
Liz Wolfe: Really comfy and stylish, yeah.
Juli Bauer: I wanted to post; I’ve been trying to figure out how to post a picture of the sports bra without, like, hey here’s my boobs.
Liz Wolfe: {Laughing}
Juli Bauer: Like, here’s my selfie bathroom boobs picture.
Liz Wolfe: Oh no.
Juli Bauer: I want to post a picture of the sports bra, but without it just lying on the floor. Just because it’s so comfortable and so cute. But that will probably never happen. Just take my word for it.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs} Just believe us when we say.
Juli Bauer: {laughs} yeah.
Liz Wolfe: Ok, what would you rather, and I think these are from the 90s, but which would you rather bring back from the 90s, troll dolls or slap bracelets. Those might be kind of 80s-90s.
Juli Bauer: I had a ton of slap bracelets. Probably more than trolls. And there’s too many trolls on the internet that we’ll do slap bracelets.
Liz Wolfe: Ok. I like that too. Alright, so from later in the 90s, would you bring back pogs or beanie babies?
Juli Bauer: Beanie babies.
Liz Wolfe: Oh, dude! I would so bring back pogs.
Juli Bauer: Ah. My parents probably still have all of my beanie babies in the attic right now, so it would be pretty easy for me to bring them back. At least, like 200 of them.
Liz Wolfe: I actually think they never really went away. I still see them every once in a while.
Juli Bauer: Yeah! The dream was for them to be a money maker in the end.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Juli Bauer: That’s why we saved all of them, because they were going to be worth thousands of dollars, and that never panned out.
Liz Wolfe: That never did pan out. {laughs}
Juli Bauer: We could be millionaires.
Liz Wolfe: You don’t save things like. No kidding. We totally could. Alright, so how about give some love to another blogger that you’re loving right now?
Juli Bauer: Ok. Another blogger, let’s go with Brittany Angell.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Juli Bauer: I love Brittany Angell’s brownie recipe; it’s the best brownies I’ve ever, ever had. It’s amazing. And, I’m also going to do Vanessa from Clean Eating with a Dirty Mind.
Liz Wolfe: Oh yeah! Yeah, yeah.
Juli Bauer: Like, how can you not love that title anyway?
Liz Wolfe: Yes.
Juli Bauer: But she has some fantastic dessert recipes as well as a couple of different entrees that are really good.
Liz Wolfe: Awesome.
Juli Bauer: And she works for GoPro, so she has this sweet life, and then has awesome desserts, too.
Liz Wolfe: Oh, lucky!
Juli Bauer: I know. Living it!
Liz Wolfe: Living it up. Ok, favorite character on Game of Thrones.
Juli Bauer: Ooh, man. I don’t even know.
Liz Wolfe: They make it difficult.
Juli Bauer: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: Because sometimes you love them, and then you hate them.
Juli Bauer: Exactly. I; ok, I love, and I’m forgetting his name. He’s the brother who got pushed out. He’s the bastard child?
Liz Wolfe: Oh, um.
Juli Bauer: With the black hair.
Liz Wolfe: Jon Snow.
Juli Bauer: Yes, Jon Snow.
Liz Wolfe: So attractive.
Juli Bauer: He’s just so great. And, he seems like a good, well rounded good person.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Juli Bauer: And then, if you’ve ever seen Jimmy Fallon’s; or not Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel’s mean tweets, he was on the mean tweets talking about how this person wrote a tweet about how he was the worst character to play Jon Snow, and he was just hilarious about it. So, if you don’t know who Jon Snow is and you don’t watch Game of Thrones, look up Jimmy Kimmel mean tweets, I think it’s like the 5th one, I’ve watched them all, and he’s hilarious.
Liz Wolfe: Ok, we’ll have to put that link in the podcast notes. Jimmy Kimmel mean tweets.
Juli Bauer: oh my gosh. Have you seen those?
Liz Wolfe: No, I haven’t.
Juli Bauer: Oh, Liz. That’s what you need to do, after this podcast is over, go look at all… I think he has, like 6 to 7 different episodes of mean tweets, and it’s just, like, Sophia Vergara reading her different mean tweets, and they’re hilarious.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs} Like the mean things people tweet at them?
Juli Bauer: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: Oh my god! {laughs}
Juli Bauer: And you can’t say half the things, because people are cussing, but it’s just the trolls of the internet just hating on any star out there. Any single star. It’s hilarious.
Liz Wolfe: Alright, well I know what I’m doing for the rest of the afternoon.
Juli Bauer: That’s what I spent an entire afternoon, I’m like, laughing to myself right now imagining it. That’s what I spent an entire afternoon doing, just watching episode after episode, and back again.
Liz Wolfe: Oh, I’m so excited. Ok, last question. What are you obsessed with right this very minute. It could be food, clothes, TV show, activity, anything.
Juli Bauer: Well, book tour is coming up.
Liz Wolfe: yay!
Juli Bauer: And so I’m obsessed with clothes. With shopping, with figuring out my outfits. Because I have to pretty much get everything in travel bags, like Ziploc, get all the air out, whatever they’re called.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Juli Bauer: And so, I’m picking out all my outfits, and I still have 5 days left, but I’m picking out all my outfits and putting them in these bags, so I’m ready to go. Everything’s there, there’s jewelry, there’s shoes, boom, boom, boom, and it’s easy to go from one place to the other. So, it’s shopping and clothes. I really like rompers right now, when they’re not, I can’t even say that.
Liz Wolfe: {laughing}
Juli Bauer: You can’t say that on podcasts. When they’re not riding up high.
Liz Wolfe: Oh man. When they’re not like younger Kardashian sister type riding up high. Yeah I shouldn’t have said that either.
Juli Bauer: Yes. Not much into the high waisted shorts that go up your butt.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Juli Bauer: I can’t really pull that look off.
Liz Wolfe: I can’t imagine why.
Juli Bauer: Nor do I want to. So, I like, just shopping for fun dresses and, really anything. I went shoe shopping this morning.
Liz Wolfe: Love shoes, love shopping. I love pretend internet shopping, though. If I have a little bit of time, I’ll go to Zappos and just open new tabs with every single thing I see that I like, and then I’ll load up my shopping cart, and then close out.
Juli Bauer: Ohh.
Liz Wolfe: It’s very dangerous.
Juli Bauer: Yes, but then you can go back, and they save your shopping cart.
Liz Wolfe: I know!
Juli Bauer: So it’s still haunting you, like, we’re still here!
Liz Wolfe: Oh, it’s terrible.
Juli Bauer: We’re waiting for you!
Liz Wolfe: We’d never leave you!
Juli Bauer: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. It’s a little scary.
Juli Bauer: Mm-hmm.
Liz Wolfe: Well, that’s good that you're planning your outfits ahead of time, because when we went to Houston and Austin for the whole paleo tour with Diane, Bill, and Hayley of Primal Palate, I did not plan ahead, because there was so much going on at the homestead, and I packed one of those old school gigantic suitcases, like they don’t even let you use them anymore because there’s no way it would be under the weight limit if you packed it halfway full.
Juli Bauer: {laughs} Mm-hmm.
Liz Wolfe: Packed it completely full, and had to pay $150 for an overweight bag fee. One. Way.
Juli Bauer: No! $150?!
Liz Wolfe: Yes. I’m telling you, this thing was gigantic.
Juli Bauer: Holy crap.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. It was crazy.
Juli Bauer: That’s why I’m getting the Ziploc bags, so I can just carry on my carry on, but so many places now are like, you have to pay for a carry on, so I’m like, well I might as well bring a huge suitcase. I don’t know.
Liz Wolfe: You have to pay for a carry on?
Juli Bauer: Yeah, I think Frontier just changed that.
Liz Wolfe: Nu-huh! Not cool.
Juli Bauer: No, not cool at all. So, they’re like, our fares are less money, but then you have to pay for the bags, so it doesn’t really make sense. It evens out completely.
Liz Wolfe: Well that’s goofy.
Juli Bauer: Yeah. So we’ll have to see. I’ll probably just carry the bag with me, because who wants to check a bag? That’s scary.
Liz Wolfe: Just wear all your clothes, like Chandler. Could I be wearing any more clothes?
Juli Bauer: There we go! There we go.
Liz Wolfe: So, where are you going for the book tour?
Juli Bauer: We start in Colorado. So starting in my home town, and then we’re doing Seattle, Portland, San Diego, and then we have to go to New York City because we’re doing a couple different, we’re filming with a morning show, and the Daily Meal, and doing a book signing in New York City as well. So this is just the first one, we’re going to still have tours coming up. We had to miss Northern California, just so we could make it to New York City in time, but we’re going to go out on more book tours throughout the summer to hit some of those cities and more of the East Coast and kind of in the middle, and all that stuff.
Liz Wolfe: Alright. Perfect. We’ll, we’re rounding out an hour, so I’ll close it there. That’s it for this week, and we’ll be back next week with more of the Balanced Bites podcast. Be sure to check out Juli’s work at PaleOMG.com. And, of course, George, her co-author’s work at civilizedcavemancooking.com. And obviously check out their book, The Paleo Kitchen, which I believe by the time this podcast airs we will have, what’s the release date officially?
Juli Bauer: June 10th.
Liz Wolfe: the 10th? Ok. So this will go up next week, will be, yes it will be out. So head to Amazon, head to Barnes and Noble, head to their websites to be taken to The Paleo Kitchen to find that book. It is not to be missed, I love it! I am so excited about it. And that’s about it. Thank you so much, Juli, for being on the show.
Juli Bauer: Yeah, thank you for having me! It’s always fun to talk to you, Liz.
Liz Wolfe: So if you’ve been enjoying the podcast, please remember to subscribe and help us spread the word by leaving a review in iTunes. As always, you can find Diane at DianeSanfilippo.com,, and you can find me at RealFoodLiz.com. Be sure to join our email lists, where we provide exclusive content to our subscribers that we don’t put anywhere else. As always, thanks for listening.
Cheers! Diane & Liz
Comments 2
Chili and cinnamon rolls are a thing! Growing up, whenever we had chili for school lunch, cinnamon rolls were served with it! No idea why, but it is. 🙂
Yes. Cinnamon rolls and chilli was my fav at the school caf