 Hey guys, this is JB without a balance with Jamie and Abby this month's episode. We will have me McCormack here She is my very best friend here in Nashville. She has changed my daughter's life We're gonna learn about that. We'll talk about two of her cookbooks and what she is doing now Post pinewood kitchen Fun to hear about because she's just amazing. You guys are gonna love her She's super intelligent and we talk a lot about gut health and it's really informative one of our most informed formative episodes And we're here at Fort Houston, which is a really cool nonprofit for artisans They actually like offer space for artisans and they are allowed to exhibit their art here for free as well So if you want to check them out go to www.fort houston.org Now that I know you guys are out there in over in that direction I was raised to talk to everyone at the table. She was raised to talk, which is I want to say this Do not hold you crazy. I want you to let you crazy out. Don't don't keep the crazy in but I'm so well-dressed and well behaved today So me is very fascinating that she is not only my best friend She is an author, but she has two cookbooks She is a health and wellness coach, which we're gonna go into Really like a lot. She has helped change my daughter in her life. She's a rancher She's a rancher. Can you believe that? Can you imagine her on a horse? She has she has owned a kitchen pinewood kitchen out in Pinewood near Nunley Nunley, Tennessee Nunley, Tennessee. Yeah, how far is that from Nashville? That's 46 miles from Nashville, okay? Pinewood, Tennessee, okay. It's not really a town. I made it up, but we'll get into that. Oh, oh, okay, great Just welcome. Thanks. I'm happy to be here. I actually love what you all are doing and I've loved watching Jamie Go into this world with you and I'm your biggest fan I'm a fan of everyone that's participating in this because Jamie is sunshine to me And so I love that her sunshine gets to be shared with the world and not just me Well, let's start with our friendship. Let's tell everybody how we met and we met at a dance competition I was working on my solo. I'm a middle-aged competitive dancer. Can you imagine? No, I'm not but our children are Yes, and we met when I had just you had just come to Nashville just soon when you arrived Yeah, yeah, and we became friends and she said that John was the GM of the Titans Now this is gonna tell you who I am with football everyone. I was like, oh, okay That's like a GM of like Krueger, right? Like I just imagined like I don't know when he said GM of a football team and then just went right over my head How did you figure it out? I think when I went to my first game It was my first ever And I was like, whoa, he's this is bigger than Crouder And there's a lot of seats to clean and I've run a restaurant So I was like and there's a popcorn stand and there's a beer garden I was like he's more than you know and then what happened is I really got to know him And I got to see your life behind the scenes and what he really is is he's a manager of humans And he really in like the most positive I don't know if that's a great way to say it But he really helps guide the team and the people that work there and inspire them and He's been he's become one of my great friends, too Yes, it's been really neat because Some when me had her restaurant She would come over and sit with John and just okay John you need to help me out How do I go about this situation? How do I just guide me? So it's been it's been pretty neat to see your friendship with him evolved that as well He's really a coach in a way and he coaches maybe not the players down the way they throw the ball But he coaches the entire organization to stay connected to believe to participate and to Be their best selves and he tries to see everyone as their best selves And so do I and running the ranch and the farm and my team in Pinewood is I really wanted people to Just feel so good about their lives and their choices and where they work and where they spend their time So John has been a great friend to me in helping me navigate situations And it's funny because he'll talk about like the Titans and I'm like, yeah, and I got this problem with this cowboy And my dishwasher and he's like me just do this, but it's all the same It's all about caring about the people you connect to and you work with yeah for sure So you guys don't know each other five years. Yeah, it's been about five years Okay, and it was so much fun because the first time we really met was backstage We were getting our girls ready The girls had to dance and we were talking so much all of a sudden we were like wait We got to go watch the girls we need to leap so we start walking out as the girls were walking back in Totally missed the dance. She's like don't tell Lola. Just don't tell Lola Okay, so Taylor was like you both have two daughters, correct? Yeah, we both have two girls Okay, and yours how old are your girls? My oldest is a freshman at Ole Miss and my youngest is a sophomore. She's 15 That's where we were going. Yeah, I met Lola, right? Okay. Yeah, cuz when we were doing John's, yeah Yeah, that was fun. She was really sweet. Yeah, she's good. I love raising women. I mean, let's talk about it We're raising women. Yeah And what that means raise them. You know inspire them guide them it's amazing to watch you navigate because I Mean there's been things in your life with like closing the farm and and things like that that you do it Talk to us about that about your farm. Well, I own a working cattle ranch in organic produce farm I raise bees cattle hogs quarter horses I grow all non-gmo heirloom Biodynamic farming, so it's like gritty real deal. It's a pretty big farm It started my husband has been a rancher and a cowboy his entire life his family for hundreds of years have been ranchers and farmers and They started the first chain of grocery stores in the United States called Winn Dixie and that I mean, what you're from South Louisiana when Dixie is a big nail So they really Brought, you know, the individual cuts of meat to the marketplace and they changed We're mean grocery stores. That's how they came to be and then I got I met my husband. I was vegan How you doing? Vegan cattle ranch and I was always like I don't know about this But the thing about being married to Lee and living with the land and living and growing and raising food is It changes your entire perspective of life and what matters and what's valued so I met Lee married Lee live on this big ranch Weston Asheville in Pinewood, Tennessee and I was growing all this food and I got very sick and I had ulcerations the total circumference of my small intestine and They were going to kill me because The ulcers my intestines were going to rupture at any minute and burst like any second I lived with I could die right now How did that begin? How does it begin? I mean it Ulcerations begin in the intestines because of bacteria in the intestines and their sores and their irritants and then it's what is the Intestines exposed to so 15 years ago when I was at my weakest. I weighed about 89 pounds I was starving to death because I couldn't even swallow water and I went to every doctor from Guadalajara, Mexico to the Mayo Clinic and They couldn't really no one could explain to me what causes an ulcer and I have this brain It's like I want to know why like things don't just happen There's not like oh It's like what was the what built us there and that goes into like how I look at being a human too like what created me I'm really lucky. I'm super beyond good friends with a woman named Dr. Joan born Cinco Who's a Harvard cancer cellular biologist and when I got really sick she came and said no change your food? And I knew that the only thing that was touching the inside lining my intestines was food and that I knew food could influence it But 15 years ago. Nobody was talking about it There weren't all these wellness blogs and no one was talking about microbiome and ulcerations and fermented food But I had access to this woman from Harvard and I was fed tons of information Like I felt personally that God was opening a door for me and so I changed my food I'd said no to the medication, but I'm not anti-medicine. I think medicine is a blessing use it And then what can you do? Like how do we work together with our doctors? So I started off in something called macrobiotics Which was the first type of whole foods healing foods in the 1960s and 70s by Micho Kushi And he was it was basically the Japanese healing foods and it was my only option There were no books on how to heal my gut nothing and So I started working with a woman who ran the Shaw Wellness Center in Spain And she was like you got to cook and I hated to cook. I mean I grew up Appalachian. Okay, I Mean fish sticks and food stamps and I go to the grocery store And I just shopped via the pictures on the box because they're pretty and it said organic And that's how I cooked and that's how we grew up That's how we grew up so I really had to learn how to cook and from not from a place of I want to be a food blogger because that didn't even exist or I Want to be a chef. I just wanted to live I wanted to live I had two little girls and my mother died when I was a teenager and I was not leaving my kids and So I learned to cook the first thing I ever learned how to make was miso soup because it has seaweed It has a probe which is neutralizes radiation in the body And it's loaded with trace minerals that are missing from our produce in the ground and it had miso a probiotic Fermented food that I knew was going to touch the lining of my gut And I was gonna heal it and then I learned about kuzu which comes from the kudzu plant and kuzu if you add it to hot Apple juice. It's actually it thickens it and you drink it. It's like hot apple pie and it forms like a band-aid through the intestines I started making my own aloe vera And I was the worst cook ever and I basically created a bunch of mush and put it on the table And my husband loved me so much this other boy That he wanted to see me swallow food and not fall over in severe pain that he would just eat it and my kids were like And then I got better and I just wanted to learn so did you go to school like a formal education I didn't did I did the macrobiotic program with this woman and then my husband had a project in LA So we were living between LA and Nashville on the farm. I went to culinary school in Los Angeles I enrolled in a program. I went in as a Spy because I mean your knife skills are so good when you're macrobiotic because they're all about the energy of chopping And I made one of my closest friends still today said you're a spy And I went no I'm not because you go to a program and it's French classic And you don't want to be like I know because they don't want you you're there to know what they know And I couldn't eat anything that we were making because it was dairy and gluten and I have I'm celiac too We found out but you didn't know that we didn't know that but I knew I couldn't have dairy or gluten I didn't eat it. What was your diet then and now just so we know like what are what are you avoid? Well that comes to where we go now. So I went to culinary school French classic. It was amazing I finished the program. I would go home. I would make whatever was made with regular butter and milk I would I would just figure out the fat the protein. How could I do it? How could I change it? I mean, I'm really like the OG of nut milk I mean I used to live in the jungle too and I would pinch almonds to make my own nut milk to get the skin off So I I mean I was just learning becoming a master for my own self um move ahead we had the restaurant and The restaurant was an old 1920s general store located just on the corner from my farm I turned it into a real food restaurant where I grew all the food raised all the livestock all the honey everything and everything was orchestrated to be inclusive because if we want to teach inclusivity around race around sexuality Around raising children around religion. We also have to teach inclusivity in everything We have to teach people to think of others and to think that they're different than us But their needs are just as valuable as ours. So for me in my rural community I was really driven to teach inclusivity through food and if I could just drop it like it was hot You know that little bit of oh think of her. It's an inclusive table. Then maybe that would find tentacles So I ran pinewood for seven years Um, it was the most important thing. I've done work wise in my life besides my family is my most important thing But I really helped change that community I mean I became the best the best job in the county was working for pinewood We paid $15 an hour to each server Living wage seven years ago Because you can't ask people to live on just tips people want to know why it's hospitality falling apart call me No, seriously. I mean growing up. I say growing up, but whenever I was in college That's what I did was I was the server and I think we made like two dollars an hour With tips and if you didn't get tips you'd got two dollars done and my rent was not being paid And then we really got to get some things straightened out here And I really feel that I did that in pinewood, you know, we really ended up on the map I became southern livings cook of the year, which was a big deal to me a kormick who couldn't even make cornbread That's 15. Yeah, but what happened is we had the flood In august that just passed and the waverly flood also hit pinewood. We live on the pine river And this was my third flood I've been through It was my second flood in six months And this was a whopper And it was it worse this time or I had the very first flood this flood that we just had was worse It was then we've ever been throughout there It devastated the pinewood community. So pinewood is actually a real community It was founded in the 1850s by a family a man named sam graham and his brother And they came from north carolina and he didn't believe in slavery and he had a working farm And they called him eccentric because of that. So pinewood was always this self sustained community They had their own mills. They raised their own food Everyone was paid regardless of skin and color and whatever And it was a really special place and then my husband and his family bought pinewood And so pinewood is the pinewood community. It's been there, but it's not uh incorporated So pinewood to me was always a place of freedom You know and I feel that freedom with food food brings us freedom if we understand it and how to eat it and how to prepare it And it can create an equal playing field for humanity if they have the right food I like the way you put it it creates freedom because it also for families like mine That have to be gluten free dairy free We could walk in there and eat anything we wanted. It was like we could finally be free You know and that's your love language is food and it just that's how we Mesh to end just really I mean we're inseparable now. I mean it's done. Laverne and surely we're done We're done. Yeah, we're done. We're done y'all, but it is it is you know, I grew up Um, there were times in my life. I was hungry as a child. I understand it Um, I feel like I have both sides You know one side is this meg mecca of grocery and food and the other side was Appalachian and Hungary So I get it all I've had no food and I've grown an insane amount of food Services my love language. Yeah, I love to take care of humans And I love what you that you said you could come into my restaurant You're like, whoa Someone thinks and the old school going back to going to culinary school french classic training and hospitality is This is how it's made. There are no substitutions. The old school restaurant said no substitutions The old chef was like no, I don't do it and um, or maybe he didn't say it like that You cannot you cannot have it in all daily. It comes with cheese. Yeah, this is the crazy. I was talking about Slowly It comes with cheese. You've got no you're gonna have cheese But it's like and I wanted to change that but I also wanted to change the cook's perspective and take away that brutal emotional climate that occurs in a restaurant that is just relentless You know, like they're just dictators in that kitchen And I wanted everyone to work and feel loved and connected to the customer So what I did that I had an open kitchen in this old general store and they would meet the woman who couldn't have the cheese And she always had roller skates on or a tambourine in her hand. I did play the tambourine I'm gonna create youtube tutorials I wanted food to be fun. I mean when you have almost starved when you've starved as a child and you're hungry And you've starved because you're in so much pain. You cannot eat and you're terrified that this food is going to hurt you Then you finally are up and you got energy to roller skate And you can smile and you can cook And you can throw down and you can keep up with the pace I mean, why wouldn't you roller skate in your restaurant? Yeah Well, let's tell your viewers and this is actually kind of the first time that you've Spoken out about what happened ever and when you close the the restaurant Why don't you you tell your your followers? How are you doing? I I mean the truth is as I opened that restaurant I always had this thing inside of me That I knew I I was blessed to find my way through the kitchen and to find myself to wellness And so I always felt like wherever i'm asked to serve i'm gonna show up like if any young people said name a quorum Right, could you come over here now? I don't work 80 hours a week. I'm coming i'm coming And so I felt like I was brought there to serve and to learn and to grow And that we went through floods and so what happened was the last flood was devastating And I was exhausted and I had gotten well and then I spent seven years working an insane amount And I wasn't well anymore And I was putting all this energy out into the world and I wasn't taking care of her anymore And I have two girls and a husband and livestock and I just couldn't do it anymore and I was doing a lot of media Yeah, I was a contributor on three shows across the country shooting from home And I just I it was like everything started to crumble. You know what? I could feel the crumble Way before it started like pieces of you just start You're just wiping it off like you don't want anybody to see that you just drop some of you on the rug Yeah, you just you know because you you when you talk to people You smile no matter what and so the fact that you were crumbling That was a lot of pressure. It was a lot of pressure and I was full of inflammation again And I wasn't I wasn't showing up everywhere You know when you've almost died And you know you're on borrowed time. I am borrowed this moment Is a miracle. I have no idea how long I'm going to be well and that's the truth and that's the reality for all of us Um, but you know it's borrowed you want to be like up here. Like if I show up, I show up Or I don't go I I cancel Not coming. Sorry But I just felt that I wasn't my best self like I wasn't me McCormick I was I was just feeling frazzled and crumbly and and I was in pain again And it just wasn't well and I stood on the front porch of the farmhouse And I looked at all the cleanup we had in front of us And I thought I can't do it anymore I cannot do it anymore And I prayed about it and I asked for guidance and I got inside myself and I just couldn't do it anymore and it was hard for me because I had a team Like these people worked for me for seven years restaurant turnover COVID hit we killed it in COVID because I'm inventive and I'm a come-up So I was always looking how could I shift how could I maneuver and I felt my whole community? I was letting them down and I was really sad about it And then there were people that drove hours to eat in that restaurant. Yeah, because I don't do weird food I do really good southern food. That's like the best oil the best. I mean rice bran oil from california So my fried chicken you want to eat it because it's not nasty oil with chemicals It had no chemicals in my oil So it was just delicious and I really got sad because then you know as it became my identity, right? So, you know when your identity crumbles, yeah, you um, you have to go. Oh, wait, it's not my identity I'm still me. It's not worth your health, but it was amazing to watch you transition to Understand that about yourself and to know that You're not just a restaurant. You're not just that smile on facebook and those crazy lips You're not you're a mom. You're a wife. You're a friend. Yeah, it's amazing to watch you grow Yeah, and to realize that our outside world doesn't define us That our clothes our shoes our jobs our friendships Our marriages our children. They don't define us. They're not our essence and our essence is in there and This is the first media I've done and yeah like eight six months or whatever and And I mean when you asked me I was like really but I don't do anything. I know she said that She was like, what do you want me to do and I'm like, I don't know, buddy I'm like, are you kidding me? I mean, you're not just the restaurant. No, you're you're just not that was a stepping stone It was and you've written two books. Yes. I mean and the third's coming. So and you also have the fiction Oh, and then I have three books after that that are already through an edit that are not food And they're all about the archetypes of our personality and they're quirky and funny and what I really love Well, can you tell us about your first two cookbooks? My first two cookbooks are really fun So I wrote my first book before I met my husband and before I was a cook I was in la and I was a writer when I was in la and I was going to culinary school And I was seeing what was happening in culinary teaching facilities I realized that all the information that I had already mastered and learned in my journey with food wasn't being shared I sat down and I said, I'm going to write a food book I'm just going to write it because I have to tell there's a million me's. I know there's more than just me out there So I sat down and I wrote my first book. No idea how to write a book No idea how to write a food book or a cookbook and I wrote it and I said, well, I'm just going to put it out into the world Because um, that's the purpose is to share my journey And this is when amazon was doing its first beginning of amazon They're publishing deal amazon books. Yeah amazon books like 10 years eight years ago. I actually didn't just do it all by myself I hired a company a couple company called the book couple out of florida They said, well, we'll help you lay it out and we'll help you edit it and everything So I wrote it gave it to them and they helped me lay it out. So it was professionally laid out And then we put it up on amazon and it went, that's done. I'm done. Peace out No more cookbooks. I did it. I told I told the story and I sold 20 000 books Which in the publishing world is a big deal because even celebrities nowadays do not sell 10 000 books I ended up becoming a contributor on a nationally syndicated talk show called the better show It would air here in nashville But it was all over the country and the studio it's owned by meredith studios and it's shot in new york city in a real studio And it was a real stiffy studio and I remember going i'm really gonna do this. Y'all want me to do this? And they taught me how to style my food and I would and it turned out to be a huge blessing I would go to new york and I would shoot all these episodes. I made great friends From the show um the host of the show rebecca budding. He used to be on all my children became a great friend of mine and JD we're I mean, I just made friends and I loved the crew I mean the crew is amazing. Okay, y'all don't know it But crews are amazing because you form this relationship like the goal is to create joy And positive information to go into the world for an hour a day so I was all in and um I loved it and I was on that show for a few years as a contributor And I sold a ton of books and build a social media following and then joined today nashville for four years as a contributor I did everything from astrology girl and food She sure did do astrology. She still does it to me. Oh, I love it I mean, who knows if it's true, but it's fun. It is fun That's amazing. That's where I went on a journey. So anyway, I sold a ton of these books Then a publisher contacted me and said ma'am ma'am Do you know how many books you saw and I go no and he was you sold a lot of books And I took a meeting and then I did this book and it's with simon and shuster and their boutique division called hci Hello And this was really fun because this book is all about pinewood. Hello. This is my community And the journey and I um wrote about microbiome science So that's what really came is the journey with microbiome science because in two up until 2009 there was no information to the public about microbiome That means the bacteria and the gut and what bacterias are how they influence digestion healing How they create small chain fatty acids none of this information was available to anyone And I really had been ahead of it because of my friends and connections and the scientists I knew and I just started writing about it So this book has a whole deep dive In like simple easy to read basic. I call them the gut homies. That's your good gut bacteria And uh that you can relate to and go, oh wait, I don't have that bacteria And then science came and brought these amazing tests called the biome test and it comes in a little kit That you do this wonderful very kardashian esque stool sample test. I mean, you don't even have to touch it It's like got tissue paper. It's pretty gold lame. She's coming out y'all she's here But you don't even have to like scoop it you just drop it in a net and get it and put it in a cup No, because people are really intimidated by cooking and by checking their poop And I am like the poop lady. I'm like, let's talk Shadooby I mean, it's just food Okay So the biome test comes and the biome test is amazing and it comes then through an app Or you can get it sent to your email and it breaks down which bacterias You have too much of which you don't have enough of and which foods Feed those bacteria. So if you have an excess category, which we all do excess is huge and wellness If you have an excess category here Then you want to know well, what's creating the excess and they say these foods Then the foods that you're not eating enough of because when you have an excess that means you're avoiding foods In which bacteria you need to grow to balance the colony, right? We have a colony, right? It's like the bunch of pilgrims up in here I'll put the tail back to the horse So by the way, I'm terrified of horses I have a lot of horses She is she had to do that shoot right there The um She oh for the show was it for the show and she's like jamie I'm really scared. They they want me to get on this horse to go on the farm I can ride too because I've taken tons of lessons everyone and my husband is a cowboy I'm talking chaps and yeehaw and I am just like, okay. He's a big animal We're gonna go slow and but that's because when I met him I lied because I was a hollywood girl, you know and he was I was really cute and all that the dog the little dog and the hip-huggers And he was and he was like can you ride a horse? And I mean I was like, yeah For sure For sure for sure and then he was like, okay That one's yours And I was like, okay And I got on the horse because I had ridden at the fair on that thing that goes around in the pony And I was like, I can do this. I'm fine And and so I didn't know we were gonna move like a hundred head of cattle with cowboys yelling and screaming And it was like a scene out of a movie that hadn't been written. I was like, oh Oh my god, I was sweating. I was so unattractive And then he looks at me goes. I don't think you knew how to ride I know I don't know what you like me So now I just say but I do right. I've taken lessons and I love I love horses. How many people work on the farm Man in the high season, you know, I'll have anywhere I could have 10 people If we're working cattle or doing something then I'll bring in day crews Harvesting on the farm takes another amount of people But I uh, I have a good steady five full time People wow to help even that alone is a big job without the kitchen. Yeah, no, and I run the office Yeah, and so it is uh, yeah, it is and you know the thing about farming and this is what happened on the porch of the flood And we're driving and and my house was fine and my farm is fine But my husband said something amazing to me. He said, you know 50 years ago You a tractor cost $3,000 $2,000 50 years later tractors $100,000 50 years ago, you paid your help $4 an hour today. You've got to pay your help $20 an hour 50 years ago The land was valued for what it could produce Right land held its value at what it was good for how it could support society Now land is valued at who wants to buy it and own the most, right? It's not it's not the same y'all And so and then to be an organic farmer and to have labor that it takes to get that food out I mean when I tell you I get dirty i'm a i'm a gritty girl Absolutely does your husband your husband doesn't work full time. He has his own My husband my husband has written a few books and he's he started in the mental health business He started a place called the recovery ranch which is out on the ranch and it's a wellness You know addictions eating disorder and then he started integrative life center And we owned the canyon in malibu. We were partners with fred seagull and malibu and then altamira and salsa lido So my husband is all about helping people transform and become their best selves And I guess I am too with food So do you do the food for those centers? I do. Oh, really? I have done them But we've sold the majority of them and now he's getting ready to do something else. Oh, wow Yeah, I don't know why very interesting. Yeah, we could go down that rabbit But um, where did we go but that was a thing so he said, you know 50 years ago That's what that's that's how it was but now it's 50 years later and pretty much What hasn't gone up is what you make Off of work in a farm. So all your expenses are up here But what you're earning for your product hasn't really grown in 50 years So people it's harder and harder and harder to farm and to ranch And um, I don't know what's going to happen in the future It's kind of it's kind of frightening. Oh, but then another test the alcat test Yes, so I talked about vioam. I want to tell you all about the alcat test So what I learned through the vioam test and what I learned through writing these books is that we're all individual So this whole concept that you can you know vegan works for everybody Or gluten-free or no dairy or blueberries everybody eat blueberries Yeah, how about kale or mushrooms and I love I am a fun guy. I mean, I love I mean if I could be any plant in the world, I would did you all see the fantastic fun guy best documentary ever I mean, I just want to be one and I raise them. I do I grow my own shit talkies So I do I have my own fertilizer. Are we allowed to curse? I'm sorry. I told you I was gritty. I mean, it's just come on. I live on a ranch Y'all don't even know when my daughter was little she came in the house. She goes mama You know what those cows they speak cuss and I said what she goes the cows they speak cuss If you cuss at them they listen I said, why are you cuss? She was like five I was like, why are you cussing? What are you talking about? She goes the cowboys They just cuss at the cows and the cows move This has to be Lola Bella. Oh, what? That surprises me So the another test that I learned about it's called the alcat test your doctor can run it Viome you can do yourself and you'll be you are going down a fun The poop shoot. I mean of like information But um the alcat test I really love because what it does is it checks your body your blood And it checks what foods are creating inflammation white blood cell reaction, which therefore creates inflammation And everybody has a different food that they can eat or they can eat And so you're going to have a different list of foods that are for you like so for me My alcat test came back and I was having nodules like at the end of pinewood y'all I had just wore myself out my all my joints swelled up So my doctor ran this test and it came back and it was so interesting Is the foods that I couldn't I should need to avoid right now For now for the next three to six months Are the foods that I lived on avocado Asparagus now avocado is a great food for not me right now, but it will be So that's what we have to do is we want to make we love to make things bad. Don't we in society are like bad It's like we live in this society and this is a rabbit hole and a little squirrel ride But it's what I've been thinking about we're give permission right now We we give a lot of permission for people to be things and do things, but we're super unforgiving And so that's really crazy to me. So we get obsessed sorry come bring it back But we get obsessed with foods and we want to make them bad or we want to make them good or soy is bad And so we can be really mad at soy for a while And I'm not saying that Right true. So the soy is um I mean for some people soy is bad some people have soy allergies. They have soy reactions They have certain disorders and autoimmune disease and they can't have it But not for everybody and that's my message like gluten for me is not my it's my you know kryptonite But for you a healthy great piece of bread might be fantastic So again the alcat test is another test that's coming and it's showing us what we can have what we can't have And so again, I love this way of thinking it just makes us think bigger It makes us inclusive because we're science and food and diet is about to change and hit a lick when these these tests are available to everyone Let's um, let's touch base on taylor and your relationship with taylor. So For our listeners my 16 year old um has type 1 diabetes alopecia rheumatoid arthritis Well, which is now juvenile idiopathic arthritis um And for years she was on methotrexate for her rheumatoid She was taking medicines for alopecia trying to get her hair to grow back And um, I met me and she just You're not pushy But you suggest things until I do it Ha ha ha ha Well, I don't I don't think that you should ever say you should to anybody No, you've been actually really amazing with our journey because people we have so much food shame Yeah, it's out of control. Yeah, I mean at least every human I know at one point in the day goes Oh, I shouldn't have or I should or or judges something about their relationship around food So we're just we beat the heck out of ourselves And It's just it's awful. So we don't need another person telling me what I should or shouldn't It's so cute though. You get so excited like when we decided to take her off of methotrexate, you're like Thank god, but I wouldn't say a dang word. You didn't you never did ever because I'm never gonna I'm not a doctor. I'm just a lady. Yeah, that's the other thing Somewhere in society, too We gave up all our power And we were like, well if I'm not a chef and I'm not a nutritionist. I'm not a doctor. I can't help it And it's not true. I mean come on rule people been figuring it out if you can plan it and you can grow it You can figure out if it hurts your stomach or doesn't We decided to go down the journey with me and me suggested Acupuncture which we started doing Taylor did eliminate gluten. She eliminated dairy. You had her do her volume test and so we took it as the approach as food is medicine and At the time she was only 13 years old and She received it She was at an age to where she really wanted to receive the information and you helped her auntie me helped her And her hair started growing back and now I mean she's still bald. She still has spots It's just the nature of the disease And I think I think the thing is is that It has to be Your own journey It can't be my journey I like I'm not someone who's going to come in and change your whole kitchen and tell you what I mean I might if you ask me, but I mean You got to change your it's got to be your journey and like I said I'm not a doctor and you know people get really mad when Just so you know they get upset when you say food is medicine because then medical people go It's not medicine. Well, it's not it's just support the medicine My thing is if you're going to take medicine support the medicine in working Yeah, and it has to be your journey. So for me with taylor, I wanted it to be her journey I wanted her to feel that these were her choices not yours not mine. They're hers And what could she do to support herself and you know the methyl trexate it really helps a lot of people But how can you help the methyl trexate? You know, how can you get your body to a place that it maybe doesn't need it if you're lucky And she happened to be someone that got really lucky and her body didn't need it anymore Yeah So the thing with taylor is it's been like taylor. What do you like and I've said a few times? What is your excess here? So when you raise livestock organically we go? What do they have too much of so if they have to if they're in a pasture that has a certain Nutritional profile that grass is a type of grass it has more sun more water whatever It's that that grass is an excess because they've been there too long So we know it's not working So then we move them and then we figure out what minerals they were lacking Because they had so much of this and not that so if you're only eating seven things like americans potato tomato corn soy Not mad at it Um, you know chicken or I don't know beef whatever if those are the seven things cheese that you're eating in different forms Then you've got an excess and you're not getting a lot of other things that you need So for me it was just to point out to her that variety feeds the gut homies and that um if we could get this sort of Again this really diverse culture up in here Then we would have balance in our body and that she these were the foods that would she wasn't eating Oh, she was so picky. Oh Oh gosh It was so bad. Are your kids just so picky. I'm sitting here thinking about that I'm like she's getting way too much of a lot of it. Now this is what happens. She only eats five things It's a little bit and then we wonder why later we're not well But it only changes if you help them change But you can't yell at them and you can't get mad at them you and it's a lot of work Have to take care of you And then you have to find a way to integrate it On the table and you have to find a way to support them in the food journey As opposed to you know because we created the monsters because we have these children's menus, right? And then you do you have an entire generation of people that now only eat kid food And they're they're like i'm piggy and I go okay. How's your poop? I don't but I think it just so you know when you tell me that i'm going yeah But to watch taylor get in the ring and make her own decisions You know and she's doing it again right now She just did her alcat test that we talked about her doctor ran it And she's got all the chemicals that her body's reacting to which is fascinating And uh the added is and the preservatives and the foods and she's rotating again And so she's figuring it out. Yeah, and what it does is it teaches children and it teaches us how capable we are Right because we're in a place of fear. I mean our society has been just bait up And we feel like we've lost all control And we don't know how to make things happen. It gives us control So He's his faith in ourselves people don't have access to you personally like any more But So besides these two tests, do you just recommend doing that alcat every six months? Like what I recommend behind my pinewood kitchen a southern culinary cure And following me on instagram at me with three ease mccormick But I just know everyone's gonna be like I want access everybody's gonna be dm and me they're poop. Yes they are Yep, just that's that will be our sign-off is just dm Your poop results. We do we talk about it though. Seriously like she actually had an attack this past week and she was quite sick for about two to three days And I I was like me this is gross, but I can ask you this How when you're when it ends when you finally like have a release with your intestines How is it like is it just a lot of poop and she's like it's a lot of corn A lot of corn. I ate too nuts. I ate too much. Oh, it was nice I have I have a narrowing in my intestine from scar tissue So the thing that life keeps me humble because I still have To some days I can't get up And it hasn't happened in like nine months, but I have a narrowing in my intestine and I suffer partial bowel obstructions Which is the most painful. It's I had two kids. I didn't even know I was in labor because I've lived with such insane pain and um And when I got to the hospital, we were like, you know, this baby's coming, right? That's its head It's crowning Wow, I thought it was a hemorrhoid That's another clip. That's a clip. I thought that was a rod No, but I mean I've lived with such excruciating digestive pain in my life That with these partial obstructions Um that it humbles me and I go down and I mean I mean I it's brutal And so I really appreciate a nice shadooby. I mean a nice smooth move and we're all better But it's true. I mean, don't you all feel better when you've had a nice movement? Well, I mean, I just need moderation around here Oh my gosh, okay, so what's your new book about? Oh, this is gonna be so fun This new book is called the juicy bits And it's all my juicy bits. I mean not all my juice bits It's the juicy bits. It's really I wanted to write a memoir. So I've been deep diving um through my emotional journey of um all the things I've been through in my life And the foods that saved me the recipes that made me and the stories and the truth I'm going to write about the truth of running a kitchen and being a female working and running a ranch And running a kitchen as a female chef. I mean and that's tough and I want to write the stories You know the stories that I couldn't put on facebook about what was really happening in in my community in my kitchen And uh, so it's a memoir cookbook and it's like the juicy bits, you know It's like all the good stuff at the bottom of the pan that you only share with those closest to you in the kitchen And so it's the secrets. It's the journey and uh, I'm really loving it. You know, it's not tv me It's me and it's uh, what I want to talk about. Yeah, when will that come out? January 2023 It's June 15th. Pray for me. Oh, wow. I'm like the biggest procrastinator ever right now And I'm excited about the juicy bits. That's awesome. Okay, and then you have three fiction I have three books that are fiction. Okay, they're called the adventures of princess know it all She don't know nothing And and that's really they're really they're they're quirky and funny So those are out or no, no, no those the first edits done I'll take the summer off and then I'm gonna hit those like a brick in the fall Wow and finish that edit and then they'll be coming out. So yeah became a writer You're busy. I'm not as busy as it was. Yeah. Wow. You still sound busy. What else do we leave anything on? You know, thank you. Thank you for doing this and being Open and about the farm and because I know how hard that was for you. Yeah, it was terrible, by the way I mean people think floods, you know, Louisiana, South Louisiana where you're from got hit And people think floods and these natural Uh disasters happen and the sun comes out the next day in a week later. We forgot but Man, it took me months to come back and then you know Just all the things that happen in between You just it's all the things that happen in between life is happening and it is you know, I used to think Okay This storm is going to blow out and then it's going to be fine It's going to keep raining, you know, it's going to keep thundering and You got to find a way to be fine when it's raining Yeah, I totally agree and I think you have I think you're over it Not over it, but you know what I mean started from the bottom now. We're here Okay, wait one thing you said you lived in a jungle. I lived in the jungle I have to know about this before so my husband and I are real adventurous Can you tell I always said I could have had one hot dang it big house with poop But instead I got uh cows and horses and adventures And so I always knew I wanted a big life when I was um when I was 17 My mother was killed in a car accident and a week later my two best friends were killed in another car accident In four days after that my grandmother died And so it changed me And it said you better get out there. I swear I heard them They were like you better get out there and have a big life Don't get caught up with big stuff Because that's a distraction and a lie And I knew it. I knew it. I knew that always And so I wanted a big adventurous life and I met my husband and he is adventurous and he's so fun He is a good time. He's a good time. He's just great And uh we were living in la and his projects He sold the canyon in malibu and his project in salsa lido in san francisco ended And we were sitting there and he goes we need to go have an adventure These kids are still little we need to go and he's also a surfer. He loves to surf And I was like, uh, I don't want to go. I think this is great And he was like no we're gonna go so we ended up moving to saylita And this was 14 years ago And I had a baby and I had a four year old And um we thought it was a great idea to live in the jungle Before it was now it's been even more modernized and we packed up and we moved and I had no internet and I had to You know to get my gas delivered I'd have to listen for the truck that delivered the gas and you didn't know when and this is how you knew it was coming It would go Son of a gas Son of a gas and my kids would be yelling and I go wait. I think that's the gas man So I lived, you know snakes in my house snakes wrapped around the toilet seat crabs Like my lowless terrified of bugs. I did it to her and then you know, the whole butt worms thing would go Always back to the butt But I mean they check every every full moon people their market on their calendars to like get rid of parasite And then it got wild because of the narcos and the grenades and they had to take my kids out of the car My husband was traveling because he had businesses here in the ranch and And then I finally and then I got really really sick at that point That's when I hit the bottom and I was just then the doctor from cedar sinai Called and said you need to get out of there Because if you get any kind of parasite or typhoid or anything you go And that's when I came back to national and Changed my life, but I've lived in the jungle and I lived in israel I lived in israel for six years before my husband and in and out like I had an israeli life for six years In and out of israel. Um, and I speak Hebrew and spanish. Thanks people don't know about me What brought you to israel? Now I have to know what brought you to israel I had an israeli boyfriend For six years and uh, we traveled back and forth and the first time I I mean I was raised my I'm half latin. So I was raised in a very catholic environment Half latin. I'm like a latin hillbilly And um, and we was wow And so, you know, I grew up in a house where they spoke italian and there was spanish spoken and then so I always heard languages And then when I met him and he spoke Hebrew. I never had been around anybody. I mean, I'm appalachian hillbilly So I was like, what is it? And then I loved it and he's like monish maa at that's a mea I just fell in love with israel and I loved and when I was after my mom died I had gone to be a nun because that's what you do And uh, but I didn't work out clearly Oh my god, I was like really catholic, okay And then I tried to convert to Judaism because I'm like fine. This is my path And uh, that didn't work out either. I kept a kosher kitchen for a while. I mean, I have had incarnations You I'm about to have another one That is why this is me in the womb right now. I'm in the womb I'm in the womb with you By the way, this place is amazing. It is awesome. I want to be y'all's best friend. You're gonna be sick of me mccormie We're at fort houston for our listeners and it is beautiful There's so much art and it's art and I always felt that what nashville was missing was was This level of art, right the arts not just music Yeah, you know, and I know television and film is here and it's great, but I mean, I love this I love the mediums. I want to see it. I want to smell it. Yeah Smells good up in here. It feels like creativity. Okay I feel like me is gonna have to be like our first part too to once our other book I know right. She is so I feel like we only got like a little bit of who she is and what's going on So thank you so much for being on. I love being here. You're so interesting. I love it I love that everybody good to to meet you. Thank you so much. Thank you, ma'am And thank you for letting the crazy come out. Yeah, well, I mean it's real hard to talk You don't have your pearls on I don't know. I don't have my pearls. No. I mean, I just don't want to tuck it in anymore Yeah, that's the beauty of age, right? Good. Don't tuck it in And lola's not mad at you anymore whenever it comes out No, no now lola says in the backseat of the car coming home from the dance competition yesterday She I'm talking about some that we took my dog to a dance competition It was anyways and I was talking about how I had processed that with jack before we went I was like, I just want you to know you're gonna be in a hotel It's gonna be fine She was like now her thing is mom Rub it up Real it in Oh, real it in That's hilarious. I love it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you Thanks y'all